tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post5138169645479788265..comments2024-02-29T02:37:34.896-06:00Comments on Ivebeenreadinglately: Dickens's mysteriesLevi Stahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-74227320961852525302009-05-04T21:17:00.000-05:002009-05-04T21:17:00.000-05:00This is off-topic, but as a fellow Wodehouse enthu...This is off-topic, but as a fellow Wodehouse enthusiast I thought of you when I was reading the introduction to a Hugh Walpole book recently: it features an excerpt from one of P G Wodehouse's letters...<br /><br />"I [met] Hugh Walpole when I was at Oxford getting my D.Litt. I was staying with the Vice-Chancellor at Magdalen and he blew in and spent the day. It was just after Hilaire Belloc had said that I was the best living English writer. It was just a gag, of course, but it worried Hugh terribly. He said to me, `Did you see what Belloc said about you?' I said I had.—`I wonder why he said that.' `I wonder,' I said. Long silence. `I can't imagine why he said that,' said Hugh. I said I couldn't, either. Another long silence. `It seems such an extraordinary thing to say!'—'Most extraordinary.' Long silence again. `Ah,well,' said Hugh, having apparently found the solution, `the old man's getting very old.'JRSMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04430775461763521797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-7228035769482125942009-05-04T20:13:00.000-05:002009-05-04T20:13:00.000-05:00We really did have a great time in Rochester, and ...We really did have a great time in Rochester, and it's not that long a train ride from London. (Plus, if you're more adventurous/tolerant than I am, you can go from there to the Dickens World amusement park--and then please tell me how strange it is!)<br /><br />And I understand people's trepidation about <I>Drood</I>; fears of its unfinished state kept me from reading it for years. I'm so glad I overcame them.Levi Stahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-45648057933208084442009-05-04T14:21:00.000-05:002009-05-04T14:21:00.000-05:00I think I could have emphasized a bit more how out...I think I could have emphasized a bit more how outrageous Poe's <I>Barnaby Rudge</I> reviews are. Poe had just published or was about to publish the murder mystery "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" - in other words, he had just invented the detective story. So he first <I>assumes</I> that the Dickens novel is also a detective story, or anyways a muder mystery, and then criticizes it for not being a proper detective story. And how could it be, since Poe invented the detective story just shortly after Dickens started publishing <I>Barnaby Rudge</I>!<br /><br />Poe probably did understand what Dickens was doing, but in his reviews he is hijacking the novel for his own purpose. A lot of Poe's reviews are really about Poe. Which, come to think of it, is why it is still enjoyable to read them. <br /><br />Now I want to visit Rochester. <I>Edwin Drood</I> is so good. I have read people saying that they don't want to read it, 'cause what's the point of an unfinsihed mystery? Now I can direct them here.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.com