| Genre: Mystery Main characters: Miss Lucilla Finch, Madame Pratolungo, Oscar & Nugent Dubourg Summary: Lucilla Finch has been blind ’till she was one year old. At the time our story begins a young man has just moved into the village and Lucilla is very interested in him. She actually falls in love with him on hearing his voice and luckily the feeling is mutual to the two start preparing for the wedding. Lucilla is very happy that her beloved has a fair complexion as she absolutely hates everything dark-colored. Only the poor guy becomes epileptic after getting hit in the head and his only chance to be cured was to take silver nitrate — which cured his illness indeed but also left him with blue-colored skin (like this). He is very afraid to tell Lucilla about the change in him, knowing of her aversion, and tries to postpone the moment as much as possible. The truth is on the verge to come out nevertheless when Oscar’s twin brother Nugent, having heard of the engagement and of the bride-to-be’s affliction, pays them a visit bringing with him a famous eye doctor that boasts of being able to give Lucilla’s sight back. |
My favorite character in the book ended up being Madame Pratolungo herself. While at first I was afraid she’ll turn out to be an old spinster with high moral expectations from everyone around her. Luckily I was wrong: Madame Pratolungo (the widow of the late political “warrior” Dr. Pratolungo, whose ideas she absolutely shares) is quite the temperamental lady. While she does have high morals, she does not imposes them on people, nor she acts according to them without exception (due to the temperament I mentioned). Lucilla’s face looks like the Dresden Madonna to everyone that sets their eyes on her, but she is a bit temperamental too (especially when she thinks someone’s taking advantage of her blindness and hiding something from her — understandably enough I would say). The two brothers are as different as the sun and moon (aren’t twin in books always), both in the first impression they give (Oscar shy, Nugent voluble), but also deep down inside (with Oscar being the firmest of the two).
The book was a bit predictable (the way movies sometimes are): for example, ever since hearing about there being two identical twin brothers I just knew one of them will end up posing as the other (has there ever been a book with two main twin characters that do not take advantage of their “twinness” in some way?). Also, just when Lucilla was happy that her beloved’s complexion is light as she absolutely abhors everything dark, I couldn’t help thinking something will happen to poor Oscar to darken his complexion somehow (though I couldn’t think of a way this could happen and I congratulate the author for his idea). And so on. Nevertheless my vague ideas about what was going to happen did not detract in the least from my pleasure in discovering exactly how my prediction came true and how the people involved reacted to them. :)
At first I was a bit disappointed with Oscar’s behavior towards Nugent near the end. Up until seeing him he’s been threatening to kill him as he got angrier and angrier with him seeing how he had treated Lucilla while he (Oscar) had been away. But when he saw him he(Oscar) himself started making up excuses for the way he (Nugent) has behaved. Seemed a bit improbable to me plus I was sort of hoping Nugent will get what he deserved. However after a while it did became more plausible to me: not only Oscar used to worship Nugent, he also considered he owed him his life. So one cannot blame him that, after looking up at his brother for so long, he had a hard time accepting his betrayal and acting upon it. I now think he(Oscar) acted no more and no less than justly towards his brother, especially as, after all Nugent’s moments of kindness towards Oscar exceeded by far his brief episode of let’s call it insanity.
Here’s a quote I found interesting/a bit thought provoking:
It meant that modesty is essentially the growth of our own consciousness of the eyes of others judging us–and that blindness is never bashful, for the one simple reason that blindness cannot see.
What I liked most: the fact that the author didn’t give Lucilla perfect sight all of the sudden. He had her confront all the differences between reality and imagination (what’s white, what’s square, what’s round), he had her having difficulties when it came to assessing distances, he even had her mistaking a cat for a dog and viceversa (because her visual memory was not yet as strong as her tactile one). I find all of these realistic issues and I am glad the author chose to address them rather than ignore them.
What I liked least: There were some minor slips, such as Lucilla mimicking people and making faces in the mirror (but she lost her sight as an infant so she would have had no idea what faces to make), or Lucilla reading a letter moments after she declared she cannot read yet. Nothing too troublesome though and nothing that kept me from being captivated by the book.
Recommend it? Yes.
Written by the same author:
The Moonstone
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