Having been persuaded to follow Dickens into the deepest, darkest part of London in pursuit of the ghostly Drood, Collins halts his narrative briefly "to explain how and why I had chosen to follow Charles Dickens into absurd and dangerous situations before this." But he never really does. He describes having been dragged up and down mountains by his excessively enthusiastic friend -- nearly getting himself killed once, as he impresses upon us several times -- but he doesn't say why he always lets Dickens talk him into these things. And he doesn't say why he's following Dickens into the underworld now -- and when I say underworld, I mean underworld; we're talking secret societies living in the sewers.
We're meant to infer, I think, that Dickens's force of personality is so strong that it simply overwhelms his friend, though Collins, who fancies himself strong-willed, would presumably go to his grave (literally) rather than admit it. Collins isn't exactly a sympathetic character, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him sometimes; there was a time or two I almost wished I could send him a copy of Boundaries. Any of us lethargic types who's ever been drawn along in the wake of an energetic friend knows how hard resistance can be. Collins never appears even to try to resist; he simply stumbles along after Dickens, bitterly resenting him all the time.
As for Drood, Collins hasn't yet actually laid eyes on him, as the mysterious figure prefers to meet with Dickens alone and insists that Collins not come all the way to his subterranean headquarters. But Dickens, revising his opinion drastically, is starting to consider Drood next door to a "saint" with powers of healing. Not so a detective who's been following the two writers around, convinced that Drood is a vicious serial killer and determined to blackmail Collins into betraying Dickens's confidences.
So is Drood a hero or a villain? We don't really know for certain yet. Call me shallow, but I'm inclined to think the worst of a sewer-dwelling, ghoulish-looking hypnotist who claims to have been resurrected from the dead by powers given him by ancient Egyptian gods. But we shall see. . .
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