The Murder of Mr. Wickham

 

I bought this a few years ago on a lark, thinking to pair something contemporary to Jane Austen July reading. But on reading the back cover I noted that it was, supposedly, a continuation of Emma, a title I’d not yet read. I set it aside, thinking I ought to have greater familiarity with those characters before this; and, let’s be honest, if this were truly a continuation of Emma, albeit a murder mystery, as hinted by the title, I expected there to be a whole lot of spoilers within it concerning the original, spoilers I’d rather not be party to.

How could there be spoilers concerning a 200-year-old book, one asks, one that has a number of screen and television adaptations? Well, I might opine that screen adaptations aren’t always entirely faithful to their source material; and, let’s face facts, after watching thousands of films and tv shows over the course of my life, not everything sticks. So, I set Claudia Gray’s 2022 novel aside for a spell.

To be honest, after last year’s reading of P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley, I wasn’t expecting much. I’d long since come to the conclusion that, published author or not, whomever might hazard an homage to classical works, fan-fiction is fan-fiction. It’s someone’s desire to live in the world of their favourite characters.

I was rather shocked to discover that Claudia Gray (Amy Vincent, but I will continue to refer to her as her pen name, here) is very much one of those authors, and not in a way I might have expected. She has written a whole host of Star Wars novels. Seven, in fact. She is also a prolific fantasy writer, too. Luckily, I did not know this when I purchased this book, or else I may not have done. All prejudices included, I’m sure I would not have done. In my experience, fan-fiction, even that published by publishing houses, is not high-brow. It’s usually only tolerably proficient as literature, in my opinion. You may have a differing view, but I find that publishing houses understand that fans don’t particularly care how poetic the prose may be; indeed, fans prefer that the tale be cinematic, exciting, not layered with theme, nuance, and especially not with devices like unreliable narration. Fans want immersion. They want to live in that world. I’m pleased, then, that I did not know her past publishing history. That said, I wholly expected The Murder of Mr. Wickham to be an immersive experience for Janeites. (Yes, that is the term.) It is just that. So, if I’m not a fan of immersive fan-fiction, then why bother? Simply, I like murder mysteries. I don’t read them often, but I’d a stint when I read Ellery Queen Magazine, alongside Sci-fi pulp mags. Thus, why not? I’m game for a murder mystery set, unexpectedly, in Jane Austen’s Georgian world.

This does not say that something like The Murder of Mr. Wickham is ever going to become a literary classic. It is not Jane Austen. It lacks her biting wit. Her long exacting prose. Her slight of hand in expressing social commentary, when such a thing was not something a respectable lady was invited to do, especially in mixed company; and perhaps not even when not. But, as it turns out, Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham is a tolerable pastiche of Jane Austen. In its favour it is modern as well: in its prose, social comment, in character depiction; and in its being up front in what it is: an homage to Jane Austen. Claudia Gray channels Jane Austen’s books well, in such a way as one need not have read Jane Austen’s works to appreciate her story (and Jane’s, as well).

I might add that while this is indeed a murder mystery, it is not an Agatha Christie mystery. Then again, perhaps it is. Agatha focussed a great deal on character. But, where Agatha focussed a great deal of energy on the actual murder investigation, Claudia Gray leans more on its characters histories. And there are a lot of characters in The Murder of Mr. Wickham. Those characters are not just drawn from Emma, either. Some are her own creation, the son of George Knightley and Emma Woodhouse of Emma , for instance, and the daughter of Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey, who, it turns out, are the protagonists of all of Claudia Gray’s Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery Series, four thus far.

Claudia Gray has taken some liberties: her book is not entirely true to Jane Austen’s books. Her story is a mishmash of the books and the movies. Colonel Brandon’s given name is never given in Sense and Sensibility, itself, but presented as Christopher in the 1995 film. There are other deviations, as well, some greater than others. Colonel Brandon’s ward in the book, for instance, was Eliza Williams; in the film Eliza was Colonel Brandon’s first love, and it was her illegitimate daughter Beth that was his ward. Claudia Gray uses the film’s plot devices and not the book’s; perhaps because, in this day and age, more people are familiar with the film than the book.

I mentioned that Claudia wove a number of Jane Austen’s characters into her story. Those were not only from Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, as already noted, but also Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park. She has made a judgement call on when each of those books take place, in regards to Wickham.

The books were published as follows:

·       Sense and Sensibility (1811, probably set between 1792 and 1797)

·       Pride and Prejudice (1813, set in the early 19th century)

·       Mansfield Park (1814)

·       Emma (1816)

·       Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)

·       Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

None are specifically anchored in time, although dedicated Janeites might be able to suggest, with evidence from the texts, when each either does or possibly takes place. Claudia sets them as follows:

·       Pride and Prejudice (1797-1798)

·       Northanger Abbey (1800)

·       Emma (1803-1804)

·       Persuasion (1814-1815)

·       Mansfield Park (1816)

·       Sense and Sensibility (1818-1819)

Claudia sets out her reasons for this in the introduction. Regardless her reasons for the changes she makes, most concerning how they are connected to the eponymous Mr. Wickham, the story holds together well, in my opinion. The characters are stronger than in Death Comes to Pemberley, smarter, more emotional, more thoughtful, altogether more realistic. Honestly, I found Claudia’s story more entertaining than P.D. James’.

What is more poignant here, to me anyway, is that, although this is a murder mystery, it is altogether more a Jane Austen novel than it is an Agatha Christie one. Which is to say that a great deal of this story concerns itself with how Claudia imagines how these beloved characters’ lives unfold following the plots of their original stories – as it concerns the dastardly doings of the nefarious Mr. Wickham.

Which is kind of what’s it’s all about.

 

Death Comes to Pemberley

 

Jane Austen’s works are quite beloved, so beloved by some, that certain writers and readers alike just can’t get enough of them, even though her oeuvre have been exhausted for centuries. There were only six novels, after all (seven if you count Lady Susan), two others left unfinished, a host of Juvenilia, and poems, prayers, and letters. That’s not a lot, but she died young, only 41 years old.

Now considered one of English Literature’s greatest writers, it only stands to reason that more than a few people lament she had not published as many novels as Stephen King. Then again, it is, possibly, that want for more that has risen Jane so high in our imagination. P.D. James is one such person who did so wish. This comes as a bit of a surprise, given her fame as a mystery writer. But what one writes and what one reads and loves need not be the same. That may be a good thing. To read what one writes might haunt her, with bits of other crime novels creeping into her own, unexpectedly.

