Atlantic City, last minute trips so much fun. Trent Sketch will be broke. If you must know, I'm rec'ing a specific edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood that contains the most convincing ending added to the halfway finished final serialized novel by Charles Dickens. Though honestly, I'm only rec'ing that because I've had people get mad at me before for recommending they only read the Dickens chapters. Sorry for the short post. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is perhaps the most accessible of Dickens longer fiction for the unitiated. The core of what he wrote appears to be a straight forward murder mystery, attempting to identify who killed Edwin Drood. Of course, in true Dickens style, the real purpose is in the details. Unfortunately, also in true Dickens style, the novel was serialized over a long period of time, and he wrote each new section by itself rather than one whole book at once. Meaning when he died, he left no notes and revealed very little detail to anyone on what the Mystery of Edwin Drood actually was. The only surviving clue is a letter to his associate basically proposing a mystery novel where the answer is clear and the mystery is actual misdirection into a more human drama about a murderer coming to terms with his actions. I'm not going to recommend the specific edition. Pick up Drood when you have some down time and give the Dickens chapters a try. If you like those, try the other authors concluding chapters. Some are better than others, though there are certainly versions for every taste.

Labels: DEAR rec