The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Charles Dickens (1812 -1870)

Penguin Classics has some explaining to do. Charles Dickens is one of our greatest writers and he deservedly has many novels on Penguin's list, but Edwin Drood does not deserve to be among them. Not only does the book, which should be an exciting mystery, get bogged down in boring characters, but it's only half finished. Meant to appear in a twelve part serial, Dickens only finished six before he died. I understand that an unfinished classic provides a fun mental mystery for hardcore Dickens fans, but it doesn't warrant a stop in the Greatest Ever list. 

The novel starts interestingly enough, in a London opium den complete with the dark, creepy atmosphere that one would expect. It's here that we meet John Jasper, a resident of Cloiserham who teaches music and sings in the choir. He's got a nephew named Edwin Drood who is has an arranged engagement to Rosa Bud. Jasper loves Rosa and Edwin doesn't really love Rosa, herein lies the problem. Two characters come to town, twins, Neville and Helena Landless. Neville falls for Rosa and has a fight with the flip Edwin when Drood seems not to care that he's engaged. Rosa and Edwin then decide to break off their engagement but they don't tell everyone about it. All of the sudden Edwin goes missing. Suspicion falls upon Neville and that's pretty much the end of the action. 

The remaining mysteries are: what happened to Edwin Drood? I got the feeling that he wasn't murdered and that he simply took off somewhere because he seemed like the kind of guy who would do that. Most everyone else seems to think he was bumped off, however, most likely by Jasper, his own uncle. Other suspects are Neville, Rosa, and Helena. The other mystery involves Dick Datchery, a minor character introduced at the end of the final installment. Dick is spying on Jasper and seems to be disguised. Could this be Helena, Princess Puffer, Grewgious, Bazzard, or even Edwin? Like a stupid multiple choice test, there simply isn't enough information given to determine the outcome.

It's fun to speculate though, so I will say that Dick is Helena trying to clear her brother. Rosa and Neville hook up and when Jasper challenges Neville to a duel Edwin reappears in the nick of time to vanquish his uncle and marry Helena. The End.

Rating 3/10: It's only half finished, how can this be a classic? I know the Gil Stuart painting of George Washington is half done and everyone loves it, but seriously including Edwin Drood among the greatest things ever written is like giving the guy leading the marathon at the 13 mile mark the gold medal. 

Far From the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I really always thought this book was called Far From the Maddening Crowd until I started reading it. Kind of weird how your ears can hear what they think should be right instead of the correct title, or maybe everyone just adds another syllable. "Madding" and "maddening" mean about the same thing anyway. 

What we have is a love story between an unbelievably devoted and sincere man and a really strong woman who is swept off her feet by what twenty-first century intellectuals call a "douche." Gabriel Oak is a humble farmer who falls for a woman of humble origins, Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel proposes to Bathsheba, but she turns him down because she doesn't love him. To make matters worse Oak's overzealous dog chases his entire flock of sheep through a hedge and they all fall off a cliff, the sheep aren't insured so Gabe is out of luck. He starts wandering around looking for work when he comes upon a fire. He puts it out, saves the farm, and lo and behold it's Bathsheba's, she's come into some inheritance. Oaks proves to be a great worker and is totally devoted to Bathsheba, but she finds it hard to be around him all the time and they squabble. She ends up falling for Sergeant Troy, a player of the first degree who is momentarily captured by Bathsheba's beauty. They get married much to the consternation of Bath's other suitor, William Boldwood. Needless to say the marriage doesn't go very well and it all ends in MURDER. Well the marriage ends in murder, the love proposed at the beginning is eventually fulfilled. 

Bathsheba is the most interesting character in Madding. She is fiercely independent and is only brought into subservience by the wily charms of Francis Troy. She soon realized her mistake, however, and tries to regain control of her life. Hardy flips the typical, "steady" man "passionate" woman binary on its head with Bathsheba and Boldwood. The aged farmer acts like a teenager in love throughout the book. He is manically moody and lovelorn, and finally vengeful. Bathsheba is logical and strong. Even when she makes a bad choice she doesn't waver and faces the consequences. 

