Current Read: At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen
Current Listen: New York by Edward Rutherfurd
Whoa, buddy. What a week of reading. I forgot how intense Dickens is. I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school and ABSOLUTELY loved it, but I do remember several intense marathons of reading out loud so I made sure that I got everything. There's a lot of wordplay in tiny jokes in Edward Drood, and if you blink you might miss one. I miss that aspect of high school and college lit courses. Discussing books with other people is the best part of reading, in my opinion. I'm constantly demanding that people read books so I can talk to someone about them. I was actually thinking about writing a post about this topic...people seem confused sometimes when I say "I liked a book so much that I had to buy it." I tend to buy books that I have already read if I really, really loved them so I can read them again or recommend them to others. Thoughts on a longer post about this?
ANYWAY. The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Charles Dickens' last novel. It was published in serial in 1870 and is unfinished because he died in June of that year. It was shaping up to be a great novel. This was Dickens' first foray into the world of the detective or mystery story, and he introduced many different characters who could have been the murderer (if in fact Drood was murdered at all). The idea of reading an unfinished story was quite intriguing to me, and I have come up with several different things that I would have liked to happen. My best friend is performing in the musical version of the show this weekend, and I am interested to see what ending the writers of the show came up with. The story is centered around two young people, Edwin Drood and Rosabud, who have been engaged to be married since they were young. Edwin Drood's guardian is his uncle, John Jasper, who is the music master of the cathedral, Rosabud's music teacher, and an opium addict. The story takes place in the town of Cloisterham, which is universally agreed to be a depiction of Rochester, England. It is revealed early on that Edwin and Rosabud have drifted apart and do not necessarily wish to be married, and it is ALSO revealed that Jasper is enamored with Rosabud (who is repulsed by Jasper in turn). The plot is a bit difficult to describe since many, many different characters are introduced even in the first 23 chapters that were published. My two favorites were Mr. Grewgious, Rosabud's guardian (a very Angular man), and Durdles, a stonemason who is often called upon to give characters more information about the cemetery in Cloisterham. Durdles always carries a mysterious bundle and pays a youth, known as Deputy, to throw rocks at him if he is out after 10 at night.
Overall, I am not sure that I would recommend this book to people who did not already like Dickens. I find that people often need convincing to try a novel that is more than 100 years old, and so if you are new to Dickens you should probably stick to one of his more notable works. I do not, however, regret reading it. I am quite fond of Dickensian humor, it turns out. Next up is the new Sara Gruen book! It is not part of my reading challenge, but I have been on the hold list at my local library for months and it finally came in. It won't renew, obviously, so no time like the present! I'm also making good progress on New York, which is QUITE a long audio book at 36 hours. I am almost half way through it, and I just finished a LONG section on the Revolutionary War, which is one of my favorite bits of history. Next up is Tammany Hall and the Civil War.
Thank you so much for reading, and for now, that's all she read!
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