The Mystery of Charles Dickens... um, I mean, Edwin Drood: A Review

Every summer I start reading my yearly Dickens novel and I wonder "will this novel be better than the others?" Sometimes, as was the case with Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, the answer was that there are Dickens novels worthier of the reader's time. More often than not, my conclusion is that Dickens is a genius and deserves all the praise that he gets. In my mind, none of Dickens' novels could ever compare with Bleak House and Little Dorrit, and frankly they will always be the Dickens standard for me.

Upon beginning The Mystery of Edwin Drood about a month ago, I struggled with Dickens the same way that I always do. It normally takes me the first hundred pages or so to get into the style and language, and gradually enjoy the novel more as the pages pass. The problem with Edwin Drood is that there isn't much beyond the first hundred pages; Charles Dickens never had the luxury of finishing this novel. He died in June of 1870, halfway through writing Edwin Drood.

The main plot can be boiled down to a single sentence. Edwin Drood disappears, presumably murdered, but the clues surrounding his disappearance are scarce. It is unusual that a Dickens novel can be so concisely summarized, but all the clues that Dickens gives us, before and after Edwin's disappearance, all points toward the culprit. Of course, there is much more to the story than just the murder -- it wouldn't be a Dickens novel without characters' fate being interwoven.

But here's the most amazing thing about this novel: even though Dickens never finished it, I can speak with absolute certainty on who murdered Edwin. That's the fantastic thing about Dickens. Not a single paragraph is unnecessary in a Dickens novel; every character and every minute, over-detailed description has a unique, crucial purpose. (All of this is even more amazing when you realize that Dickens submitted his novels for publication in installments before he even finished them. He couldn't go back and add a little detail here and there to make everything connect.) Almost before Edwin even disappeared, I could have told you who was going to kill him and where his dead body could be found. The murder scene was never described, but all the clues are clearly visible for the reader to piece the puzzle together. But what is even more amazing is that you don't realize that you're being handed pieces to the puzzle until you really sit and think about it and everything falls into place. Suddenly, the chapters about the opium house, the odd old woman, and the cathedral crypt are not as seemingly random as they seem. And when the last pieces of the puzzle are put into place, the picture on top is nothing less than astonishing.

Upon finishing Edwin Drood, I sent my best friend a text something to the effect of "Charlie died at a really inopportune time." This novel had the potential of being his best novel, in my opinion, but nobody knows word-for-word how it would have ended. But upon considering the "seemingly random" details, I realized that he finished enough of the novel that it isn't as "inopportune" as one might think. There are minor details which are up for speculation, like whom marries whom, but for the most part he answers all the important questions. Had he died a chapter sooner, a major detail would have been left unaddressed. Of course, it would have been nice to read more but death can only be controlled on the pages of fiction.

This is why Dickens is a literary genius. How many authors can weave such a masterful tale, let alone leave it unfinished but gift the audience with all the clues that they need? He says nothing definitely, and yet he doesn't need to. His manner of laying out a novel and stating the facts allows the reader put two and two together on his own. That, I believe, is a remarkable achievement. Dickens uses the reader's intelligence to his advantage, and solves the mystery without even finishing the book.

The moral to this story is don't judge a book by it's cover. Or in this case, don't ignore The Mystery of Edwin Drood because Dickens died before finishing it. This is, without a doubt, one of Dickens' greatest accomplishments as an author. Despite the fact that we only have half the story, it deserves to be on the list of great Dickens novels because it was left unfinished and it is still perfection. He didn't need 800 pages to create a masterpiece like he did in Bleak House. He only needed 250 pages to simultaneously produce a masterpiece and the greatest cliffhanger of all time. Only Dickens could have made a mystery out of a mystery novel.

One more stop in Reading Europe 2016. Back to the Continent!

A Very Slow Start to the New Year

January 2016 has been one of the slowest months for me, ever. I blame the busyness of the fall months and my need to recharge for the first month of 2016. It's difficult for me to believe that a new year has started, and yet I'm supposed to get started on my goals for this new year? So it's the last day of January and I'm finally getting myself (mildly) organized for the new year. I might be a month late in my planning but better late than never. So here's what 2016 has in store for me here in Oklahoma.

I suppose I should recap on 2015 before I delve into 2016. My best friend and I (along with my mother, who didn't make as much progress, which can be blamed fully on their move) set out to read three different books from different regions in England, and we finished those books in December. I am waiting until I can acquire a copy of the BBC miniseries of Cranford. I haven't forgotten about it, it's just delayed.

