Victorian gothic

Nicole's pick: Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (New York: Walker and Co., 2008).

Discussed: 29 November 2009 @ Stella's (Commercial Drive)

Alrighty, after an extended absence I am going to powerblog through the next two entries - book club choices from the last two months - before we have yet another meeting and I fall hopelessly behind. In short, everyone enjoyed The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, a true crime account of a ghastly murder that took place in a country house smack-dab in the middle of the Victorian era.

Whicher was one of England's most celebrated detectives, and he was the real-life model for many of the famous sleuths of fiction, and, arguably, for the whole detective genre. He amazed followers with his ability to nab the culprit through deductive reasoning based on the tiniest of clues. Summerscale does a capable job of describing the Victorian detective craze, but her greatest accomplishment (to my mind) is how she reveals the other side of the coin - popular discomfort with the way inspectors like Whicher quite literally rummaged through a family's dirty laundry in search of evidence. To many observers, his methods reflected a disregard for the sanctity of the family and the Victorian home, at a time when public respectability was so important. Ultimately, it was this controversy that defeated Whicher.

Basically, the whole club thought this was a fun popular history; I especially enjoyed Summerscale's illuminating etymological discussions: the Victorian evolution of words like "detective" and "clue" (or "clew"). Honestly, we didn't spend as much time deep in discussion about it as we have with other books, perhaps because of our general consensus. What fascinated me was the fact that in the end, it was not deductive reasoning that elicited a confession from the murderer, but religious conversion. What was it about this experience that, after so many years, brought about the mystery's resolution? But that, I suppose, is another history.