DDR: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Day 1 (DDRD 2,129) August 30, 2023

I was so relieved to have finished the dreadful Our Mutual Friend and so anxious to get to The Final Dickens of My Dickens Project that I started The Mystery of Edwin Drood on the same day. Whilst sitting in the waiting room at Honda World.

And? Well, we start with a bunch of folks passed out on a bed in an opium den, so that's different, ennit? 

And then there's this:

“I’d Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call her,” Mrs. Tope blushingly retorts, after being saluted. “Your uncle’s too much wrapt up in you, that’s where it is. He makes so much of you, that it’s my opinion you think you’ve only to call your Pussys by the dozen, to make ’em come.” (10 - 11)

😮

And just a bit later:

"If I could choose, I would choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the world." (13)

😃

Well, hell, who wouldn't? No doubt it would kill you, but what a way to go, right?

And here's one not about Pussy:

"The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain." (14)

Yep, same here, Jack.

Read to page 40. Spine fell off. 259 pages to go. So it looks like in about a week My Dickens Project will be ending. 😭 Though I do have an idea for a coda. 😊

Day 2 (DDRD 2,130) August 31, 2023

Read to page 80. This definitely feels more like Dickens than Our Mutual Friend did.

Dickens used the phrase "much of a muchness" (page 41), and I wondered if that was a reference to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So I Googled. Possibly: Carroll's book was published in 1865, Dickens' in 1870. But possibly not: "...'much of a muchness' first appeared...in the play The Provok'd Husband, 1728, which was a collaboration between John Vanbrugh and Colley Cibber:

Man: I hope.., you and your good Woman agree still.

J. Moody: Ay! ay! much of a Muchness."

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/251550.html#google_vignette

Day 3 (DDRD 2,131) September 1, 2023

Read to page 140. Yes, this text is MUCH more lively than Our Mutual Friend. It's filled with delightful little bits, such as this:

“Indeed, sir! Yes; I knew that Pussy was looking out for me.”

“Do you keep a cat down there?” asked Mr. Grewgious.

Edwin coloured a little as he explained: “I call Rosa Pussy.”

“O, really,” said Mr. Grewgious, smoothing down his head; “that’s very affable.”

Edwin glanced at his face, uncertain whether or no he seriously objected to the appellation. But Edwin might as well have glanced at the face of a clock.

“A pet name, sir,” he explained again.

“Umps,” said Mr. Grewgious, with a nod. But with such an extraordinary compromise between an unqualified assent and a qualified dissent, that his visitor was much disconcerted.

“Did PRosa—” Edwin began by way of recovering himself.

“PRosa?” repeated Mr. Grewgious.

“I was going to say Pussy, and changed my mind;—did she tell you anything about the Landlesses?”

“No,” said Mr. Grewgious. “What is the Landlesses? An estate? A villa? A farm?”

“A brother and sister. The sister is at the Nuns’ House, and has become a great friend of P—”

“PRosa’s,” Mr. Grewgious struck in, with a fixed face.

“She is a strikingly handsome girl, sir, and I thought she might have been described to you, or presented to you perhaps?”

“Neither,” said Mr. Grewgious. 

🤣 Oh, that Dickens. And btw, sorry about hitting you with another Pussy passage, but the Prosa thing just couldn't be got at any other way.

And you know what? Due to over-reading, it looks like I only have five days--or less!--to go here. And I'm starting to feel disappointed about that. Oh, John Irving, if it's not too late, please read Our Mutual Friend  now and have The Mystery of Edwin Drood for your last Dickens meal.

Day 4 (DDRD 2,132) September 2, 2023

Read to page 200. Hmpf...how'd THAT happen? So less than a 100 pages to go now, and given how the first four days of this book have gone, that might be as little as two more days. (!) Very exciting!!

I've read that the last page Dickens wrote...on the day before he died...started with "A brilliant morning shines on the old city..." and ended with "...and then falls to with an appetite."

