Drood

Drood by Dan Simmons

Hardcover: 784 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (February 9, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0316007021

 

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestseller Simmons (The Terror) brilliantly imagines a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for Dickens's last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in this unsettling and complex thriller. In the course of narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck and trying to rescue fellow passengers, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. Along with his real-life novelist friend Wilkie Collins, who narrates the tale, Dickens pursues the elusive Drood, an effort that leads the pair to a nightmarish world beneath London's streets. Collins begins to wonder whether the object of their quest, if indeed the man exists, is merely a cover for his colleague's own murderous inclinations.

As I write this I am only a bit over half way thru Drood but want to start talking now.. thanks to Debi who opened the idea to write while things are fresh in ones mind.

First off when I sent for this book I didn't know if I would truly like it or not...and I was a bit afraid of it.  Both the size of the book and I imagined it to be written in the language of Charles Dickens for some reason.  I've only read one Dickens book and it took me some time to read it, but I did and I'm glad and I will read another at some time.  But he is difficult to read (well, for ME he is.. others might not find him so hard to read).

Anyway... First I have to say that, although this book is fiction, I believe Dan Simmons did a lot of homework to write this story as he did, for in the lines between the fiction there seems to lie many pieces of reality and truth.

For instance the continual mention of all the different books that both Dickens and Collins wrote, and the fact the collaborated a lot, and small facts like how very popular Wilke Collins book of the Woman in White was, and that it was a  "serial" written for Dickens magazine, and how they made many of their writing into plays.

It is so well written that at times you forget you are reading a piece of fiction until something wakes you back up to the fact it is. 

This Drood fellow that is being written about is very mysterious.  You go back and forth about him.  One moment he is alive and the next you are so sure he's a real person. 

Could he be a figment of Dickens imagination?

Or an Opium dream of Wilke's??

Mr Simmons brings back all the feelings of the old England that both Dickens and Wilke wrote about in their many books, such as Oliver Twist and Copperfield and Bleak House, along with Moonstone and Lady in White.  Your mind always see's the dark England, the England with the crypts  and opium dens far beneath the streets. Dreary and unmistakably scary.  You half expect to find Jack the Ripper down an alley! Oh yes, this book has many creepy moments in it!

Being a bit over  half way thru this book I cannot imagine that I won't feel the same at the end as I do now... which is that I am really liking this book!  I am glad I bought it.  I am glad I pushed myself to begin this monstrosity of a book.. because there's something about it that keeps me picking it back up and reading "just one more chapter".....

September 15, 12:30 pm... I closed the book, Drood, for the last time!

Now I sit her wondering how to explain how I feel about the book.  If someone said to me, "Read this you'll love it," I would have laughed at them.

This is the third  year I entered Carl's RIP challenge.

The first year I discovered a little book called Gils All Fright Diner and a major discovery of a book Carl suggested called, The Thirteenth Tale.  Never would I have imagined enjoying such books and yet... I can't forget them.

Year two gave me The Historian.  Once again, I thought, "ok, I'll try it but I bet I wind up putting it down."    Like, the little boy Mikey in the cereal commercial.. I liked it!

Here comes year three. I have reread the Thirteenth Tale and Gil's All Fright Diner to much enjoyment and then decided it was time to "try" the 784 page book of Drood.

For unknown reasons, my mind told me I'd be putting this one down.  That it would be, like a Dickens novel, difficult to read and on the length alone I'd not finish it. 

But this book was NOT difficult to read and I did NOT put it down. 

In fact, I had trouble closing the book each day!  If it weren't for the fact I was falling asleep and didn't want to not remember what I was reading, I'm not sure I would have never put the book down!

It captured me. It put me in the old England of the days of Charles Dickens.

It was not all fiction.  There were many small things throughout the book that were fact.

It made me feel as if I was secretly reading the "life and times of Charles Dickens and Wilke Collins", though I do know it was fiction.

For me, this book is a keeper!  It's soooo big, I am not sure at this moment that I will ever read it again... but I will keep it in case I want to tackle it again.  Meanwhile, I want to thank Susan from, You Can Never Have Too Many Books, who I believe is at fault for my purchasing the book in the first place! (Thank you Susan!) and I want to tell anyone who has this on their tbr pile to read, that I don't think it will disappoint you! 

It is an easy read and one filled with unexpected surprises, to me.  I expected the book to be "Drood, Drood, Drood"  but it was a combination of Drood,  Dickens and Collins. 

If you are old like me you will understand the thought going through my mind is of a character from the old tv series of Laugh-in when Arte Johnson, dressed as a German soldier used the qoute that comes to my mind to describe this book...

it goes like this:   Verrry eenteresting...

 

This is the 4th book I've read for the RIP Challenge!