Drood

(Book 5  for RIP)

Drood by Dan Simmons.

Paperback: 800 pages (paperback version)
Publisher: Back Bay Books; (February 8, 2010)
ISBN-10: 031600703X

Book Description

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.
Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?
Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

 

My first reading of Drood was a few years ago, and  it was read for RIP. (I even amazed myself by rereading a book of nearly 800 pages!)(the link is to my first review)

When I first read this book I knew one thing.. I loved it!  The book somehow perked my interest in Wilkie Collins (who was telling the story) and of course in Charles Dickens.  If you knew me when I was young you would be positive I would not be a person to read Collins or Dickens or many other classics!  But here I am, old and more than late for the game, and I sit reading books about them both (both fiction and real) and then reading books they wrote!

Drood is a marvel of a book!  It’s narrated by Wilkie Collins, and is to be about he and his close friend Charles Dickens during the last few years of Dickens life and how Dickens came about to be writing a book called, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which Dickens never finished before he died.

One knows before they begin to read that this book is pure fiction… but maybe the word “pure” should not be used.  Most  all (but not all) of the characters in the book, Wilkie’s family and Dickens family, were all real people.   The mention of many books the two men wrote and plays that they wrote and put on were, again, all real.  There is so much reality in the book that many times you have to stop and say, “ok.. this is NOT true!”

The book is written sooooo well, that one tends to forget that it’s a fiction story.  I know many others have read some of Dan Simmons books and may feel similar about other books …but it you have any interest at all in Wilkie Collins or Charles Dickens or England in the 1800’s or finding the *life under the streets with the Opium dens * or if you just plain like gothic mysteries…  Then don’t let the size of this book deter you!  You will enjoy the book very much!

I have to admit the book left me with some questions.. but mostly just personal questions about Wilkie and Charles.  I’ve read a very large biography on Charles Dickens which surprisingly enough I found very interesting.  But there is little written about Wilkie Collins. A few smaller books but nothing as well written as Biographies on Dickens.

If you have this book sitting in your tbr pile… you might want to push it closer to the top of the pile! 

Drood sits on top, along side of The Thirteenth Tale, as a most favorite book to read, most especially during the month of October when gothic mysteries are a favorite genre to read.