Sunday, September 11, 2011

"The Last Dickens" by Matthew Pearl

What I enjoyed most about this story was the historical fiction aspect of it.  Historical fiction novels give a person the opportunity to not merely be entertained by a good tale, but also learn something in regards to the past of which one may have not been aware.  I knew Charles Dickens as one of the greatest authors in literature's history; I had no idea he was such a international star as Matthew Pearl demonstrates here.

The thrust of the plot is Charles Dickens is dead.  He has not finished his last book - having written it in a serial form and released through various publications across the world - and everyone is speculating on what the ending may have been.  What became of young Edmund Drood?

Such is the impetus for moving the plot forward.  It works marvelously; and the flashing back and forth between contemporary time and Dickens' last tour of America, create the very real possibility of Dickens having written an ending.  It just needs to be discovered.

While I enjoyed the story immensely, for my reader's eye, something still lacked.  There was something missing, in this telling of Charles Dickens' final story, that makes it impossible to rate with five stars.  Perhaps it was the elevation of him to a 'rock star' status.  Though I had no trouble believing this was the case back in the 19th century, viewing any popular author of my own time with the mania that seemed to follow Dickens, is hard to maintain with any plausible faith.  Even so, it is a story I am glad to have read.

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