I've looked about quite a bit, and have found about half of that last "page" in Dickens handwriting at   https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/drood-last-page.html:

Dunno why they didn't include the rest of that "page"--which reads 

Mr Datchery looks again, to convince himself. Yes, again! As ugly and withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the stall seats, as malignant as the Evil One, as hard as the big brass eagle holding the sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the sculptor's representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all converted by them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then shakes both fists at the leader of the Choir.

And at that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir, having eluded the vigilance of Mr Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept, Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener to the threatened.

The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to breakfast. Mr Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance outside, when the Choir (as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to get them on) have scuffled away.

'Well, mistress. Good morning. You have seen him?'

'I'VE seen him, deary; I'VE seen him!'

'And you know him?'

'Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know him.'

Mrs Tope's care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast ready for her lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens his corner- cupboard door; takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom; and then falls to with an appetite (Edwin Drood, p. 277-278).

Day 5 (DDRD 2,133) September 3, 2023

Read to page 270. So...looks like tomorrow is it, then. Have to admit that I'm not ready for My Dickens Project to end just yet, so I may have to do something about that.

Meanwhile, there's this:

"He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit." 

Day 6 (DDRD 2,134) September 4, 2023

Read to page 299...and 🐷 a be, a be, a be, a be...That's All, Folks!

And now I'm wondering if I should take up with one of the "continuations" of this novel. There are several that I know of: Drood by Dan Simmons; The Mystery of Edwin Drood Completed by David Madden; John Jasper's Secret: Sequel to Charles Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, which is credited to Henry Morford and, mysteriously, Charles Dickens, Jr. and Wilkie Collins--what can that mean?; and The D Case, Or The Truth About The Mystery Of Edwin Drood by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini.   Oh, there's also A Great Mystery Solved: Being a Sequel to "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" Gillian Vase...which is three volumes long (!).

Or I could just ease on down the road, 'cause I just finished reading The Complete Works of Charles Dickens!!!

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read, 13.45 Average Pages Per Day

A History of Philosophy Volumes I - XI

History of Civilization in England Volumes I - III

Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Volumes I - III

Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century Volumes I - III

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip IIl Volumes I - III

This Happened In My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611

The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

Peat and Peat Cutting

+

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages

(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages
(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages
(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages
(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages
(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages
(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages
(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages
(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages
(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages
(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages

(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages

(29) Master Humprhey's Clock 4 days, 145 pages
(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages

(35) Christmas Books 17 days, 525 pages

(36) The Annotated Christmas Carol  7 days, 380 pages

(37) Dombey and Son 30 days, 1,089 pages

(38) Sketches by Boz 22 days, 834 pages

2nd 1K Total: 26,834 pages (to SBBII) = 28.76 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 40,273 pages, 20.83 Average Pages Per Day

(39) David Copperfield 21 days, 1,092 pages

(40) The Uncommercial Traveller 12 days, 440 pages

(41) A Child's History of England 10 days, 491 pages

(42) Reprinted Pieces 14 days, 368 pages

(43) Miscellaneous Papers Volume I 18 days, 542 pages

        + 25 pages Bleak Hose and 9 pages Miscellaneous Papers II = 2,000 days' worth.

2nd 1K Total: 29,801pages = 29.8 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 43,250 pages, 21.625 Average Pages Per Day

(44) Miscellaneous Papers Volume II 28 days (don't count, while reading BH), 494 pages
(45) Bleak House 37 days, 1,098 pages

494 - 9 = 485 + 1098 - 25 = 1073 = 1,558 pages towards 3K...in 37 days, for a daily rate of 42+ pages (!).

(46) Hard Times 11 days, 459 pages

(47) Little Dorrit 29 days, 1,606 pages

(48) A Tale of Two Cities 9 days, 460 pages

(49) Great Expectations 16 days, 580 pages

(50) Our Mutual Friend 29 days, 1,057 pages

(51) The Mystery of Edwin Drood 6 days, 314 pages FTR vis-a-vis Dickens: 18,671 pages in 468 days