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Title: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0-14-043092-X Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Game Is Afoot, But We'll Never Know the Outcome
Comment: It is so strange to see a long, well-plotted novel suddenly come to a dead stop. (Of a projected twelve episodes, Dickens wrote six before his death.) The title character is either murdered or missing, and a large cast of characters in London and Cloisterham (Dickens's Rochester) are involved in their own way in discovering what happened to Edwin Drood.
There is first of all John Jasper, an opium addict who suspiciously loves Drood's ex-fiancee; there is a nameless old woman who dealt him the opium who is trying to nail Jasper; there is a suspicious pile of quicklime Jasper notices during a late night stroll through the cathedral precincts; there is Durdles who knows all the secrets of the Cathedral of Cloisterham's underground burial chambers; there is the "deputy," a boy in the pay of several characters who has seen all the comings and goings; there are the Anglo-Indian Landless twins, one of whom developed a suspicious loathing for Drood; there is the lovely Rosebud, unwilling target of every man's affections; and we haven't even begun talking about Canon Crisparkle, Datchery, Tartar, and a host of other characters. All we know is that the game is afoot, but we'll never know the outcome.
It would have been nice to know how Dickens tied together all these threads, but we can still enjoy THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD because -- wherever Dickens was heading with it -- it is very evidently the equal of his best works. Life is fleeting, and not all masterpieces are finished.
Rating: 5
Summary: Drood Is So Good
Comment: It is a tribute to Charles Dickens' reputation that to this day this unfinished novel, a mystery no less, still garners such speculation as to who allegedly murdered Edwin Drood. There are organizations created for the sole purpose of analyzing the novel and to theorizing whom the culprit may have been, if indeed there really was a culprit. After all, only Drood's watch and his shirt pin are produced, not his body.
As in all of Dickens' novels, the characterizations are the thing. You have the innocent young woman with the somewhat eccentric guardian and his Bob Cratchitlike assistant. There is the dark, possibly unfairly accused, but hot headed antagonist of Drood. Then there is Drood's brooding choirmaster uncle, John Jasper, who frequents opium dens, and who may or may not have ulterior motives in his seeking revenge. Durdles, the stone mason, and a somewhat weird character, provides some chilling comic relief in cemetery scenes with his stone throwing assistant. There are also the typical Dickensian characters, which includes a snooty older woman, a class conscious, spinsterish school mistress, and in a hilarious restaurant scene, an unappreciated, hard working "flying waiter" and a lazy, wise acre "stationary waiter."
It is a shame that Dickens died before he could complete "Edwin Drood." What is here are the beginnings of an exploration of man's dual nature, a journey into "the heart of darkness" so to speak.
Rating: 3
Summary: Inconclusive
Comment: It's extremely difficult to judge "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", the last of Charles Dickens's novels, merely due to the fact that it was left incomplete upon Dickens's death. Of course, this gives ample scope for useless speculation on how the novel might have ended - in particular what could have happened to Edwin Drood himself, who vanishes part way through what's left of the novel.
I couldn't find enough in "Drood" either to condemn it, or to praise it. I was struck by the fact that despite it being the last of Dickens's works, it still bore the hallmarks of much of his earlier stuff - for example, sharp social cirticism (such as that directed against the philanthropist Mr Honeythunder) was swamped by the usual charicatures, such as the urchin "Deputy" and the obligatory gaggle of two-dimensional female characters.
All this was achieved despite the plot being tighter than many of his other novels. Seemingly, Dickens was able to work to a narrower brief yet was unable to cast off completely the habits of his more voluminous novels. "Drood" might have promised much, but to expect another "Great Expectations" would be too much.
G Rodgers
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Title: The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Patricia Ingham ISBN: 0140436146 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Our Mutual Friend (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Adrian Poole ISBN: 0140434976 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1998 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Dombey and Son (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Andrew Sanders ISBN: 0140435468 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: Little Dorrit (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Stephen Wall, Helen Small ISBN: 0140434925 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, John Bowen ISBN: 0140437282 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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