Rating 7/10: An entertaining read with some unique characters. Oak isn't the flashiest protagonist, but Hardy makes up for it with some nice plot twists and the flamboyant Troy.  

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

There once was a man from Nantucket

His adventures overflowed any bucket

He went to the sea

found calamity

And now he's in the Antarctic

This is Poe's only full length novel and it's a weird one (shocking). The story changes from wild teen romp, to a youthful, rebellious adventure, to pirates, to lost at sea, to travelogue, to anthropology, to weird religious symbolism. I found the whole book to be interesting, but the most gripping part of the narrative was during Pym's enclosure below decks on the Grumpus. I'll just chat about that part for a bit and you can read the rest for yourself. 

Arthur Gordon Pym gets tired of his life of partying and having fun in Nantucket and decides to sneak about a ship with the help of his friend Augustus. AGP's family didn't want him to go on the ship, so he decides to run away. Their plan is to put AGP in stowage and hide him for a while until they're far enough at sea to not turn back. The plan is going swimmingly, AGP is hanging out in the dark with a little food and water and the boat launches. Pym starts getting a bit concerned when Augustus doesn't show up for a few days. This section is the most prototypically Poeish part of the novel. It is claustrophobic and creepy. Pym is starving, trapped in the cargo hold, can't get out and has no idea what's going on above decks. It's the unknown that really ramps up the psychological drama. Turns out that the crew has mutinied and Augustus can't get below to inform Pym. There's really some weird mind games being played when Pym's dog mysteriously shows up in the stowage. 

The book is really organized in a strange way. After the creepy trapped in cargo section, there's a really cool lost at sea bit that ends in an "Alive" style feast. Then Poe throws in mountains of data on the flora and fauna of some islands in the South Atlantic. It sort of felt like a bunch of Poe stories mashed together with some other information to make it a believable travelogue. 

This wasn't my favorite thing I've ever read by Poe. Too much dry pedantic info about the ocean and sailing and a really weird, vague and unsatisfying ending left me feeling that this classic had way more potential. 

Rating 6.5/10: Some incredible parts, but fails to hold up as a whole. 

Armadale

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

    I was banking on another awesome adventure from Wilkie after being blown away by The Woman in White. Sadly, Armadale didn't quite live up to the high expectations. Written in 1866, Armadale, like WIW, is mostly letters and remembrances of the characters. Unlike WIW, Armandale is sometimes rambling and boring. We start in a small town in Germany where a rich guy is dying. He puts down his will and kicks the bucket. The will reveals a story of love and murder in the Caribbean and England. The dead guy's name is Armadale, but it wasn't always that way. He lived in the Caribbean and was hand picked by the owner of the Armadale estate to take his name and take over operations because his son, the rightful inheritor, is a bum. 

     This is where the trouble begins. The new Armadale falls in with a stranger while running the estate in the Caribbean. They become great friends. Eventually the new Armadale gets hooked up with a lady in England who he's supposed to marry. She's loaded and he gets ready to head across the Atlantic to meet her. Well, his buddy disappears the day before he's supposed to leave. New Armadale takes off and finds that Old Armadale has moved in on his scene and married the lady. New Armadale is enraged and challenges his impostor friend to a duel. The married Armadale tries to flee in a boat which gets caught in a storm. The lady and some of the crew is rescued, and the rescue boat (manned by New Armadale) heads back to the foundered boat. Old Armadale finds New Armadale in the hull of the ship trying to save the lady's jewelry. They lock eyes and New Armadale locks the door on him, in effect murdering the traitor. The lady is pregnant from her brief marriage and Living Armadale marries a beautiful slave upon his return to the Caribbean. The resulting children are born a year apart and both named Allen Armadale. 