P.D. James has only written two novels (as far as I’m aware) that are not crime fiction. The first was Children of Men (1992), a rather chilling near-future SF novel, the other Death Comes to Pemberley (2011).

Death Comes to Pemberley is a continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, set six years after its events. It’s a pastiche, but also a Georgian mystery novel. (Excepting her Children of Men, it would appear that her apple does not fall far from her tree.) Events begin when Captain Martin Denny and George Wickham are passing through a wooded area of Pemberley, when Denny calls for the carriage to stop, he leaps down and runs into the wood. Wickham chases after him. The coachman hears shouts, but horrified by the cries, does not run into the wood. He raises the alarm, and Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam discover Denny’s bloodstained corpse, Wickham beside him, confessing the death is his fault.

An investigation follows. Then a court case. I’ll leave out the rest. You know: spoilers.

P.D. James received generally favourable reviews for her effort. Some were wildly enthusiastic.

I found the book an altogether enjoyable read. Those characters from P&P are true to Austen’s original; and I’ll hazard that P.D. James did her homework concerning English law of the period. But I’m not wildly enthusiastic about this book. It contains a healthy dose of deus ex machina, followed by lengthy denouement. The book fails, in that regard.

If you are unfamiliar with those terms, deus ex machina (god in the machine) is a plot device where an unsolvable conundrum is brought to resolution by an unexpected, or unlikely, occurrence. Denouement occurs after the climax of a novel, where all the dangling strands are drawn together. Consider Hercule Poirot unfolding a mystery by lengthy exposition. Too long a denouement generally points to the author either weaving an unsolvable narrative, leaving out details, or being so oblique in pointing to crucial clues so that the reader could not possibly solve the mystery. (I should not be so dishonest in using Poirot as an example; one must read Agatha Christie carefully; she is never so perfidious; the clues are there, but you must be an industrially observant reader to catcher her out: her most crucial clue may only be a fragment of a sentence.) These days, such practice is generally frowned on. It leaves a bad taste in readers’ mouths. Show, as we say, don't tell.

Is this novel worth your time? That depends: Are you a Jane Austen fan? Do you love novels where contemporary authors revisit, or carry on, the narratives of others? (I have: early Star Trek novels. Long ago. Before the glut. But only those concerning the original series. But that’s another tale.) If you do, you will likely love P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley.

I found it lacking because of that deus ex machina.

Emma

 

I mentioned in an earlier post that, some time ago, I experienced certain BookTubers talking about a thing called Jane Austen July. As I’d never read Jane Austen, but had heard prominent Canadian authors declaring Jane Austen one of English Literature’s greatest writers, I decided to set old prejudices aside and read her most famous of novels, Pride and Prejudice. I was not disappointed. Her prose is precise, exacting, and beautiful. Sense and Sensibility followed, the following year. Then Mansfield Park.

This year, I read Emma, her longest novel. Like all her novels, on its surface it is about single ladies finding their marital match after nine-ish or so months of trials, tribulations, and misunderstandings. Emma is about relationships, sexual mostly, not that Jane Austen would be so bold as to stoop to anything remotely overt or torrid. It is Georgian at its core, after all.

The novel begins with Emma Woodhouse’s former governess’ marriage, to which Emma takes credit, professing that it was she who made the match, followed by Emma’s earnest vow that she, herself, should never marry. Honestly, she would have already, given Regency expectations (she’s 21); but whatever she might say, the real reason for her not having married (not a huge surprise, given that there is a limited supply of eligible bachelors in her village of Highbury) is probably her devotion to, and her caring for, her aging valetudinarian father.

What follows is what one might expect in an Austen novel. Emma snobbishly decides that she knows best, about just about everything. Following her supposed success of having matched Miss Taylor (now Mrs. Weston), she sets about making matches for her lesser status friend, Harriet Smith. Things go awry. Her match marries another. She sets to match her with another, and that is also a failure, for reasons not disclosed here.

All the while, she flirts. She passes judgement on others. She decides on the merit of others’ character, usually wrong, given her limited experience of romantic love and society. Indeed, Highbury is too small to even have dances, until Mrs. Weston’s dashing stepson comes to visit.

Emma is very much a comedy of manners. Emma butts into others’ business. Mr. Knightley despises gossip, but passes judgement on others once Emma expresses her opinion of them on to him. Mr. Knightley, otherwise, is the paragon of patient virtue. Emma’s sister, and Mr. Knightley’s sister-in-law, Isabella, often has little desire to speak on any subject, except her own children. Jane Fairfield appears distant and aloof. Harriet is easily convinced that she might marry above her station (one must not yourself pass judgement on past prejudices; it is what it was). Reverend Elton and his wife are snobs of the first order, he a flirt before marriage, but interested primarily in station and dowry; she, boasting, pretentious, and vulgar. I might opine that Miss Bates, an aging spinster, may be the best of the bunch: she is written for comic effect, is garrulous by nature, and quietly ridiculed behind her back for it by Emma, is hopelessly optimistic, despite her fallen circumstances, always putting others’ wellbeing and happiness before her own.

There is much more to Emma than meets the eye, however. Of course there is. There is subtle nuance: gendered space, for instance. Women spend most of their time “imprisoned” indoors, mostly in drawing rooms. Men’s scenes are primarily outdoors. It’s all about boundaries, opportunities, constraints. There are subtle hints about the “Irish Question.” The women worry what might happen to the Dixons while in “Bally-craig,” in County Antrim, in Ulster, the site of a great deal of upheaval in 1798.

Jane Austen never comes out and pontificates on a subject, but the mere mention in her novels of slavery and Ireland and relatives being in the navy, and their long absences expected, of money troubles, of entailed estates, and inheritances, and doweries, speaks of greater depth than mere romances. Jane Austen is not chic lit.

