Book Review | Book Chatter

The Last Dickens
Matthew Pearl
Pub. Date: October 06, 2009
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Format: Paperback, 416pp
ISBN-13: 9780812978025
ISBN: 0812978021

The blurb from the publisher:

Boston, 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s untimely death reaches the office of his struggling American publisher, Fields & Osgood, partner James Osgood sends his trusted clerk Daniel Sand to await Dickens’s unfinished novel–The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But when Daniel’s body is discovered by the docks and the manuscript is nowhere to be found, Osgood must embark on a transatlantic quest to unearth the novel that will save his venerable business and reveal Daniel’s killer.

The Short of It:

A literary adventure of the most enjoyable kind. The Last Dickens is a historical literary thriller that includes a good dose of mystery, lots of bookish references and a smattering of romance all rolled into one.

The Rest of It:

The Last Dickens is a fictionalization that focuses on the unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Although the novel started out a tad slow for me, it didn’t take long for me to get into the story or its characters. As I was reading, I found myself thinking about silent films from the early 1900’s. Why, you ask? Well, the villains in those films were these creepy, shadowy apparitions that appeared out of nowhere. There is much of that in this novel as well. Additionally, the lure of the opium dens and their smoky interiors add to the mysterious air of the novel. Films from that era had to rely on setting and the setting that Pearl paints, draws the reader in.

However, what I really enjoyed were the passages about Dickens himself. Pearl does an excellent job of making Dickens an accessible, compassionate human being. The eccentricities of the author shine through, yet he is a bit softer around the edges…more likable I guess. Earlier in the year I read Drood by Dan Simmons. In that novel, the sections that dealt with Dickens and his American tour seemed a tad tedious to get through. I didn’t find that to be the case with The Last Dickens. Pearl takes the time to focus on Dickens as a man, and not just his readings alone. I felt that this alone helped the reader understand how much this man was loved by his readers.

Another item of importance is that it is not necessary for you to have read any of Dickens’s work. Doing so certainly adds to the experience but The Last Dickens does not require it of the reader. Overall, this reading adventure was well worth the trip and I look forward to reading Pearl’s other works.

Matthew is coming by for another visit on Wednesday, September 30th for a guest post. Be sure to check it out because it will also include a chance to win the book!

If you’d like to read more about Matthew Pearl, click here to visit his website.

To purchase the book, visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or an independent bookseller of your choice. The paperback will be released on October 6th!

Check out the rest of Matthew’s tour stops here.

A big ‘thank you’ to TLC Book Tours for asking me to be a part of this tour.

Thanks to Random House for providing me with this review copy.

A Mercy
Toni Morrison
Pub. Date: November 2008
Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group
Format: Compact Disc
ISBN-13: 9780739332542
ISBN: 0739332546
Edition Description: Unabridged, 4 CDs

The blurb from the publisher:

In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.

Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady.” Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master’s house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.

There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who’s spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens’ mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness.

The Short of It:

Read by the author, this is a mesmerizing story of love, betrayal and pain.

The Rest of It:

I’ve read a few of Morrison’s books and I always have trouble with them. For me, the words lack a certain rhythm and I find myself re-reading pages that I’ve just read. I never understood the draw. That said, my book group chose A Mercy for October’s discussion and I was sort of dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time.

For one, it’s been years since I’ve read one of her books. Perhaps I’ve grown as a reader. Perhaps my experience this time will be different. I promptly went out and got the book, read a chapter or two and then stopped. Nope, still the same. Still haltingly strange for me. So then I ordered the book on audio. It’s read by Toni Morrison and I figured that if it didn’t strike a chord with me, and she was reading it as it was meant to be heard, then I would give up on Morrison altogether.

I’m happy to report that I loved it! Morrison’s voice is melodic at times but definitely has a certain cadence to it. That haltingly strange way of speaking that I mentioned in the book form, is present in her speech patterns, but hearing her voice brought it all together for me. I then went back to the book and had no problems reading it. Have you ever done that?

After smoothing all this out, I settled into the story and found it to be haunting at times, yet the strength of these women amazed me. There is a wonderful interview with the author at the end of the audio book which should not be missed. Now that I’ve had this experience, I plan to re-read some of her other books.

Have you ever had a hard time reading a famous author and then wondered what all the fuss was about? Have you ever resorted to the audio book to see if it was different in some way?

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