Now comes the main part of the story. The dead father insists that "Dark Armadale" never meets the "Light Armadale." Well, what happens but they meet and become buddies. "Dark Armadale" goes by the alias Ozias Midwinter. Well, Josias finds out that he's an Armadale and that's when things start getting weird. The real star of the book is finally introduced, Lydia Gwilt. Lydia is a conniving, corrupt, and shockingly beautiful woman. She decides to go to Thorpe-Ambrose, the Armadale estate, and hook up with the rich Armadale. Well that breaks up a romance between Armadale and Miss Milroy, a 16 year old living on the estate. Eventually Miss Gwilt comes up with a plan to get the Armadale property without marrying Armadale. She seduces Midwinter, knowing his secret, and marries him. She then plans to murder Midwinter and Armadale and return to Thorpe-Ambrose as the rightful inheritor. Well, things go awry to say the least. First of all, Lydia falls in love with Midwinter. This screws the machinations of the plan up. Eventually we end up in a insane asylum and Gwilt tries to gas Armadale, but ends up realizing that Midwinter is in the room. She saves his life and gases herself. The End.

The central theme of this book is fate. The two Armadales are fated to meet. When they do Light Armadale has a dream with several prescient scenes. Throughout the book these scenes come to pass and Midwinter notices every time. He believes deeply in the prophecy that as long as he's around Armadale will die. Yet, everytime he tries to leave Midwinter tries o leave he is drawn back by some mechanism. In the end, however, fate is averted because the Armadale lives.  The murderer's son is not the ruin of the victim's son. 

Rating-7/10: It's a good read, but not as good as WIW. Still, once Lydia Gwilt is introduced things really get rolling in a good way. 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Up to now I've been posting on books that I recently finished. Well, I think it's time to ramp up the productivity on Reading the Classics, we do have this recession going on. I'll start with a book I know really well so memory won't be an issue. I've read Huck Finn four times since tenth grade and no matter how educated I get, this book is still too complex for me. I don't mean complex in a Ulysses I can only read three pages in an hour way, but in a socio-historical way that always amazes me. 

Authorial voice is critically importing in Huck Finn. Who are we listening to? Is is Twain? He does give us his famous notice before the body of the book: "PERSONS attempting to fin a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot." Reading from a twenty-first century perspective we are probably safe from such punishment, but finding any of the three (motive, moral, plot) remains a tricky issue. The layers are thick and numerous. We have Twain, we have Huck, and we have some really weird border state history to deal with. Huck has been raised in the slave-holding state of Missouri and speaks from a white boy's perspective. He knows how he's supposed to act within the slave structure but something bothers him. His conscience is always getting in the way of doing the socially right thing. When deciding between turning in Jim and continuing on their escape he decides "All right, then, I'll go to hell," and continues on the river. This inversion of what we'd see as the moral thing to do, help someone escape a brutal, exploitative system, makes Huck all the more charming and admirable because he found the truth despite his Missouri upbringing. 

I'm assuming most people have read this one, so I'm going to skip the plot summary in favor of some fun minutia. I've read several times that Twain set the book down for a time after Jim is sold to the Phelp's family. When he picked it back up he rushed the finish with unlikely and hackneyed plot devices. The reintroduction of Tom Sawyer changes the road trip, buddy feel of the book and inserts another dynamic. Tom is not capable of feeling the pangs of conscience that Huck feels. His appearance necessarily means that Jim's situation is no longer to be taken seriously, but only as a game piece in Tom's imaginary adventures. I believe that Huck is better able to feel empathy for Jim because of his pauper class origins. Tom doesn't have that capability. Ultimately Tom and Huck are kids, we need to remember that. Huck matures as he travels down the river, but he's not yet capable of engineering a return to the free states with an escaped slave. Luckily Miss Watson kicked the bucket so Jim is free anyway, but it is interesting to ponder whether Huck would have made another attempt to save his friend if he'd been sent back to bondage.  

Rating 10/10: Could read it every year, if I was alive when it was published I would have said instant classic. 

The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

Count effing Fosco. He's the greatest character in any novel of all time. Suck on that Huck Finn. Fosco is the mastermind behind the great conspiracy at the center of The Woman in White, before we get to him and his scary awesomeness we need to check in on the story. 