Am I done with Jane Austen for the year now that July is coming to a close? Yes and no. I’ve begun a contemporary novel, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray. It’s something of a sequel to Emma. And Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. It’s one of a series of murder mysteries set in Jane Austen’s works, this one in Donwell Abbey, Mr. Knightley’s ancestral seat, about 20 years after the events of Emma. It’s an easy read, thus far (I’m only a couple chapters in), the prose good, with characters from the above works introduced without heavy-handed exposition. Ms. Grey (Amy Vincent) obviously loves Jane Austen’s works. Which is surprising, given her other works: She’s written several Star Wars novels. And Fantasy novels. One doesn’t expect a science fiction and fantasy writer to also write Agatha Christie inspired Jane Austen murder mysteries. But she does.

I’ve also begun Lucy Worsley’s celebrated biography of Jane, Jane Austen at Home. Again, I’m only a chapter in, but it’s obviously meticulously researched, as one would expect of the Chief Curator for Historic Royal Palaces, and the host of God knows how many thought-provoking television documentaries. She is a self described Janeite.

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago is, without a doubt, a masterpiece. That said, Boris Pasternak’s 1957 novel is less known than David Lean’s 1965 film. Indeed, I expect most people who’ve seen the film haven’t read the novel. That’s a pity.

I say this because until recently, I was one of those people. For shame. I’ve no excuse. Pasternak’s novel sat on my shelves for years, an old copy, bought at a fundraiser book sale, picked up then with every intention of experiencing Lean’s tale in its original form. Dissatisfied with the old copy, I bought it again, anew (as I often do), in its most recent translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, theirs being expectedly modern in its prose, as I found them to be with their Crime and Punishment.

I love the film. It’s epic, both in vision and scope, typically David Lean, and for a long time it was my gateway to understanding the Russian Revolution. It’s also what I expect of Lean, he who gave us The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. I note that all his films I’m familiar with are adaptations: Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Brief Encounter, Ryan’s Daughter, A Passage to India. All are excellent, in my opinion. So, it comes as no surprise that his version of Doctor Zhivago is, as well. I say “his version” because it is its own self. It is not the book. It hits all the salient plot points of the novel but, regardless how excellently it succeeds as a film, it is lesser than Pasternak’s book.

People who know me would nod sagely at this declaration and say, of course you’d say that, that the book is better than the film. I do, too; most of the time. I recall hearing somewhere that one can make a great film from a mediocre book, but that it is next to impossible to make a great film from a great book. There’s some truth in that. Perhaps there is a great deal of truth in that. But that is not always the case. Zhivago is one such case. So too most of Lean’s filmography. (I’m a Lean fan, obviously.) This does not mean that Lean’s film, however great, is the book’s equal. Lean’s film does an excellent job outlining Russian history concerning the period leading up to the Revolution and its civil war; it does an even better job romanticising Zhivago’s and Lara’s love affair. It fails, however, it charting Zhivago’s ideology, and his journey in becoming an inspired poet.

Lean’s film simplifies Zhivago’s life, insofar as it focuses on the love triangle as the core of its narrative. It glosses over the social commentary riven throughout, the privilege of the rich, the inequality of the poor and working classes, and the prior revolutions that ignited because of it; indeed, it even glosses over the Great War, the Revolution, and the years of civil war that followed. All are mere framework in preference of a story that would move American audiences: true love. Not cultural tidal forces, not muse.

Pasternak’s Zhivago has so much more depth. More formative characters (most largely excised in the film) who weave in and out of the story, each a necessary device to enlighten we readers who did not experience the events lived through, giving us firsthand accounts on how those who did endured the hardships and horrors. Certain characters, Komarovsky and Strelnikov, for instance, are far more nuanced, one more villainous, the other more empathetic. Both entail more in their effect than in page count. Honestly, I was surprised at how limited Lara’s presence is in the book, how much is inferred. Yet, she is his primary muse.

A note on names, just to muse on the novel’s depth, if only a little. Zhivago is not just Yuri’s surname. It is a metaphor for both his profession and his soul. Its Russian root is zhiv, meaning life. Larissa (Lara) is a Greek name meaning “bright, cheerful.” Komarovsky’s Russian root is komar, meaning mosquito. Yuriatin, where much of the story revolves around, is Russian for Yuri’s town. Strelnikov (Pavel Antipov), although a real surname, is shortened from Rasstrelnikov, meaning executioner.

The entire novel, if I may be so bold, is Yuri’s evolution into poet. It is why the novel carries on after his death, until his poems are collected and published. It is why his poems complete the novel, and are not scattered about within it. You don’t have to read them. Not really. Notes at the end of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation inform me that they are more lyrical in their original Russian, that we miss out on their rhyming scheme, even their meter, that they focused more on meaning than on adhering as closely as possible to literal translation. Perhaps that’s a good thing. One would have to ask someone who reads Russian, and has an ear for poetry, to find out if artistry was lost in translation. One can only judge what one reads. I read them. I'm a completest.

One thing is true, at least to me, is that Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago is a beautiful book, despite its themes of loneliness and disillusionment, perhaps because of them. It's sad. It's painful. It sometimes reads like a dream. The narrative frequently focusses on environment and emotion, on pathos, and not the epic struggles that herd the characters unto their ultimate fates. It follows observation and reflection and inspiration, not just cause and effect and aftermath. It does that, as well. But events are the lesser of the two, however poignant. All is seen through the eyes of an artist. A Poet.

Will it remain in print as long as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? I don’t know. Time will tell. It ought to, I believe. I hope. Pasternak, in my view, is their heir apparent in Russian literature. And that’s saying something.

The Road

 

There are quite a few apocalyptic stories: On the Beach, I Am Legend, The Stand, Oryx and Crake, Station Eleven; the list goes on. In them, the world parishes by nuclear fallout, disease, climate disaster; it burns, it drowns, it bakes, it starves. It matters not, in this genus, how it dies that fascinates; it is how we cope during its dying.

This one, Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel, The Road, is fascinating in that regard. It details the journey of a father and son, unnamed, travelling south to the sea. Where they began their journey is as undisclosed as their names. So too is the method by which the world is dying. All we know is that their world is by all accounts dead, burned and blackened, adrift in black soot that shifts underfoot, its sky as grey and colourless as the bleached buildings they pass. It’s perpetually twilight. Choking. Dust, kicked up, takes its good time settling. Perpetually astir. No amount of rain cleans the air. It remains acrid and gritty, regardless how much falls from the relentless blanket of clouds that all but block out the sun and moon. The man coughs, despite his always wearing a rag mask to filter out the soot, its inner face as bloody from his breath as the outer is black by what it can never wholly hope to filter. The boy fares better; perhaps because the man tends to his every want and need, abstaining his own comfort and safety, even his own sustenance, in hope that his child will survive, even if he, himself, may already be doomed. Food is scarce, starvation always mere days away. Far more immediately dangerous, however, are the gangs of murderous maneaters roaming the same roads they do.