Reading England 2015 was such a success for us that we've decided to do the same thing again, with a slight twist. We decided that we need to expand our horizons outside of *just* England a little, so we will be doing Reading Europe 2016. We have chosen three countries: Russia, England, and France. Our first journey will be to Russia, to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Next we will travel back to England to read another Dickens novel to fulfill my yearly Dickens' requirement. And finally we will end in France with an Alexandre Dumas novel. We haven't decided which Dickens and Dumas we will read yet, mainly because my books are scattered between two states, and three different places at present and I haven't had the opportunity to find the books I need.

Outside of reading, I have a few sewing projects I hope to do, including quilting more, curtains for the master bedroom, and a few skirts, if I can find the fabric for them. I might try to paint some of our new home if I can find someone to help me. I also hope to start gardening some this spring. My sweet husband made me raised beds in the fall, and I'm ready to fill them with some veggies. I also hope to plant some more flowers in the front flower beds a little closer to spring. We will see how this goal turns out; in the past I've had a brown thumb, mainly because of my forgetfulness. Otherwise I plan to bask in housewifery and try to keep up with my husband's schedule.

I am very excited for this year. I have a few trips and other small projects planned, and I might even get around to posting a few blog posts about my adventures. But I am mostly excited for reading outside of my comfort zone. It's something I haven't done since college and am eager to do again. What are you planning to read this year? I encourage everyone to read something, even if it's not a classic. And if you don't listen to me, at least listen to Jane Austen: "The person, be it a gentleman or a lady, who has not the pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

Nicholas Nickleby: A Review

My second stop in Reading England 2015 was Nicholas Nickleby. For the last six years, I've read a Dickens novel over the summer/fall, and I believe that this exercise stimulates my mind. Why Dickens? Because Dickens is difficult to read. He wrote in a language different from what 21st century readers are accustomed to, and his plots are so complex that sometimes missing a sentence can cause confusion. But at the same time, this is why Dickens is one of the most beloved authors in British literature. His novels address social issues in Victorian England, yet have something for everyone -- romance, mystery, crime, and adventure.

Nicholas Nickleby is no different than other Dickens novels in that regard. Recently widowed Mrs. Nickleby arrives in London with her two children, Nicholas and Kate, to beg her brother-in-law, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, for financial assistance. Mr. Ralph Nickleby places his nephew in a position as a teacher in a boy's school in Yorkshire. Nicholas soon discovers that the school master, Mr. Squeers, is a harsh employer who fails to properly feed and clothe the boys placed in his care. After a confrontation where Nicholas beats Mr. Squeers "till he roared for mercy", he seeks employment elsewhere - first in the theatrical company of Mr. Crummles and then for the Brothers Cheeryble. Of course, the story ends happily, as every Dickens novel does: Nicholas finds happiness in life and love, Kate finds love and stability, and Mr. Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Squeers are both punished for their crimes.

This is not one of Dickens' best novels, but Dickens wrote nothing inferior. The twisted plots and characters keep the reader guessing throughout the entire novel. This novel did not succeed in intertwining the characters as well as his other works (Bleak House will always win that competition) but it is still filled with intrigue and adventure. Where Dickens did succeed is creating unique heroes and villains. Calling Nicholas "hot headed" is an understatement; most protagonists in classic literature are rational individuals. And normally the hero is fighting the system, whether harsh employers or the legal system, but Nicholas' self-proclaimed nemesis is his uncle.

Starkly different from the novel, the film adaptation is horrible. I bought it on DVD at the beginning of the year in preparation for finishing the novel. Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Crimson Peak) and Romala Garai (Emma 2009, Atonement) are two of my favorite actors/actresses, plus add Anne Hathaway and Jamie Bell (TURN, Jane Eyre 2011) into the mix and of course it will be fantastic! *shakes head miserably* The only adaptations I've seen that are worse than this one are some of the 80s and early 90s Austen adaptations. The acting wasn't bad; Charlie's acting style was a bit unrefined, but it was also toward the beginning of his acting career. (And he didn't have his fake American accent, which was the best part.) The travesty, as in all period dramas, was the omission of the bulk of the second half of the novel. The plot-line followed the novel relatively well throughout the first half of the movie, but somewhere in the second half the writers decided that they needed to cut something out and opted just to ignore half of what occurred. I fully understand that making a 800 page novel into a two hour movie is difficult, but the writers could have omitted some of the minutia in the beginning instead of failing to include the last few hundred pages of the novel.

My conclusion is this: read the book and watch the adaptation but don't expect a lot. Nicholas Nickleby shouldn't be your first choice when choosing a Dickens novel, but any Dickens novel is better than no Dickens at all. The last stop in Reading England 2015 is Lancashire for Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell!

New Year, New City, New Projects

A new year means new adventures and new challenges for most people, and being married to a Naval officer (or any military personnel) only means change is inevitable. The month of December was one of the most chaotic months of my life, but January is threatening to be even more hectic, if that's possible. Once everything settles down, 2015 looks promising. So here's a rundown of changes and what is to come.