Walter Hartright is just a guy who gives drawing lessons. He gets a gig in a big country house in mid 19th century England. His students are Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe. Laura is hot and Marian is not, but Marian is strong and self-reliant. Walter and Laura fall in love, but it turns out that she's already engaged to Sir Percival Glide. The thing is, he's a huge jerk. There's also the title character to deal with. Anne Catherick is a bit bonkers, but keeps popping up in the novel after escaping an asylum. She's got a secret about Sir Percy, and she doesn't want Laura to marry him. Did I mention that Laura and Anne look exactly alike?

This is essentially a mystery novel so I won't give away the coolness of the plot, but in the interests of introducing my buddy Count Fosco I need to explain a few things. Percy needs cash and needs to get rid of Anne Catherick and her secret. Count Fosco and his uber-obedient wife, Madame Fosco, live with Sir Percy and now Lady Glide (Laura). Fosco is an Italian gentleman of the highest aristocratic bearing. He's tall and phenomenally fat. He's about sixty but carries himself with the agility of a much younger man. He's dainty, a fantastic dresser, has a proclivity for small pets, mice, canaries and a cockatoo. He's a fine musician and an expert chemist. He's also a sociopath who cares more about his pet mice than any humanitarian urge a normal person might have. He is amazingly creepy, endearing, funny, and despicable. He is too smart for everyone he encounters in the novel, but his bravado and vanity cost him dearly. 

Let me also mention another great character, Uncle Fairlie. He's the patriarch of the family who is in charge of Limmerage House. He is also a colossal puss. His nerves are always on edge, to the point where any noise disturbs him. He can't make any decisions and pawns all his responsibilities onto others. His quavering, faux-invalid status is funny and vexing at the same time. 

A tip of the hat as well to Wilkie Collins. What a brilliant way to structure a novel. There are multiple narrators who are put to work by Walter Hartright who wants to document the whole affair to prove the conspiracy existed. So we hear from Marian, Walter, Count Fosco, servants, doctors, and more. It is fascinating to see how Collins reveals things from different perspectives, or gives a nugget of the plot which is only revealed through another character's eyes. 

Rating 10/10: This might be my favorite book I've ever read. It was written in 1859, yet kept my modern mind guessing the entire time. The characters and form are great and the narrative voice is something worthy of another look. I'll definitely be coming back to The Woman in White in the future. 

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

This book should have been great. You've got a senseless murder, a potential psychodrama, family, a hooker with a heart of gold, a drunken mentor, blackmail, and a pedophile. Sadly, Crime and Punishment reminds me of a steak dinner that ends with a fruit parfait for dessert. Now the dinner is great, and it's done really well, but nobody likes fruit parfait for dessert. I don't care what you say, fruit is a good snack and it's healthful, it's not a dessert. C&P starts with a steak dinner, Rodian Romanovich contemplates a murder because he is struggling through school and has no cash. He is further disturbed by the his sister's impending marriage to a rich clown who wants to dominate her because she grew up poor. Rodian is convinced that Avdotya Romanovna, his sister, is sacrificing her life to save her mother and himself from a life of poverty. Rodian decides the best way to solve this problem is to kill an old, hated, pawnbroker and steal her money. Rodian sees Alyona Ivanovna as a parasite who destroys her clients. Like a bug who needs to be stamped out.
Rodian thinks about the crime for a short time. He impulsively heads to the pawnbroker's apartment and axes her in the head in a heart-stopping scene. While he's whacking the old lady to bits her sister, Lizaveta, walks in and meets Mr. Ax as well. Rodian abandons his feeble plan, grabs a few things and takes off.
The rest of the book is a relentless psychological battle within Rodian. He is a smart guy and the guilt he feels is inescapable. He wonders how other criminals live with themselves. Suspicion begins to fall on Rodian. The authorities suspect him, but can't pin anything on him even though he acts extra crazy whenever he feels suspicion. The real intrigue of the novel deals with Rodian's friends and family. What will he tell them? Will their love drive him totally insane with guilt? What will happen to Avdotya and her marriage? What about Rodian and his prostitute girlfriend/sounding board for his craziness Sophia? We really get down to, who will Rodian tell and what will he reveal? This all takes a very long time. Most of this time is filled with Rodian being a jerk to everyone.
I know that he's going through some major psychological drama. He's got some things on his mind. But he is a certified a-hole to everyone who tries to help him. To make Rodian less sympathetic all his plans are really crappy. His meetings with police all turn embarrassingly bad. I'm not sure if Dostoevsky intended Rodian to be a sympathetic character. He does ax two old ladies in the head. Perhaps as readers we can relate to Rodian with our (hopefully) less egregious sins. I won't spoil the end of the book for those who haven't read C&P.

