Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Another Book to Read in Serial Form
Labels:
Book talk
Back in June I told you about my friend Susan’s blog Serial Readers where everyone was reading and discussing Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son in its original serial form. They are close to finishing that book up and on October 20 will start another Dickens classic, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I never managed to get caught up on Dombey, but I am eager to begin Edwin Drood. One reason Susan picked Edwin Drood was because it’s available on Mousehold Words, a very cool web site that will deliver serial installments of novels to your inbox for free. (Oh no, more opportunity to read at work.) For all the specifics visit the Serial Readers blog.
2 comments:
Just remember he died while he was writing it -- it's an unfinished mystery. And he was prompted to pen it by the success of his pal and former protege, Wilkie Collins. Collins' "The Woman in White" and "Moonstone" are infinitely better books; this is not one of Chuck's finest, alas, and I think he was writing it with an eye to its becoming a play. It doesn't have his other novels' dense textures, IMHO.
The fact that Dickens died before finishing DROOD has inspired many readers (and writers, including playwrights) to conjecture about the ending! The question of "infinitely better books" is also a ready topic. I love those Collins novels, but my favorite (also serialized) is NO NAME. One thing definitely appealing about DROOD is its brief length--at least, for those not accustomed to those loooooong Victorian novels!
Thanks for the advert, Becky!
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