The Moonstone

⚖The case for it

Gabriel Betteredge consults Robinson Crusoe the way other men consult scripture, opening it at random for guidance on whatever the household has thrown at him, and readers call him “a marvelous comic character” and the reason to start a long book. Miss Clack narrates her own section as a “hilariously accurate busybody” with no idea that is what she is. Sergeant Cuff grows roses between deductions and is the “prototype for every eccentric detective” since. Each narrator writes a statement for the record, so you weigh their blind spots yourself. Collins is “the inventor of the modern English detective novel,” and his servants get treated better than the era required.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

“It took 90 pages for the Moonstone to actually go missing,” and the prose carrying you there is “turgid and overly formal” across “482 pages of dense type, with footnotes.” Miss Clack is funny and also the section readers most want trimmed. The narrators after her flatten out, adding length without adding much, and one reader files them as “not particularly interesting or even important.” The diamond is an interchangeable trigger that “didn’t have more to do with the plot” than any object would. The resolution turns on a contrivance rather than on clues already dealt.

— the honest librarian

9h

honest hours

13

sittings