Rating 7/10: I really thought this was going to be a totally bad ass read. In the afterglow of Rodian's murders I was breathlessly on the edge of my seat. Things slow down drastically from there, however. Rodian's guilt is kind of half-assed and the book drags to a anti-climactic conclusion. I can see how a philosopher would read this book as a study of rationalizing one's behavior, but Rodian just seems like a jerk to me, not truly investigating his actions.

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Dafoe (1661-1731)

There is an awful lot going on in Robinson Crusoe but I'm just going to cover a few things. First, this really is an outstanding book. It's not stuffy or terribly dated as one would expect the first English novel to be. Robinson disobeys his father and goes off to sea. After a couple of rough voyages he gets rich in the West Indies on an island. Not satisfied with his good luck he decides to go on a slaving mission. Well, the ship ends up in a big storm and he is the only survivor on an island. He makes a life for himself, finds religion, saves his man, Friday, adds a few more to his kingdom, takes over a mutineering ship and heads back to England.
Race is a major factor in the novel. Was Crusoe being punished by God when his slaving ship was wrecked upon the rocks? How about the constant dichotomy of savages/civilized, Crusoe thinks in these terms, but does Defoe? Friday is the key to all this. He starts as a "savage," a Carib cannibal who is saved by Crusoe. But he is loyal, smart, and better at everything than Defoe. This could either be a sign of the power of Crusoe's civilizing influence, or that Friday and Crusoe are not as different as he thinks.
Religion carries most of the novel when Crusoe is by himself. He has led a rotten life, leaving his family to sail with drunken louts and blasphemers. After he lands upon the island he unloads the teetering ship. He happens to take a Bible or three out before it sinks. For years he doesn't look at the Good Book. Finally, when he's deathly ill and at his lowest point he reads a few inspiring lines. In this moment he transforms, repents and becomes a devotee of Protestant Christianity. He starts giving thanks that God put him on the island to change his ways and his outlook is much improved. He believes in fate, the men on the ship died but he didn't, that can't be coincidence. There are other times when God presents and opportunity that he seizes to his advantage. Defoe also presents the comparison of Friday's religion with Crusoe's. They really are not that different, Crusoe's just has different names and roles for the deity.

Rating 10/10: Yeah, awesome quick read. Defoe's ingenuity on the island is astounding. It keeps you interested in his development as a land developer and as a human being.