Changes Aplenty

In the second week of December, my husband finished Primary flight training and selected his platform. When I say "selected", I mean that he told the Navy what his top three choices for what he would like to fly and they tell him what he's actually going to fly. Fortunately, the needs of the Navy aligned with the desires of the aviator-in-training. So my husband will be flying the E-6 Mercury, which is based at Tinker Air Force Base, located right outside of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

E-6 Mercury -- a.k.a. the other woman.

But before we get to Oklahoma, he still has a lot of training to do. Advanced flight training for future E-6 pilots takes place at NAS Corpus Christi (Texas). So, after spending two weeks visiting family, we returned to Florida in time to welcome the movers and watch all of our belongings disappear in the matter of a few hours. On January 6, we loaded the trucks with the valuables (the bike, the Xbox, the weapons, the sewing machines, and the cat) and made the trek to Texas. The cat behaved and nothing flew off the trailer, so I call that a successful day's journey.

Trying to figure out what is going on while stopping to gas up.

The last several days have involved living in the Navy Lodge, surprising the cleaning ladies by telling them that we only needed them to take the trash, playing lots of Xbox, and eating more microwavable meals than I have at any other time in my life. Tomorrow we will get the keys to our new house on base, freshly painted and carpeted, and hopefully our furniture will arrive sometime before we move to Oklahoma. Alas, I will almost miss the coffee and pre-packaged blueberry muffins in the hotel lobby, just because I didn't have to make either of them.

Returning to "normal" life almost won't seem normal because something, whether it was visiting family for two weeks or living without furniture/in a hotel, has been abnormal for such a long time that I almost don't remember what normal feels like. But hopefully we will discover normalcy and return to it within a few days.


Projects Aplenty  

A new year means new projects and challenging one's self in new and different ways. As a housewife, I have a slew of new recipes that I hope to try and a new house to decorate with new curtains and quilted treasures. But these minor projects aside, I have two goals for the new year which should keep me preoccupied for many months.

Wardrobe renovation: Every year fashion changes, and I get increasingly tired of my clothing choices. So, this year I hope to make new outfits using mostly fabric which has been lying around my parent's house for upwards of ten years. I plan to fight with a few Vogue patterns (and will probably lose) but ultimately I hope create some new, stylish dresses. Pictures to come in future months!

Books, books, books: Each year, I try to read books on diverse topics. I always read one fantasy series, Dickens novel, classic female author, political theory, historical, and theological, and the rest of the year is filled in by historical fiction. But this year I'm challenging myself to read more classics by Reading England 2015. This challenges readers to read different books which take place in different counties in England. My mom and I are doing this challenge together, and starting with three books and adding more depending on how quickly we read the first ones. The first book we are planning to read is Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. In May, a film adaptation (trailer found here) of this book is coming to the silver screen, starring one of my favorite actresses, Carey Mulligan. So in preparation for this masterpiece from the BBC, Hardy's classic Dorset novel is the first on our list. As for my yearly Dickens novel, I have chosen Nicholas Nickleby. Like most Dickens novels, this book takes place in several different cities but it primarily occurs in Yorkshire. Again, I am looking forward to watching the 2002 film adaptation of this movie, starring Charlie Hunnam, Anne Hathaway, Romola Garai, and a handful of other wonderful actors. My yearly female author selection is the Lancashire-based North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I adore the film adaptation of this book starring Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe. I have been hoping to read this novel for several years and I am very excited to finally read it.

If you are interested in traveling to England through literature, I highly suggest looking into this challenge. It is a fantastic way to read a wide variety of literature from different eras and counties. If you want or need suggestions, I'll readily give my opinion. (Austen and Dickens are my favorites, and are always excellent places to begin.)

And if you aren't into reading, I encourage you to do something in the new year to increase your knowledge or skill set in this new year.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity... or Death: A Review

Sometime between the end of high school and the beginning of college, I got into the habit of reading an Austen novel every winter and a Dickens novel every summer. I've finished all of Austen (except her short stories, which I am still working through) but I still have quite a few Dickens novels to finish.

This summer I chose A Tale of Two Cities, mainly because my copy is small and would be easier to move than a hardcover novel (Navy problems.) Normally I choose the novel according to the most recent BBC adaptation. For example, summer before last I read Great Expectations since two adaptations were coming out in the same year. Beforehand, I read Bleak House and Little Dorrit so that I could watch the lengthy seven hour adaptations which BBC masterfully produced. Unfortunately, there are no recent adaptations of A Tale of Two Cities, and no adaptations on Netflix.