Have I enticed you to read this masterpiece? Probably not. How can you read something like that, you ask? But you should. McCarthy paints a far more vivid picture than any other who’ve approached the same canvas. J.G. Ballard attempted a similar desperate world in The Drought, albeit his was as sunburnt and dry as McCarthy’s is duskish and wet. But where both depict desperation in what appears to be the end-of-days, Ballard’s prose does not reek of it like McCarthy’s does. Cannibalism is hinted at in The Drought, whereas in The Road it is held up to the light. In The Drought, the cast of characters retain the semblance of civilisation, despite their need. Their presumed cannibalism does not horrify; indeed, one character has grown fat on it, yet remains altogether amiable to its protagonist. Not so in The Road. Predatory humans prowl the road, armed with homemade mediaeval weapons. Their slaves haul waggons, are locked in cellars, their amputated limbs cauterised to keep the meat alive for perhaps weeks of judicious paring. The victims are as dehumanised as their wardens. It’s all terribly horrifying. Yet our glimpse of these horrors is sparing. The true horror remains the landscape, the environment, and impending starvation. The man and the boy subsist on what can be scavenged: canned food, scrapings of seeds and flour and cornmeal, all of it suspect until ingested. The fatigue of hunger looms over them. As does injury and infection. Perhaps the greatest horror of all, though, is the hopelessness of their seemingly pointless journey.

Why are they headed south? The man tells the boy that it will be better down there. It will be warmer. He does not outwardly suggest that there will be more food – he knows that there won’t be. It is implied, however. How can there be? The world is burnt, after all. It remains unchanged, no matter how many miles and months they travel. If anything, it gets darked. Colder. Snowier. And wetter. I suspect the only reason they are headed south is because all hope had been depleted from wherever it is they began from, and to give the boy hope.

I will leave their fate undisclosed. Being a McCarthy novel, it is as painful and uncertain as all his are. But, it's a beautiful book, nonetheless, despite its bleak narrative. It is striking in its style. Its prose is as terse as Hemingway’s, succinct, sharp. Its grammar is explicitly McCarthy’s. His use of contractions is not what I would call conventional. He disdains dialogue punctuation. Dialogue is terse, seemingly pointless, yet pregnant with emotion. There is stream of consciousness. Sentence fragments. It does take a moment to get accustomed to, but it is always clear, as Faulkner’s (similarly stylistic, to my eye) rarely is to me.

This might be McCarthy’s best novel (I’ve not read them all, so take this with a grain of salt). I’m not saying this because The Road won the Pulitzer Prize, I’m saying this because I found it the most horrifying and emotionally gripping of all his that I’ve read.

The Drought

 

“He looked at the craft beached around him. Shadowless in the vertical sunlight, their rounded forms seemed to have been eroded of all but a faint residue of their original identities, like ghosts in a distant universe where drained images lay in the shallows of some lost time.” ― J.G. Ballard, The Drought

For someone who’s taken pride in my love of SF, I must humbly admit that I was wholly ignorant of the works of J.G. Ballard, until recently. For shame, some may say. In my defence, I might mention that my choice of reading material, living in Northern Ontario, might have been described as limited. To be fair, we did/do have a bookstore, albeit a chain. We even had an independent bookstore, for a while, too. Neither was all that large. Neither was small either – I’ve been in used bookstores whose selection beggared both combined. So, it goes without saying, before the internet, what we saw was what they had. And that was what we knew, that and word of mouth, and those lists of titles available from the publisher we might find in the paperbacks purchased. We, here, also live in the American sphere of influence, further limiting what might be had – its America-centric, but I guess you figured that out (indeed, even Canadian authors are not as widely known here in Canada as they ought to be). So, it comes as no surprise then that British authors would/could be somewhat unknown to us/me.

That’s no excuse, you might say, citing it’s been a long time since the internet made titles and authors once largely unknown in that foggy, mythical land of Before available. All true. But tastes and interests migrate. And it’s only now, in these years of nostalgia, that I’ve been looking back, revisiting old loves, and discovering new ones along the way.

I can’t say that I’m all that familiar with Mr. Ballard, even now. I know of a number of books that he wrote, that he’s a celebrated member of the New Wave of science-fiction, and that his Empire of the Sun is autobiographical. I also know that Crash was adapted to the screen, a Cronenberg film that baffled me then, and confuses me still. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me some time to read Ballard. But Ballard kept coming up in YouTube videos I was watching, largely praising this, to me, unknown master of speculative fiction. It was their praise that convinced me to give him a try, despite my tepid dislike of Crash.

Was The Drought (1965, originally published in the UK as The Burning World, 1964) my first Ballard? It was not. That was The Drowned World (1962). Both are part of Ballard’s apocalyptic tetralogy, beginning with The Wind from Where (1961), culminating in The Crystal World (1966). In each, the world as we know it has come to an end (or is in the process of) from destructive winds, from solar disturbances that melt the ice caps, from industrial pollution bringing an end to rain over landmasses, or by the crystallisation of the world. Each stand alone. One need not read them in order, or in total, either.

I can’t comment on the first and last, but the middle two are good. Some might refer to them as masterpieces. I preferred The Drowned World, personally. I found The Drought to be a little uneven; indeed, I found the main character of The Drought to be less a protagonist than an observer. He barely plays a part in even his own narrative. Granted, he’s in shock; and despite his being a doctor, his skills are in limited use, considering the lack of materials and facilities available to him as society brakes down and the populace is in a destructive, predatory, self-preservation, downward spiral. Relationships are largely disposable, understandably, each out for themselves, for the most part; but this is a novel, and narrative arcs are what hold a story together. Story ought not to drift, as the characters here would be expected to do, unearthing water sources and food supplies. As they understandably would. There ought to be an actual plot beyond mere survival. That said, the horror of surviving in this dying world is only hinted at, glossed over, even comic in its portrayal; unlike how vivid those horrors are depicted in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Ballard's survivors are far less horriying in their loss of humanity as are McCarthy's. I expect that is why McCarthy's apocolyptic world is the greater and more famous of the two.