Les Miserables

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

It took Victor 17 years to pound this bad boy out and I can see why. Les Mis is startlingly long with tangents the size of giant baguettes. It's hard to believe that the musical follows the book as close as it does considering the book's NBA draft pick like length. I always thought the musical was about the French Revolution, well, apparently not. Although the novel spans decades, the main action takes place between 1810 and 1835.
We are first introduced to a kindly old bishop. We get much of his life story and just when the reader is wondering where this is all going Hugo gives us the main character. Jean Valjean starts as a hardened convict in the galleys. He hates everything. After 19 years of slavery he is released as an outcast. The only person who will take him in is the old bishop. Jean is shocked by the bishop's kindness, but he cannot help but be tempted by the house's fine silver. He steals it and is caught. Much to everyone's surprise, the bishop lies to the police and tells them he gifted the silver to the con. This is the moment that changes Valjean's life. The bishop makes him promise to turn things around.
Valjean obliges by starting a new life. He invents a method of making black jewelry that generates tons of cash and great jobs for his new town. He is elected mayor and respected by everyone. It would be hunky dory if this could have lasted, but, alas, it wasn't to be. Valjean's former captor and current police chief has suspicions that his boss is Valjean. Eventually another man is arrested for being Valjean and the real Jean has a crisis of identity. He can save himself and the town or save the falsely accused man. He chooses the man and admits to being Valjean. Valjean, being really good, has also been taking care of a sick single mom who he initially fired from his shop. Fantine, abandoned by her baby daddy, had been whoring to pay for her daughter, Cosette's, upkeep by the Thenardiers. The inn-keeping family was running a big scam and using Cosette as a servant while pocketing all Fantine's money. Valjean watched Fantine die as Javere arrested him. Outraged at Javere's lack of human decency he bolts the first chance he gets and heads to rescue Cosette. He buys her off the amazed Thenardiers and takes her away. Javere is enraged and the Thenardiers are mad that they didn't fleece Valjean for more cash. These are two enemies that will reappear.
Valjean and Cosette eventually get settled in a convent in Paris. They live there for several years before Valjean decides the homely Cosette should get out in the world. Despite the risk that he might be discovered he leaves the nuns. For a year or two this works great, but then Cosette starts growing up. She turns out gorgeous and attracts the attention of Marius, a student who's a bit lost in life. Much like Hugo, he came from a family divided between Royalists and Bonapartists. His grandfather has disowned him for remembering his father, a soldier in Napoleon's army. Marius falls in love with Cosette.
Skipping ahead Marius finally finds Cosette with the help of one of Thenardier's daughters, Eponyne. Eponyne is the most pathetic figure in the story, hopelessly in love with Marius, but not able to extricate herself from the thieving background of her father.
Eventually things get too hot in the neighborhood and Valjean is forced into an emergency relocation. This leaves Marius depressed and suicidal. Conveniently there is a bloody revolt that his friends are staging. He heads over to the barricade and gets ready to die. Valjean intercepts the death letter Marius means for Cosette and heads to the barricade himself, not sure what he wants to do the the interloper. Valjean encounters Javere, a captured spy, and volunteers to execute him. In an act of mercy he frees the determined policeman. Everybody dies in a wonderfully exciting scene, everyone except for Marius and Valjean. Valjean carries the unconscious Marius through Paris's extensive sewer system, and the reader is treated to a detail history of said system. Valjean exhausts his strength trudging four miles before he finds a way out. Here he is promptly arrested by Javere.
In keeping with the theme of identity Javere isn't sure what to do with himself now that he knows Valjean isn't pure evil and might not deserve to go back to the galleys. He finds that justice and the law don't always mix. So, naturally, he chucks himself into the Seine and drowns.
Everything should be right as rain, but Valjean is feeling guilty that he's an ex-felon and once Cosette and Marius are married he starts phasing himself out of their lives. He tells Marius his story, but leaves out the part about saving his life and coming up with all the cash legally. Marius gives him the cold shoulder and Valjean is distraught at not seeing Cosette. He sinks into depression and starts dying. One day Thenardier stops into to try and extort some cash from Marius by using Valjean's past as blackmail. Thenardier reveals that he saw Valjean with a "corpse" in the sewer. Marius realizes that "corpse" was him and all is clear. He throws some money at Thenardier because of an old family connection at Waterloo, grabs Cosette and they race to Vajean. They meet and see each other for only minutes before Jean Valjean dies.
Well, in a thousand page book you expect a lot of different themes and Hugo delivers. Gender, class, identity, sexuality, politics, familial relations, age, religion, city planning, the nature of good and evil, language and slang, and death are all deeply explored.

Rating 9/10: It is a brilliant book if a bit long-winded at times. It really does have everything.

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Another big dog along the lines of War and Peace. It's Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. There'd better be either a hunchback or "Can You Hear the People Sing" or I'm going to be pissed.