Search - Drood

First Line: My name is Wilkie Collins, and my guess, since I plan to delay the publication of this document for at least a century and a quarter beyond the date of my demise, is that you do not recognize my name.

Mr. Collins' plan went slightly awry in my case. I have eight of his novels in my library. Of course, I also have twenty-five of Dickens', which I do believe wouldn't set well with him at all.

There is a lot to like about this novel. Simmons' research into Victorian England as well as the lives and writings of both Dickens and Collins is exhaustive and insightful. The setting comes to life beneath his pen, particularly the smells. (If your olfactory sense is particularly acute, I would suggest having a handkerchief sprinkled with eau de cologne on stand-by.) The premise of the novel is the last five years of Charles Dickens' life, the basis of his last, unfinished, novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and his friendship with Wilkie Collins. The mysterious figure of Drood is genuinely creepy at the beginning, and I read along, happily immersed in the pitch black streets of Dickens' Great Oven and caught up in the lives of the two authors. After all, this is one of my favorite time periods and two of my favorite writers.

But halfway through this gargantuan book, my pleasure rapidly began to fade, and it was then that I came to the conclusion that Simmons is just not the author for me. You see, I also tried to read his book, The Terror, and stopped shortly after the 150-page mark because I cared nothing for the characters and didn't appreciate the lack of action. Any action. I found the same thing happening in Drood. This book is almost 800 pages long, and it took half that before anything really started happening in the book. The creepiness of Drood faded, and what could have been a crafty, scary read turned into a dragging tale of jealousy and spite. All along, I felt as if the book set me up for an explosive conclusion, but it wasn't. The ending just seemed to waft away in a cloud of snarkiness and opium fumes. After reading almost 800 pages that did contain flashes of brilliance, I was left feeling that somewhere in all that paper and print, there was a tight, compelling 300-page thriller screaming to be turned loose.

I'm sorry, Mr. Simmons. You're just not the author for me. Since you seem to have quite a following, I'm certain I won't be missed.

The plot of this novel is incredibly complex, so I'll only touch upon it briefly. It deals with the last five years of Charles Dickens's life, and is narrated by his friend and sometime collaborator, Wilkie Collins. The story begins on the ninth of June, eighteen sixty-five, when Dickens is involved in a train accident. He later relates to Collins that he saw a sinister figure moving amongst the injured passengers. He names the character Drood. Collins is at first skeptical, knowing his friend to be the creative sort. But as events coalesce, Drood begins to infringe more and more into the lives of both men, and Collins begins to doubt his original skepticism.

I thought this book was great for a couple of different reasons. First and foremost, Collins is an unreliable narrator to the extreme. From the outset of the book, he freely admits to be addicted to laudanum, which he uses as a painkiller for his rheumatic gout. As the book progresses, he becomes addicted to both pure opium and morphine. It's also historically documented that Collins was prone to see visions, and Simmons uses this to build a strong case that our narrator doesn't grasp reality as well as he himself thinks. Thirdly, Collins is a habitual prevaricator, telling lies to almost every character in the novel at whim. Who's to say that the entire novel is not another of Wilkie Collin's lies just told on a grander scale?

I also loved how Simmons shows the deterioration of Dickens and Collins's relationship. In the beginning of the book, they're very close friends, truly enjoying each other's company. But, by the time Dickens passes away, the two men have fallen out quite bitterly, sniping at each other's work. This relationship is the true heart of the novel in my mind.

Simmons is a writer's writer in the truest sense. HYPERION, his most famous work to date, was a space opera structured like the Canterbury Tales and has tinges of Nordic legend. His books ILLIUM and OLYMPOS pay homage to Shakespeare and Proust against a backdrop of Homer's Greek mythology. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that he decided to write a story about Dickens. The sheer audacity of the story, though, with its mixture of intrigue, squalor, Egyptian mythology, and deception makes the story a riveting read. And it's also interesting to see all of the commentary he's able to slip in about the work of these two literary contemporaries. That audacity is what I'll probably remember most in a year.

Now, DROOD is, without a doubt, a doorstop. But the story is absolutely worth the seven hundred plus pages it fills. I'd recommend this book to those who enjoy a good thriller set in a Victorian backdrop. You'll definitely get your credit's worth.

People who read this book will fall into one of two categories:

1) You absolutely loved the book, devoured every word, and truly enjoyed the twists and subtleties of the well-crafted plot.
2) You absolutely hated the book and realize that it is 800 pages of your life that you will never be able to get back. Ever.

Personally, I loved the book. And if you are thinking about reading it, there are a few things (no spoilers included here) that you probably need to know.

* This is not a 700 page thriller. Drood is not a major character. In fact, he is barely even a minor character. So do not pick up this book and think that you are about to embark on a deep, dark, harrowing, fast-paced tale of cat and mouse with some spectral being who dominates the text. You will be sorely disappointed. And, quite possibly, bored out of your mind.

* This book is basically a faux-Wilkie Collins autobiography and in that respect it executes its mission perfectly. Seeing the author's life through his own laudanum-clouded eyes makes for very interesting reading. Collins is an unreliable narrator at best and you never truly know what is fact, what is fiction, what is drug-induced paranoia, and what is jealousy-driven contempt or self-delusion.

* Throughout this autobiography there are several gems of dialogue between Collins and Dickens regarding their own novels. There are some great discussions about plot ideas and devices for "The Moonstone" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". I now wonder if Simmons used these discussions about their work in order to have the same discussion with his own readers about his own work. Their collaborative banter speaks both to their current novels as well as to the plot of "Drood" as a whole. However, the importance of many of those passages will not be truly evident until the very end.

* Some consider the ending weak, but it left me thinking. It sent me back into the book once I finished it to fish out certain passages for additional clues and insights into what really happened.

* In order to get the most out of this book, I would suggest some pre-requisite reading. Of course, I would recommend Dickens' "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". I would also recommend "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. Discussion of "The Moonstone" is found throughout this book, and if you haven't read it yet, you will find that the many spoilers in "Drood" will ruin much of its very well-crafted plot.

In summary, this is not a book for everyone. It is a treat for those who enjoy Victorian-era settings. It has moments of true creepiness that are spaced between pages and chapters of relative inactivity. It takes about 400 pages before the real Drood-inspired elements make a harrowing (but rather brief) appearance. My advice: read to page 200 or so. If the pacing and plot do not seem to suit your tastes, move on to something else. If you find enough to hold your interest, you might find this book to be a very rewarding read.

I must say this was an extremely well written novel. The author's skill at writing as Wilkie Collins was simply mesmerizing! ;) I felt like I was sitting in Wilkie's library as he spoke to me. Some readers have complained about the ending and I won't insert any spoilers here, but I felt the ending was extremely fitting in more than one way. It just fit into the overall pattern of the story and situation. One of the best novels I've read in quite some time.

I have loved many others of Dan Simmons' books, but Drood wasn't one of them. I waited for the horror and the terror of the underworld, and I didn't get it. Although I finished the book, I didn't get the satisfaction I've gotten from some of his other novels (like Olympos, Hyperion, and Song of Kali). Drood just felt drawn out, and while this wasn't supposed to be an action-packed book, I still expected something to happen, and I felt like it never did.

If you're a Simmons fan, give it a try. If you've never read Simmons before, don't start with Drood.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It made me very curious about the real lives of both Charles Dickens and the Salieri-like narrator, Wilkie Collins. I think that Simmons did an excellent job in constructing his tale. I just loved the relationship between Dickens and Wilkie. And Wilkie made for a great narrator! The book's only weakness was its resolution, though I can see where some would be daunted by its length. All in all, an entertaining and exciting book!