Drood

This is an ambitious book, even by Simmons' standard - indeed, probably by anyone's standard. Like most books that try to acheive so much, it is flawed, but by setting the sights to such a long range Simmons fires his book so far ahead of the majority of perfectly realised but narrowly circumscribed books that he can be forgiven for not quite hitting the target. So what was he aiming for and how close did he get?

Drood is written as if it is a memoir written by Wilkie Collins and then sealed until after his death. The memoir deals with strange events in the lives of himself and Charles Dickens, during Dickens' last five or so years of life. These events are connected to the mysterious Drood, who shares a name with the titular character of Dickens' unfinished final novel. The memoir attempts to keep to the known history of the period and of Collins and Dickens. It also attempts to mimic the "sensational" style of story told by Collins in his novels, plays and stories. The book is a mystery - just as Collins' pioneering The Moonstone is - and also a study in character creation. It's a historical novel and a supernatural story, too, and an examination of creative rivalry, friendship, hatred, madness and the works of Collins and Dickens.

Starting with the failures, Simmons sometimes uses words or phrases that are anachronistic or foreign: "Gotten" appears once - I think this had faded from use in Britain before the 1850s, though it appeared in Defoe's Moll Flanders in the previous century. "London Times" appears once, though "The Times" is used in every other instance - I blame the editor, who should have spotted the inconsistency. "Drapes" and "sidewalk" haven't appeared in any genuine Victorian fiction I've read and I doubt anybody used the phrase "city blocks" either but the worst, most horrible, glaring offence against accurate usage of the place and period is when Simmons mistakes Britain for England and thereby makes Sir Walter Scott English. Harumph! This occurs very early on and it sensitised me to the whole issue of accurate usage which didn't help Simmons' cause. Now Simmons is an American, so the audacity required to attempt to write a book not merely from the perspective of a Briton, but a Victorian Briton, too, is enormous and he gets it right far more than he gets it wrong but still, the errors stand out to a British reader: I would love it if the author would introduce a second edition of the novel that corrects these distracting errors.

An issue that many might consider a theme of Simmons' writing is, in my view, becoming a liability; this is Simmons' urge to pass off literary criticism as fiction in his books. It's not entirely absent from any of the Simmons books I've read (approx. 10) and in some cases it becomes a bore and throws one out of the story altogether. Usually this lit. crit. is put convincingly in the voice of characters but in some cases it descends into obvious authorial voice opinion expression seated unnaturally in dialogue passages or reveries. In this case, there is one passage about Dickens' Our Mutual Friend that really should have been saved for the lecture theatre. I am also developing something of a feeling that Simmons might not be celebrating literature so much as showing off about how well-read he is. Some of your readers have read some famous books, too, you know, Dan! That said, Simmons books do usually leave me with an urge to read one or more of the authors he has been discussing (unless it's Proust, in which case he just makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs and never go near a copy of any of his works).

The central mystery of Drood is pretty mysterious but I was disappointed to find that I was fairly close to being correct when the revelation finally came. There were also periods when the book became a little dull as nothing apparently relating to this central mystery seemed to be occurring.

So that was the bad: here's the don't knows: Simmons obviously wished to write believably as if Collins was the author, i.e. to mimic his style and I cannot judge how successful he was in this, apart from the general slip-ups mentioned above; nor do I know how historically accurate the verifiable events are. I also do not know if his depictions of the historically real characters correspond with opinion expressed at the time.

Moving on to the successes:
The "sensational" passages of the story are truely delightful; the early scene of the train crash and the first visit to Undertown are excellent and a number of other scenes stand out. (Wilkie vs. The Entity is another personal favourite.)

The characterisation is excellently realised - Collins and Dickens are as real seeming, complex and believable as any denizens of the pages of novels. The relationship brings to mind that of Salieri and Mozart and shows how it is possible to both love and hate a friend at the same time - this is a real triumph of the novel, as is the depiction of a man slowly going insane (or possibly just more insane) without properly understanding why or even fully recognising that it is happening.

A favourite aspect of the book for me is that the explanation of the central mystery (i.e. Drood) does not actually explain all of the weird occurances in the book. The reader is left to figure out some of them from clues in the book and still others one has to make a determination about without much evidence one way or another as to the solution. I have my own theory and I'll keep it to myself so as to keep the spoilers down to the trivial level.

My feeling is that this book is worth the time (and effort on occassion) for anybody who was able to enjoy Simmons' most famous SF novels and who also reads widely beyond that single genre - I suspect that if you know the works of Dickens and Collins you will gain more from it in some ways than I did. The imperfections are irritating but, coming full circle, few books this ambitious are without some and they are not so deep as to undermine the book in its entirety.

Some final thoughts: Salieri and Mozart is an obvious comparison, so is Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman; but the latter has completely different aims and is, astonishingly, far less ambitious and far more nearly perfect.