'Man and Wife' - Review by Naga

'Man and Wife' 

by Wilkie Collins
Rating: 4/5 Goodreads

I have started reading this book on March 10th, 2019 and it has taken me awhile to get through. There were times while reading it when I thought I would never make it to the end - perhaps leave the book unfinished and take up another. I have done this sort of a thing in the past. I actually did read another book in between 'Bad Blood' by John Carreyrou which I will review in a separate post. Instead of leaving this book off, I resolved to pick it up and finish it by any means necessary. So there I was on the eve of a weekend on March 22nd, feeling lazy to walk downstairs and cook myself some food,wrapped up in a comforter enclosed in a warm and cozy room, reading off from where I left the story last time - 50%.  This day is remarkable for several other reasons like it marks the culmination of a much followed, much hyped, much anticipated investigation into the crimes of a notable figure in American political history - he is a You-Know-Who of the non-fantasy world we are living in and I think everyone knows who he is. I feel and hope that this day will be of a historical significance and be talked of  by many generations to come - justice served not per man made law but natural law which enforces consequences based on actions should gives me hope for being lawful and righteous.

I Finally finished the book  at around 2 AM and as I arrived at the climax I felt it couldn't have ended in a better way. The author is Wilkie Collins who needs no introduction to the fans of fiction who have a habit of reading quality fiction. This story is a satire and an exposure of the flawed marriage system in the country of Scotland during late 19th-20th century. Men were in the habit of walking off on their marriages when it no longer deemed profitable to them citing laws that were speculative in most of the cases. Men with attraction to wealth, position and connections in society seeing opportunity in rich and single women and doing all they could to rid themselves of a burden of a lawfully(or maybe not) and devoted wife causing much distress and heart break through the proceedings.  Another aspect to the law was to bind the fate of a wife to her husband till death after marriage is firmly established.

Anne Silvester is the clear heroine of the story. Her mother is betrayed by her father who walks out on her after a decade of marriage citing flawed Scotland law to advance his career as a politician through another woman equipped with what it takes to help him achieve his ambition. Anne's fate takes a similar turn as her mother's when she falls victim to the seduction of Geoffrey Delamayn. He is a well built, handsome and accomplished athlete with brutish selfishness and knows no feelings of love, propriety or compassion. Geoffrey knows of Anne's poor connections and  instead nurtures secret ambitions to marry a rich widow who is enamored with him. Destiny perhaps creates a most opportunistic situation where he can get out of his obligation to Anne in the form of Arnold Binkworth, his friend who he cunningly frames as her husband. But Arnold is in desperate and sincere love with Blanche to whom Anne is  a soul sister and governess. Blanche can't be legal wife to Arnold  while the issue of Anne and Arnold's marriage hangs in doubt. There is ample evidence according to Scottish law to prove Anne and Arnold were married and also not - but the twist comes when  Sir Patrick, a seventy year old wise gentleman, uncle to Blanche acts as a lawyer and masterfully clears the matter out of court. His 'temper' as he claims is his most powerful weapon and he wields it well in tackling all the adversary forces set out to make the youngsters under his care miserable. He helps prove that Blanche is the legal wife to Arnold while Anne is in fact married to Geoffrey.  Geoffrey feels stifled and  doesn't want the alliance. Anne doesn't want the alliance  either. But there they were unhappily married and  forced to live together with no chance of a legal divorce. 

 The first part of the story, we are aware of the facts and there is no real suspense. Only the characters in the plot are kept in the dark as to who is married to who and how Arnold, Anne and Geoffrey are tied together. As they start figuring things out, the unfolding drama makes for a spectacle  of a slowly uncoiling web,the pieces of puzzle falling into place one after the other. Anne prepares herself to a life of unhappiness and embarks on her desire to make herself miserable if only it means Blanche could be happy. Surely this is a very noble soul and Sir Patrick resolves to help her escape the clutches of Geoffrey. Law makes him and her well wishers helpless invalids. Law binds their hands as they watch her walk into her own lion's den where grave injustice could be done by a husband whom law does not stop. Husbands have ultimate authority on the possessions of their wives and their wives as well.

Anne and Geoffrey go back to his lodgings with Heather Dethridge who is a very interesting character. She used to be a head cook at the house of Blanche's before Blanche's marriage and is removed for being obstinate and insolent by Blanche's step mother. She later comes into a small fortune from a dead relative and rents her lodgings. Once beautiful and very articulate, she goes dumb after her drunkard husband knocks her down and she suffers a nerve injury affecting her speech. She uses a slate to communicate her thoughts concealing the fact that she could talk though with some effort. She murdered her husband who had tormented her for money to buy his drink and from whom she couldn't legally separate. She frees herself from a life bound to a rascal and on which she embarked through her naive youthful trust. She gets away  from being punished but becomes a prey to deranged thoughts and hallucinations. Often seized by thoughts and desires of murder, she becomes a recluse with little communication to let privy to her secrets. She records her thoughts into a journal which comes into the possession of Geoffrey. The brute that he is, he tries to exploit her secret and ability to murder Anne. In the end it so happens that it is not Anne but Geoffrey who meets his justice - if not by man made law then by what God decrees as justice and law to one's actions.

The non-divergent skill of portrayal of savageness of Geoffrey, compassion and love of Anne, brilliance and acuity of Sir Patrick, love and youthful naivete of Blanche and Arnold, madness and spirituality of Heather animates the characters and brings them to life.  Perhaps the laws of today are much changed for better in Scotland but there is little doubt  that there would still be some countries orthodox enough to embrace similar unfair laws calling them the norm. It would perhaps take a complete make over the existing systems and structures of human consciousness where  we throw away what no longer works and helps in growth.