Review on The Woman In Black
by Susan Hill
The story is related in a flashback from Arthur Kipps' memory, then a young lawyer in London. Their law office was the executor of the estates of Mrs. Alice Drablow who lived and died in a suburbs outside London. Kipps had to attend the funeral and then sort out the papers of Mrs. Drablow in her house called Eel Marsh, located in the village called Crythin. The names of these sites and places already evoke dreary and melancholic atmosphere. In the performance of his work, Mr. Kipps experienced the haunting of a woman he had no idea why her alleged presence exudes so much evil, hatred, sadness and other feelings. Ok, i better stop here or else i will spoil it :-) While reading this story, the tone and atmosphere took me back to my reading experience with The Woman in White, because both have gothic flavor and mystery but the one in Black is a ghost story while the other is a gothic mystery. Susan Hill, succeeded in setting the ghostly tone and the main character's rationalization on his experience were what others do when confronted with such phenomenon. I was quite delighted with the role of Spider in the story, this character showed a person's need for human contact and find attachment to the only living entity closer to him.
I was reading this book at night, lights out, and i used my iPad...oh! I didn't drift to sleep right away after i finish the book. Hmmm, I'm eager to watch the movie version of this book, with Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps.
I have titled this blog as "A Tale of love and longing" because these two were the most dominant emotions that drive this whole story.
