Tuesday, October 15, 2024

18. The Westing Game

By Ellen Raskin

My daughter kept asking me whether I'd finished John’s book as she wanted me to start reading The Westing Game, stat!  She seemed to really enjoy the mystery aspects of the story and wanted to hear what I thought about it.

Before I even finished the book, my daughter wanted to know who my favourite character was.  I think I said Turtle, as it was an obvious choice.  She told me how the author made each character memorable and different from one another.  I agreed.  Soon after, she expressed an interest in reading more mysteries.

Sixteen strangers receive personal invitations to rent apartments in the new Sunset Towers apartment complex, a luxurious property on Lake Michigan adjacent to wealthy businessman Samuel J. Westing's mansion.  A few months later, the residents begin hearing rumours that the old man had died. Shortly after, the sixteen residents are invited to a reading of the will by a lawyer.

 

Each resident is named as a potential heir of Westing’s fortune and company, but the will also claims that Westing was murdered by one of them and stipulates that they must work in pairs to solve Westing’s death and locate his murderer. Divided into unlikely pairs, the residents participate in a complex game, using clues from the will to uncover the truth. As the game progresses over the course of several months, the heirs discover unexpected connections to Westing and each other, leading to a series of revelations and surprising twists. 

I appreciated how Raskin had a large cast of characters, which was fairly diverse for its time.  The main residents of Sunset Towers included the Wexler family (Jake, Grace, their daughters, Angela [28] and Turtle [13]), the Hoo family (James, Sun Lin, and their teenaged son, Doug), who ran the in-house restaurant, and the Theodorakis family (George, Catherine, and their sons, Theo, and Chris). Other residents included Sydelle Pulaski (the only character with no connection to Westing because she was mistaken for Sybil Pulaski), Flora Baumbach (a shy 60yo dressmaker who becomes a surrogate mother figure to Turtle when they’re paired together) and Judge J.J. Ford (an African-American woman in her forties). The real estate salesman, Barney Northrupp, the doorman, Sandy McSouthers, the 62 year old delivery “boy”, Otis Amber, and cleaning woman, Berthe Crow, were also key figures.

Perhaps my expectations were a little high as I felt that the reveal of the actual mystery was somewhat fantastical and far-fetched.  It also felt a bit anti-climactic, and the ending seemed rushed.  It jumped years and crammed a lot of information into the final chapters without some needed context.  I still didn’t understand Westing’s actual motive other than loving to play games.  Seeking justice wasn’t the real motive, just a red herring, so I guess establishing genuine connections between the heirs and making amends to them was the underlying goal.  So Westing was ultimately a magnanimous figure, albeit an eccentric one, as befitting a super wealthy person.  After all, it was an overly elaborate scheme to bring his heirs together!  This review summarized it well:

The heirs ultimately find that in order to win the money, they must name one of their own as the murderer—even after they have come to realize that Westing was not actually murdered and is perhaps even still alive. They refuse to play Westing’s game any longer, unwilling to sacrifice one of their own for the cash prize. Westing’s whole game has sought to impart to his heirs the importance of teamwork, generosity, and acceptance. In the end, through the teamwork the Westing game has required of each of the heirs and the communal perspective it’s shown them, the heirs have learned that the values and wisdom one passes along are more important than the proliferation of empty generational wealth. While the heirs don’t get the millions they were promised, they each obtain a share of Sunset Towers, signifying that the legacy Westing wants to leave behind is one of community and growth rather than empty money. 

The heirs learned that Berthe Crow was Westing’s ex-wife, and Mrs Wexler was indeed related to Westing (his niece?), but there was no attempt to establish a connection between these two characters at all after this revelation was made, which I found odd.  We do learn that Mr and Mrs Westing’s daughter, Violet, committed suicide because her parents refused to let her marry George Theodorakis.  After Violet’s death, Mrs Westing left her husband, returned to her maiden name Crow, became devoutly religious to atone for her sins and to live a humble existence as a cleaning lady for Sunset Towers. Later, Crow and Otis Amber got married and found their own happiness in helping others by establishing a soup kitchen. 

Both Angela and Turtle Wexler had issues with their mother, but that never really got resolved. Years later, after the game concluded, Angela learned how to live for herself and ended up going to med school and became a neuro surgeon!  That seemed to come from nowhere though we saw inklings that Angela wasn’t happy being the “perfect” daughter with a controlling mother and soon-to-be controlling fiancé.  Eventually, she did end up marrying Denton after establishing her career, and they had a daughter named Alice. Baba (Flora Baumbach) later moved in with Turtle after she retired as they had maintained a close relationship.  The mother, Grace Wexler, later worked as a hostess for the Foo family, who've expanded their restaurant into a successful chain, but we never learn if Grace had mended her relationships with her two daughters, which seemed to cause a lot of strain and dysfunction.

The young Turtle’s sudden transformation into Nancy Drew was also rather sudden.  During the game solving, she came across as a bright, precocious kid, yet easily led astray by false leads, ie. the stock market and never seeming to get close to solving the mystery.  Then by the game's conclusion, Turtle suddenly found all the answers instead of the Judge (even though the Judge knew most of the answers at that point).  Further, she somehow figured out that Sam Westing, Barney Northrupp, Sandy McSouthers, and Julian Eastman (the CEO of Westing Paper Products) were all the same person using various disguises; Westing created the "McSouthers" identity to replace "Westing", making Sandy the "murderer".  I don’t understand why Turtle kept this discovery a secret from the others, though, other than wanting the inheritance to herself.  Also, I believe the other heirs continued to believe that Westing was dead, when in fact, he was very much alive.  After the game had concluded, Turtle visited the home of Julian Eastman (Westing) to tell him she knew his true identity, thereby winning the game. Turtle became Westing’s protegé and eventually took over the company while also inheriting Westing’s fortune. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Westing Game, but felt it could've been a much tighter and stronger story had Raskin tied it all together better and spent more time exploring the background and relationships between the characters.  Nevertheless, the premise, setting and the cast of characters made up for some of the weaknesses in the narrative.  And a young adult reader wouldn’t have the same nit-picky quibbles I’d have.  In the right hands, it would also make a great movie (apparently, the 1997 film adaptation was disappointing and not highly rated).  Perhaps the movie Knives Out was a kind of spiritual successor as there were definitely elements inspired by The Westing Game.



No comments: