Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list http://poemeglume.blogspot.com/2023/04/1000-novels-everyone-must-read.html in the Crime section - 9 out of 10

 

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list http://poemeglume.blogspot.com/2023/04/1000-novels-everyone-must-read.html in the Crime section

9 out of 10

 

 

This novel was described as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels" and indeed, there is the unexpected there, at the end, this note might reveal The Secret, so let us place a disclaimer, spoiler alert, warning here, so that anybody could avoid these lines, which are not safe on most levels

 

Lucy Graham is the heroine or anti- heroine of the novel, she becomes the Lady Audley from the title, when she marries Sir Michael Audley, before this, she was a governess, and with the investigation that will be launched, however unofficial, we will find more ‘secrets’ about this compelling woman, and her dark penchants

Robert Audley is the nephew of Sir Michael Audley, a barrister without much activity (in fact, none whatsoever, before he gets entangled in finding The Secret from the title) and he is such a good friend of George Talboy, that when the latter would be missing, the barrister will do everything to solve the mystery

 

But that is for the next page of this note, Insha’Allah, until then, let us say that young Audley travels with his friend to see the child Georgey, who lives with Michael Talboy’s father-in-law, Lieutenant Maldon, because the mother had died – or so we think at this point, later the truth will come out, in instalments…

Lieutenant Maldon drinks too much, and he is not a dependable custodian, but George decides to have Robert as the guardian for the boy, in whose name a huge sum is deposited at the bank, the twenty thousand pounds of 1857 (the time when this happens) would be quite a few million today, maybe close to ten

 

George Talboy shares his story with his friend and us, the reading public – by the way ‘the novelist has an infinity of choices, He chooses what is to happen, to happens, and in what way he will relate what happens, the picture he constructs is complete on its own terms…when he says this is the story and the whole story we must accept it…perhaps novelists are the only people telling the truth’ concluding hence that the writer is god in a phenomenal, glorious, mesmerizing novel by Penelope Fitzgerald http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/02/according-to-mark-by-penelope-lively.html which is fantastic on this point

Mister Talboy has been married, he has had a child, but because his money had run out, he reached a dead end, the moment when he realized there is nothing he can do for the wellbeing of his family under the circumstances, and thus he needs to do some drastic, not just a change, but a different paradigm was needed.

 

The change of paradigm is probably best described in the Booker Prize Winner Vernon God Little http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/vernon-god-little-by-dbc-pierre-divine.html by DBC Pierre - ‘imagine you enter a room and a stranger has a finger up your granny’s bottom, what do you think…the answer is murderous, but what if you find that this man knows about a grave risk, your relative would die if he does not intervene, and this is why you saw that scene…well, he is a hero, and that is a paradigm change

George Talboy decides to say he is out to smoke, and then he moves all the way from Britain to…Australia, where he makes the mentioned fortune of 20k, returns to wife and son, only to learn she is dead – only remember the spoiler alert, she is not, the woman is alive and well – and he is to blame for the kerfuffle

 

At least this is how I felt, and surely, with Cancel Culture, Woke fashions and progressive movements, the victim would be different, I mean indeed, you leave spouse and child, an infant, and without means, and you disappear and what do you expect…true, the man has had very big fears, as to what he will find

However, he decides to leave the country, again, but he vanishes, and his friend becomes a sort of detective, private investigator who tries to put the pieces of the puzzle in place, and understand what has happened to his friend, coming to the conclusion that Talboy is in fact dead, murdered by one who had a motive

 

The ad hoc Hercules Poirot comes to the conclusion that Lady Audley does have a Secret, she is in fact the wife of his friend, presumed deceased, but in fact the mastermind of an elaborate scheme, and the killer that has sent her lawful husband to the other world (or the void)…ads in newspapers in Australia result in no response, from missing Talboy, or people who might have seen him down under, and then details are revealed

Lady Audley has had a life before becoming this important lady, and the facts can be traced and put together – her maid and the cousin find in a box, where the jewelry is kept, the hair and shoes of a child, the Secret is then used for some form of blackmail, and eventually, this information reaches Robert Audley

 

There are mysteries, and even if some of the complex landscape, the big fresco has many aspects explained, there are revelations up to the end, such as is the killer mad, as in medically diagnosed, or was this a sort of hoax, a complicated assassination plan, that once uncovered, it has the escape route, with the mental derangement, running in the family, supported by the claim that ‘this locking in a mad house is as bad as it can be’

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Some favorite quotes from To The Heritage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”