The Drought, by Criss Foss

I might add that I was somewhat distracted by the world itself. It is imaginary. Though British, Ballard’s Burning World is not England. It is not the continent, either. The characters all have English names. They travel hundreds of miles south to the sea (a ludicrous direction on an island nation), leading me to believe that this book must take place in a fictional North America, and that the riverbed they follow must be the Mississippi (otherwise why not head north to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, or east towards the coast). Yet the book is replete with English jargon, leaving me wondering from time to time, what the hell is a…. So too flora and fauna. We have precious few rooks here in North America, for instance. He was obviously writing for his English audience and peppering his books with things he and they would recognise.

I did enjoy it, however, despite my grievances. In fact, I'm glad I've found him and his voice. Ballard reminds me of Ray Bradbury and John Wyndham, insofar as his stories are not really about tech or even how the world came to drown or burn, his books are about how people would be affected by what if happening to them, on how they might cope with their new paradigm: altruistically, predatorily, or even catatonically. Perhaps that is why J.G. Ballard remains popular, decades after his death.

I recommend you have a dictionary hand while reading Ballard, or a search engine, just so that you can translate his Britishisms, if you are not familiar with his vernacular. Don’t be put off by that, either; the British have likely had the same criticisms of American vernacular, too.

 

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

 

I have to wonder of this was a prophetic read, however old this book may be. That sounds bleak, doesn’t it. And polarising, depending on your politics. I have hopes, though, that things are not as they were in 1934; and that the panic I sometimes feel, when consuming 24-hour diatribes on our “news” networks, is merely a natural reaction to their bid for Neilson ratings, and not the imminent rise of the end of days. That is neither here nor there, here.

What’s germane here is my sense of accomplishment at having finally read this brick that has loomed over my bookshelves for many a year, William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. When I say year, I mean decades. I mean that literally. I bought this tome back in the Eighties, and after a rather lackluster first stab at its nearly 1500 pages of fairly fine print (my attention span was, shall we say, shorter then), I set it aside for lighter reading, daunted by its heft, believing that it would take as many months to complete as that long ago war waged. Little did I know how long it would remain perched on my shelves. Indeed, it would remain on those shelves even after a move, even after those selves were upgraded to larger, loftier, units. Before long, I wondered if I ever would read it cover-to-cover; always telling myself… someday….

One day, rather recently (in relation to the length of my not-too-short life), in a lock-down, far, far away, I decided, I would finally give Shirer’s epic history its long-awaited go. And give it a go I did. This is not to say I succeeded. I did manage far more pages than I did in that first attempt, but I did not plow through Rise and Fall… as I had intended. I did not fail, entirely, though. I managed to not set Shirer’s history back on the shelf, merely burying it under “more pressing” volumes on my end table. After a time, I picked it up again, sure that this time was indeed the time I would riffle through it. This time, I decided, I would not fail; that I would have a strategy: I would read ten pages a day, every day, whilst I read other books. I succeeded in this. And before long, as I watched my bookmark inch along the spine, those 10 pages grew to 20. And, before I knew it (not as quickly as this sounds, however), I found myself very near the end. And then, finally, I did come to the end. I felt like I’d scaled the Matterhorn!

Was it worth it? Yes. Very much so! It’s a remarkable work, as detailed and as insightful as only someone who lived through those dark days could expound.

It is dated, though. It’s a work of its time: a top-down history. Today, most histories are bottom-up. What’s the difference? Top-down is fact and event oriented. It may contain excerpts from letters and diaries, but only insofar as those entries add detail to the events related. Bottom-up is far more personal. More immersion. Letters and diaries entries are integral to giving the reader what feels like firsthand experience to the events as they unfold. A great many bottom-up histories will follow only a few “diarists,” so as to give the most dramatic experience possible, allowing the reader to empathise with those living through the events related. Shirer, however, has no wish for us to empathise with his diarists. His were the generals and the architects of the Third Reich. Even hapless conspirators who professed to end Hitler’s reign, if doing nothing. Or failing. His intent is to unveil that heinous regime in all its horror, for what it was, and not, in any way, apologise for their actions. He does that with great skill.

I will not detail the events within this weighty tome. Most people alive are already well acquainted with the events of the Second World War and all its horrors. Or should I say, I hope they are. I do wonder, at times, though. If they are not, I would wish this book were required reading. For everyone. It is still, I believe, one of the best histories of the War. But it is Reich-sentric. Let’s be clear about that. What happens outside Germany is merely mentioned, only insofar as it is relevant to what is unfolding within the Reich. Thus, the United States does not loom large here; indeed, it is barely mentioned until it begins its convoys to beleaguered Britain. Britain and the Soviet Union are far larger players in the Reich’s narrative; probably because they were of greater concern to Nazi Germany than even it's allies, Mussolini’s Italy, and Imperial Japan (which hardly factors in, at all). What is of greatest weight is Shirer’s firsthand accounts: He was an American journalist within the Reich, until he had to exit from there upon America’s entrance in the war. His “Berlin Diary” is as important to this work as it is in its own right; as is his having reported on the Nuremberg Trials. It was these writings that allowed this work to be as personal as it is. And as insightful. No one else (then, anyway) could have given us the book he did.

I obviously recommend this book, however daunting it may appear; but if the reader is not well versed with the overall history of WW2, I would recommend they look elsewhere first, overarching documentaries, perhaps, before diving in.

So, why would I say this book is prophetic? Because, to my mind, anyway, there are worrisome parallels today around the world to those early days before Weimar Germany became Nazi Germany. Is it just fearmongering? Is it that we, as humans, find patterns everywhere, even if there are none? Perhaps. I do hope, though, that no country finds itself travelling down the road of autocratic totalitarianism ever again. Or that anyone should ever have to experience such horrors as the people then did. Or those who do now do.

Not to belabour the point, but,

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.” ― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Regardless my polemic, William Shirer’s spic history is likely one of the most important contemporary histories ever written, I would wish that everyone read it.

Piranesi

 

“The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

Second books are hard. Especially if the first was a massive success. They must live up to a high standard, even more so than as they ought to – all books ought to meet high standards, to my mind – because, let’s face facts, they have big shoes to fill. Piranesi was one such.

