Good book, interesting story, slightly odd ending. More to follow. ( )

Los destinos a los que hace referencia el título de esta novela son los de Mary Dermody y George Germaine, dos almas gemelas que, a lo largo de su vida, tratarán de permanecer unidos. Su temprano amor sufre sin embargo toda clase de obstáculos. Su anhelado reencuentro obedecerá siempre a causas sobrenaturales, produciéndose sólo cuando los sueños se materializan y los deseos se convierten en fantasmas expectantes.

This is the story of George and Mary, childhood friends/sweethearts who were destined to be together. Once their families discovered that they wanted to wed, George's family separates them by moving his family from England to America. There is no way for George and Mary to find each other and so each and so they carry on with life with heavy hearts. Over the years George and Mary are visited by apparitions and dreams that lead them to one another. When they do finally meet, so many years have passed that they don't recognize one another. However they are still attracted to one another, despite the fact that Mary has married and has a child. Ultimately they are reunited and fall back in love. ( )

Wilkie Collins is generally one of those writers who take a single concept and build an entire story around it. Though I would hesitate to lay this down as a rule for every novel he ever wrote, usually the reader can trace the bare-bones idea that provided a frame for Collins to clothe in plot and characters. For example, in Poor Miss Finch, the main theme is physical blindness. In No Name, Collins tackles the legal and social status of illegitimate children. And in The Two Destinies, my favorite Victorian sensationalist explores telepathy and supernatural communication between human beings. This subject is one that would naturally draw Collins, as he often employs a dash of the unearthly in his thrillers. But in this case, the story is secondary and far inferior to the idea — the potential of which is sadly unrealized. Be advised that this review contains spoilers.

Our main narrator (besides the opening frame narrator who reads diaries to us) is George, who from childhood has shared a deep, unearthly connection with the daughter of his father's bailiff. George and Mary are inseparable, and Mary's eerie Spiritualist grandmother prophesies that their tie is ordained by Heaven and cannot be broken by any earthly means. George's father (who had been away from home for most of George's childhood) forbids the relationship and takes George away, thus beginning a separation that would last for years. Throughout this time George and Mary sometimes hold supernatural communication in times of dire need, quite apart from their conscious will. Through a series of unlikely coincidences, George and Mary do eventually meet again, but do not recognize one another (imagine that). The ending is predictable — indeed, it was prophesied right from the start.

I was disappointed in this story for several reasons. Firstly, there just wasn't much to the plot. Collins spins it out much longer than necessary (and it isn't a particularly long book even with that), mostly by not allowing George and Mary to communicate clearly once they meet again under different names. What plot exists is contorted unnaturally with unnecessary characters and events, in order to lengthen what really is a very simple tale. Secondly, the characters are rather flat, with the exception of Mary's grandmother... and she exits the story promptly after giving her prophecy. Thirdly, part of the reason I read Collins is his talent for creating an ominous atmosphere and strong tension — and he just didn't deliver here. The scenes of supernatural communication are repetitive after awhile, and I didn't find them all that spooky to start with.

I did like the title; it has a nice sound to it. And it was amusing to consider the story as a "what-if" spin on Jane Austen's Colonel Brandon and Eliza, whose cruel separation in Sense & Sensibility provides a sad backstory to the Colonel's character. But unfortunately this story's weaknesses outweigh its good points, and it's a pity because I do love many of Collins' other books. I suppose it is inevitable that prolific authors will produce works which compare poorly to their other efforts. Not every Collins book can have the tension of The Woman in White or the sheer fun of The Moonstone. I can't recommend The Two Destinies except to completists like myself. ( )