'The Last Dickens,' part five

"'I wonder was Milton visited by angels or by devils when he wrote -- and who is it that appears to me?'" (p. 232)

This book could be subtitled "The Opium Wars." The stuff is everywhere. Osgood is lured into an opium den in search of clues, and nearly done away with; Francis continues to enforce the British trade in India (and it's horrid to read about how Indians could get in trouble for growing a little rice to keep from starving, when all the British wanted them to do was to grow more opium); near Gadshill, the local innkeeper's son has been lost to its siren song. And then there's "Datchery," Dickens's mesmerism patient who renamed himself after one of the author's characters: Why does he leave an opium poppy on Dickens's grave?

Dickens knew well what an opium den looked like, or at least that's Osgood's impression when he enters the place: "Witnessing this squalor was like seeing photographs of scenes from The Mystery of Edwin Drood!" The great unspoken question looming here is, with that knowledge, how would Dickens have viewed his son's career? (Of course, he takes a little himself in the form of laudanum, but for medicinal purposes only -- and it doesn't seem to help much, anyway.)

We don't get any answers to that yet, even though we do flash back again to Dickens on his reading tour. We get more of his kindness and tenderness in this part, and some of his camaraderie with his friends and assistants.

"I have come to be fond of you, Tom. Do not abandon saying your private prayers, as you likely do -- I never have myself, and I know the comfort of it. If I should live to publish more, I'd want you to read my books, whether or not you can make out that they have anything to do with your own life. Will you do it?"

"Yes," Tom said.

"Good, you will be a reader I am proud of." (p. 233)

We also get a rather wild story about a stalker. In an essay for Borders (I think you may need a Borders Rewards membership to read it), Matthew Pearl writes, "As my work continued, in the crevices and corners of my research, I discovered there was an actual Dickens stalker at that exact time." Pretty fascinating discovery, but I doubt that stalker went to the lengths that this one in the book does!

We finish this section with Osgood and Rebecca hot on the trail of the mastermind who both killed Daniel and tried to put Osgood out of commission. As Osgood exclaims, "It must be [the same person]! Dickens himself could not write such a discovery as coincidence!" (p. 252)

Well put.

Comments

[Rob Velella]

Thanks for the info on "The Last Dickens," but I didn't read it (due to spoiler concerns... I can't start reading until I finish my current book!). I grabbed my copy and had it signed last Thursday. I'm looking forward to it! Dickens and "Drood" make such an obvious choice for a 19th-century historical mystery novel... throw in the subplot about the cutthroat publishing industry and I'm hooked already!