I confess that I did not purchase this sophomore effort when it was first published. I read its blurb and found it less inspiring than Susanna Clarke’s first effort, the celebrated Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. How could this slim volume compare with a work ten years in the writing, I wondered.

Long story short, having recently consumed a number of videos in which reviewers praised it, some even declaring Piranesi better than Ms Clarke’s much lauded “masterpiece,” I finally bit the bullet and read it.

What did I think? I think it’s good; but I do not believe it anywhere near as good as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. My opinion. But, to be fair, they are very different experiences. JS&MN is epic in scope (some might find it daunting, in length, in style, and in pace); it’s Georgian, and Dickensian. Piranesi, on the other hand, is contemporary. JS&MN is replete with myth, and indeed history; Piranesi lacks this. That said, it is evocative of other works: Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s prints, “Imaginary Prisons”; Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”; with allusions to C.S. Lewis’ Narnia. This is not to say that it lacks style. It positively radiates this. But given its narration style, Piranesi is lacking in that we, the reader, never truly understand how Piranesi’s world came into being.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s “Imaginary Prisons”

Piranesi’s world is a labyrinth of rooms, each lined with statues: of animals, and lovers and kings, and monsters of every imagining. It’s hinted that these rooms were possibly dreamed into being. That’s all well and good; but one wonders how flocks of birds and schools of fish find their way into a universe dreamt into existence by humans, if indeed we did do just that. There are tides, and seasons, and night and day; but no inhabitants other than our limited cast of players. Though interesting, I did not find myself convinced of its existence, regardless that it does indeed exist.

What I did find intriguing was Piranesi, himself, his having been altered by his world. Why is he called Piranesi? That is explained – a little; but not completely; suffice it to say that he is christened that by the only other soul he knows. One must work a little, reading outside this work for greater illumination. Speaking of that other person, I was also intrigued by the cast of players within this morality play. Far too many spoilers would be risked by discussing them in any detail here. Suffice it to say, I was left questioning most of their motivations. Why do they do what they do? To what end? Enough on that.

I was, however, most pleasantly surprised by the novel’s denouement, if not its conclusion, for reasons left unsaid – sit would be criminal to spoil the experience. It is most profound.

Piranesi is worth a read. More so, I believe, if you haven’t read JS&MN. Even if you have. As already noted, they are very different experiences. But each is as surreal as the other. I, personally, found Ms Clarke’s first effort a far more immersive and satisfying one. Perhaps this novel is as deep, and tightened to only its essential elements, but I still prefer her weightier tome. That said, I’m still pleased to have finally read Susanna’s sophomore effort.

 

“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

A Short Stay in Hell

Cover design by Matt Page

Know your audience. That’s good advice; and I ought to listen to that voice in my head that tells me not to venture where I’m sure to embark when I’m about to open my mouth and gush forth to someone I already know will not appreciate (or perhaps even tolerate) the subject raised. But sometimes enthusiasm and the desire to share overwhelms that wisdom and I find myself doing just what it warns me not to.

Point in case: I’ve mentioned my having read the novella “A Short Stay in Hell” to two souls outside my household. One was a reader. He, I already knew from past discussions, read widely, and wished to read more widely still. He had, it turned out, already read Steven L. Peck’s novella of 2009 and was wildly enthusiastic it, telling me that he had found himself spiritually disconnected from himself after having completed this short work. The other, not a reader, was instantly dismissive of both it (which he declared, before hearing me out, stupid) and me, inferring – my projection – that I was crazy to have even wanted to read such a thing; or anything at all, I imagine.

I ought to have never broached the subject with the second person in question: He (who’ve I been acquainted with for decades), to my mind, has never been a deep thinker: he professes to enjoy SF, but has never read science fiction – indeed, he could not name a single SF author to save his life; he watches science documentaries, but never ponders anything beyond the mere facts he’s consumed. Am I being dismissive of this individual? I suppose I am. But one wonders how someone can not ponder what eternity truly means in context of the human experience if come face to face with the very question. Or am I unique in this?

I mention this because this short work, this novella in question, does exactly that. It explores how we, finite beings with limited perspective, might weather eons of existence.

Illustration by Erik Desmazieres

The premise: a devout Morman passes away, and discovers that he is being sent to Hell because he is not a disciple the true faith. What faith, do you ask, as he does, is the true faith? Zoroastrianism. The protagonist had never even heard of Zoroastrianism. Neither had those others seated before the surprisingly amicable demon who was processing them. The demon looks horrific, but is amicable, and quite apologetic concerning their fate. But he is also businesslike in the application of his task. Each is whisked off to their individual hell without much delay. But before their dispatch the demon mentions that, unlike Christianity’s dire eternal damnation, Zoroastrianism’s hell is only temporary, merely a short stay while the soul earns its redemption for not believing what it ought to have. Our protagonist, our amicable demon notes, was an avid reader in lie, and so decides he knows the exact sort of destination that should suit him.

Dis, by Stradanus

Soren (our protagonist) suddenly finds himself next to an unimaginably vast bookshelf, a hell apparently modelled after Jorge Borges’ Library of Babel, one decidedly and horrifically similar to Dante’s City of Dis, that appears to stretch unto eternity, up, down, left and right. Across a not overly wide chasm is another identical wall of shelves, where, like those culturally similar souls he finds himself among (all American, all Caucasian, all in their peak of youth and fitness), innumerable other souls mill about, as he must, searching for a selection of volumes describing their personal life story, detailed to second. This will be no quick or easy task, given that the library contains every possible book, even those comprising gibberish, random symbols, books of all As, all Bs, books where the text of “War and Peace” has every second letter an A, or B, or asterisk, or ellipsis. One wonders how long our protagonist might have to search such a library to find his biography?

The book is essentially an exploration on how this might affect a human intellect, or soul, as it were, should it find itself in such a hell. How the monotony experienced might drive one to eons of depression. Or to madness. Or cruelty.

What it truly terrifying is how countless eons, innumerable billions of years, the lifespans of consecutive universes, are only a sliver of eternity. How short is a short stay in hell when compared with eternity?

This book is indeed philosophy. It is also heartbreaking and horrific.

Its intent was lost of the second soul I spoke with; but he also has no interest in faith or philosophy. Or deep thought of any kind, I imagine.

Its meaning was not lost on the first. Or on me.