A Tale of Two Cities takes place between London and Paris during the late 18th century. The novel is divided into three parts: Part One mainly occurs in pre-Revolution Paris; Part Two mainly takes place in London; and Part Three unfolds in Paris at the height of the French Revolution. All the main characters have connections with both cities, which is a major driving force behind the novel.

The novel begins when a banker named Mr. Lorry accompanies Lucie Manette to Paris to retrieve her father, a doctor who spent twenty years in the Bastille. Upon retrieving him and bringing him back to London, Doctor Manette regains his sanity. Through different means they meet Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, and quickly it becomes clear that both men are in love with Lucie. Lucie marries Darnay, and on their wedding day he tells Doctor Manette the secrets of his past. Here, the novel skips forward a few years. Darnay receives a letter from a friend in France who has been imprisoned, and Darnay embarks on a rescue mission to France. Before making it to Paris, he is imprisoned when it is discovered that he is the heir of a French nobleman. Lucie and Doctor Manette come to Paris as soon as they hear word of Darnay's imprisonment, and after a year a trial proceeds where Doctor Manette convinces the jury of Darnay's innocence. Darnay is released, but is later taken into custody again at the urges of Monsieur and Madame Defarge, two leaders in the Revolution. At the second trial, Monsieur Defarge produces a letter written by Doctor Manette during his imprisonment in the Bastille which identifies Darnay's family as the instigators behind the Doctor's unfair imprisonment. Darnay is sentenced to the guillotine the following day. Sydney Carton arrives in Paris and, displaying his love for Lucie, sneaks Darnay out of the prison and takes his place at the guillotine, allowing Lucie and Darnay to escape from France.

It is a morbid ending to an equally dark novel, but in that way Dickens captures the essence of the French Revolution. He incorporates those Romantic elements which are prominent throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Gothic novels, and creates a terrifying tale of a period of bloodshed. The dismal, hopelessness experienced by Lucie and Darnay is similar to Emily's struggle in The Mysteries of Udolpho as she attempts to escape from the Castle Udolpho. While Dickens does not address elements such as the supernatural like are found in Gothic novels, the elements of death, hopelessness, imprisonment, terror, and a wicked villain are all driving forces behind Gothic novels.

Dickens is writing about seventy years after the beginning of the Revolution. The equivalent would be someone today writing about World War II. While he was not alive during this time and he did not have the advantage of extensive academic research, there were still people alive who lived through it, people who's families were affected by it, just like today the effects of World War II are still felt in small ways.

Dickens points out several aspects of the French Revolution which are sometimes overlooked by high school history classes, and even college history classes. History books focus on the annihilation of the French aristocracy: the deaths of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the murder of countless French nobles, and the pillage of French chateaus across the country. But Dickens reveals the depth of the wickedness of the French Revolution: death did not stop at the nobility.

One of the initial chapters of the novel portrays a cask of wine from the Defarge's wine shop breaking open on the streets, and the peasants flocking to scoop up the wine in any way possible. But, the street is stained red. Dickens continues this symbolism later in the book when the Revolution begins, as the streets are stained red with blood at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Defarge. Monsieur Defarge becomes one of the primary judges at the trials of the prisoners, at which Madame Defarge manipulates the outcome through her husband.

The tragic loss of life experienced during the French Revolution was expedited by the guillotine. And such a machine did not differentiate between male or female, rich or poor.

Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and gray; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the street to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death -- the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine! (p.278)

How powerful are those words! Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death! Dickens' clever adaptation of the slogan of the French Revolution brings to light the true power of the Revolution. While the nobility was certainly the primary target, the peasantry did not escape suspicion. An act of treason could be conjectured at any point. Despite the fact that Darnay had renounced his family and his title because of his opposition to their treatment of the peasantry, Madame Defarge still demanded his death due to his association with the nobility. The frail seamstress who befriends Sydney Carton as they proceed to the guillotine was accused of "plots". Each day became a competition to see how many prisoners would be executed in a day, where the true Revolutionaries craved a higher death toll the following day. And just like the wine cask, the peasants could not shed enough blood to quench their thirst.

Despite the darkness of the novel, Dickens does end with one ray of light. The death of Sydney Carton allows Charles Darnay to safely escape France with his wife, child, and father-in-law. Sydney, who is not always positively displayed in the novel, sacrifices himself  for Lucie's happiness. He repeats a scripture passage as he approaches the guillotine, and it is clear that he is at peace with his fate. Despite his shortcomings, he dies for love and he dies in peace.

Dickens is often described as a genius, and this novel has been acclaimed as one of the best fictional works about the French Revolution. I can't argue with either of those assertions. He accurately demonstrates the blood lust which brought down the ancien régime, and sets the background for nearly a century of socio-political anarchy in France. A background that was rooted in the unfortunate ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity, or death.