Wide Sargasso Sea

 

I made mention earlier that Jean Rhys wrote a parallel novel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I also made mention that it is a worthy edition to Charlotte’s deeper narrative within her Gothic romance. (At its heart, Jane Eyre is just that, regardless its explorations of class, sexuality, religion, and feminism, wrapped within its bildungsroman format.)

So too is Wide Sargasso Sea; but where JE is rather melodramatic at times (especially in regard to its romantic exchanges), WSS is anything but. Hers is powerfully visceral in the modern sense where Charlotte Bronte’s novel is steeped in its Victorian sensibilities. Indeed, it is extremely modern in its bald-faced condemnation of what passed as normal at the dawn of the Victorian Age.

Georgian and Victorian novels rarely make mention of the British Empire’s practice of slavery on its West Indian plantations. Readers have to come to that realisation themselves. If they do. (I wonder how many do, really, as the narratives of novels of the day focus instead on how dashing the bourgeoisie were on their home shores, merely making mention that Mr. ___ make 20,000 pounds a year, and not how they made such a princely sum.) One need not guess in WSS. Edward Rochester (never named) is sent to Jamaica to land the wife of his family’s choosing, whose plantations were once explicitly called out for that practice. The family he marries into, although not slave-owning then, had history of just that prior to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, whose enacting impoverished the long-standing affluent Creole family.

The novel is largely not Edward’s story, however. It is Bertha’s, Edward’s mad wife discovered in Edward Rochester’s Thornfield attic in Jane Eyre, long since hidden away so as to bury what would surely have been a family scandal. Or should I say that it is Antoinette Cosway’s …. 

Let’s back up. Bertha Mason? Antoinette Cosway? They are one and the same. Jean Rhys had to do a little smoothing out in her rewriting our madwoman’s story. She has right to. Jean Rhys, a 4^th generation Creole of Welsh and Scottish descent, was a Dominican born (that’s the island of Dominica and not the Dominical Republic) British writer, who grew up in the West Indies. As she might thus know a thing or two about the West Indies, Jean Rhys can make some minor adjustments to Charlotte Bronte’s tale that do not meet her understanding of the islands.

Her decisions bring this novel to life. We learn a thing or two about West Indies history, about the culture there in the 19^th Century, about the stratums of race and society and poverty, and about the lingering hatred of the West Indian Blacks for the Creoles who owned them and oversaw the plantations. We’re treated to sights and sounds and smells, to dense forests, crashing seas, blinding days and humid nights aflutter with moths and abuzz with the cacophony of the unseen, and of the corruption of sickly-sweet orchids. Just enough to inform us that this is not an English novel; this is a Creole novel.

We follow Antoinette, not long after the collapse of Coulibri, the now impoverished sugar plantation she grows up on. Antoinette’s mother is forced to remarry, and their family’s return to affluence enrages those “native” blacks who once toiled under their oppression. Antoinette’s (simple-minded) younger brother perishes as Coulibri burns; her mother is driven mad by the loss. Antoinette is eventually “sold off” to an English aristocrat, who ultimately learns that his bride’s family is plagued by feeblemindedness and madness. He ceases to love her, and Antoinette’s precarious emotional state collapses, lending credence to the lies he’s heard concerning her family.

The story unfolds as we expect, its plot ultimately dictated by Charlotte Bronte’s classic Gothic novel.

The two novels are as similar as they are wildly different. As they must be. Charlotte Bronte’s novel is rooted in the English countryside she knew and understood. In Gentry and Aristocracy, in country manors and in charity boarding schools (otherwise known as orphanages). Her heroine is a governess, a calling she understood all too well. Charlotte knew little of the West Indies, a likely mythic land told of by few she knew and far between by those who very likely had interests there (sugar) but likely never set foot there personally. Hearsay, we shall say. Jean Rhys knew that world intimately from personal experience. I can only imagine how shocked and betrayed she must have felt coming “face-to-face” with Bertha Mason, that dark-skinned, animalistic, “madwoman in the attic,” and how she became compelled to humanise that unsympathetic, homicidal villain.

She did. Antoinette Cosway is as human and sympathetic as Bertha Mason can not be. I, personally, did grieve for Bertha, shut up as she was, under lock and key, denied sympathetic companionship and any pretense of humane compassion. Is it any wonder that she was mad? Were she not before being entombed, she must surely have been driven to be after years of confinement. 

I must say that I’m very happy to have read this on the heels of Jane Eyre. I wasn’t sure if I would be. I expected it to merely be a feminist rant against Charlotte’s novel. It is, I suppose. But it is so mush more, as well. One should not read one without the other, to my mind, because, in the end, both Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway are both remarkable characters. Jane is strong and pragmatic. She has a certain autonomy, ingrained in her by her boarding school upbringing. She is independent when women then could rarely claim to be. She is lucky in that regard because Antoinette was never given the opportunity to become what Jane could. She never had independence, never had control of her inheritance, no money, no marketable skills – no future; and she paid the price for that.

Jane Eyre

 

In my thoughts on Wuthering Heights, I gave Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre faint praise, which is rather unfortunate. It does not deserve it. Indeed, Jane Eyre may be as beloved as Emily’s presumably darker tale.

Is Wuthering Heights indeed darker? I do wonder about that on reflection. In many ways Charlotte’s debut novel is as dark as Emily’s sole novel, both published in 1847. That said, Wuthering Heights, despite its intermittent unreliable narration, is a far more straightforward tale, however coloured by Heathcliff’s earlier abuse and latter brutality. (If you have not read it, I highly recommend it to you.) Jane Eyre, on the other hand, was notable for its social commentary (not that Wuthering Heights does pull punches in that regard) seen through rather Calvinistic Jane’s eyes.

One should not diminish Jane, however. She is a strong female character, written at a time I expect this was a rare thing. She endures prejudice, exclusion, “banishment,” loneliness, and uncertainty. She also radiates strength, overcoming all these setbacks, and decides to make her way in the world.

It is when she accepts a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall that this novel truly begins and becomes the Gothic tale it is probably most noted as. Things are not as they seem in Thornfield Hall. Not that we are aware of this to begin. Jane settles in, and eventually catches the eye of dark, strong, and stern Edward Rochester. One wonders about the attention he directs towards her. He ought not to; he’s her employer, after all…. Things progress.

But as I mentioned earlier, all is not as it seems. 

 

I can’t not spoil this novel if I’m to do it justice.

Beware below if you haven’t read this novel and don’t want the story ruined. 

 

What lies beneath (on in this case, locked in the attic) is the darkness that shadows Rochester: Bertha. Rochester has a dark past, one rooted in the sunny Caribbean. Rochester, a 2^nd son, was sent to Jamaica to marry an heiress. He does. While there, his father and his elder brother pass away, and he becomes lord of the hall, twice over rich now.

But Bertha’s family has a history of madness, one she herself can’t escape. She goes mad, and Rochester decides to take her away from the West Indies back with him to England, where he hides her away, his marriage secret.

This explains Rochester’s sullen nature, and why he spends so little time at his ancestral seat, preferring to spend his time in London and on the continent, flirting much, but never marrying, gaining the reputation of a philanderer while at it, one imagines.

Rochester returns to Thornfield, becomes smitten with Jane. Our story unfolds.

It is dark indeed. 

It’s quite a tale. I found Charlotte’s prose less engaging than Emily’s. I also thought the dialogue that passes between Jane and Edward wooden. To be fair, the novel is over 200 years old. And I wonder how much experience she herself had with romantic love. Charlotte was a governess, and only married years after this novel was published. Take that as you will.

I might note that another novel is linked to this one: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Published in 1966, Ms. Rhys sought to tell the tale of the mad woman in the attic, fleshing her out, humanising her. It is defiantly a feminist take on what lies before and beneath Charlotte’s classic novel, but a believable one, a decidedly powerful one.

I’ll speak on this later.

Wuthering Heights

 

Is this one of English literature’s greatest achievements? It might be. It is certainly a much beloved classic.

It did take me some time to come to it, however. I expect that may be because, like most males, I’d come to the conclusion, without ever having read it, that it was a girl’s novel – chic lit, as it were.

Why then did I finally read it? Because I’d decided that I ought to read what I had not when I was younger: important classics. What was I reading then? SF and horror originally; then Fantasy once I’d been introduced to D&D. Some thrillers. Then Can Lit (that’s Canadian Literature). One might imagine that I inched my way towards better literature as I aged. That is true, but it is also pejorative. Who says that any form of literature is better than another? (I do, to some extent, if I’m being honest; I always have, and likely always will.) Read what you like. But I encourage one and all to challenge themselves to read outside their comfort zone.

Which brings me to Wuthering Heights. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found betwixt its covers. It’s a frame narrative: the “narrator” is a man who tells a story about a woman who tells him a story. Both might be considered unreliable narrators. The man, Mr. Lockwood, pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff, and finds a sullen and inhospitable household. Snowed in, he reads a diary by a Catherine Earnshaw he finds in the room he’s shown to. Lockwood later returns to the house he is renting (Thrushcross Grange), falls ill, and while recovering his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, tells the tale of how Wuthering Heights came to be as it is now. Nelly tells a captivating tale, presumed accurate and reliable, but her story is coloured by her recollections, her love of the people involved, and her prejudices against what they’ve done to one another. One then must parse her praises and condemnations by what we learn in the narrative, and come to one’s own conclusions on what she speaks on. In time, Nelly’s tale brings us up to the current date. And in time, Mr. Lockwood leaves, only to return months later, and we discover how their story resolves.

I will not tell you how it ends. Indeed, I will not tell you how the plot plays out at all. Either you already the book and know already or you haven’t and don’t. If you don’t, my telling you will spoil the tale if you’ve a mind to read it.

I do this a lot, don’t I? Not tell the tale. That’s by design. I want you to read the classic books that have stood the test of time. They’ve endured for a reason. They’re good. They’re excellent, in fact. That’s why they survive. Perhaps that’s because they are more than their mere narrative. Sometimes they are parables, sometimes retellings of far older tales, suffused with biblical and poetic themes. Often they are highly moral tales, cautionary tales, with complex, conflicted characters who do not always do the right thing.

This tale is one of those.

Despite that, and despite its age (Emily Bronte published this, her single work of fiction – she was also a poet – in 1847), its prose is quite modern, and not at all difficult as some of her contemporaries might be (I point my finger at you Edgar Allan Poe, whose works I love, but whose prose I find daunting to my somewhat dyslexic mind). It is considered the best of the Bronte sisters’ novels. I cannot claim to judge whether this is true, as, to date, the only other I’ve read is Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which I’ve only just completed. Both were good – that sounds like faint praise: both were excellent – but I believe Emily’s work is the superior of the two. This is not to say that Charlotte’s most famous work is not also phenomenal, in its way. It most certainly is! But I found Emily’s prose far more accessible, however. Maybe that’s why I, personally, place hers above her sister’s.

Long story short, I really do believe that Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is truly one of English literature’s greatest achievements, and that, if you have not read this – regardless your sex – you ought to.

The Count of Monte Cristo

 

I’m on a bit of a mission, of late. I’ve hitherto neglected reading a great any of the classics. This is not to say that I do not own them – I do – this is to say that some of them have been left languishing upon my bookshelves, gathering dust, sometimes for years, if not decades. I decided, upon reflection, that this is unacceptable. I will finally read them – now. I’m approaching 60 and, let’s be frank, time is sorter than it once was.

That sounds rather melodramatic, doesn’t it? It ought to, because it is. Which brings me to this tome, this melodramatic tale of betrayal and revenge by Alexandre Dumas, this lengthy, weighty tome. It’s long, so long that the thought of tackling it is daunting, even for those who read quickly – and I do not.

Did I tackle it? I did. And complete it? I did. In fits and starts.

What do I think of it? Did I like it? I did. Then I didn’t. Then I did, with reservation. Why? Because it was long. Staggeringly long. And unapologizingly melodramatic. But mostly because I found Edmond Dantes implausible. Not at the novel’s onset. Then I found him exceedingly naïve. And melodramatic. Indeed, I found his story riveting then. I found myself frustrated and anxious for him, as circumstance rose up against him and he found himself betrayed by a litany of self-interested ne’er-do-wells and incarcerated in the infamous Chateau d’If, left to rot when he'd committed no crime, to hide others' treason.

What I found frustrating was the middle “bit,” years after Dantes escaped from this inescapable prison, indescribably rich having inherited a long-lost treasure, and having somehow become an expert in EVERYTHING! That is what caused me to set the book aside for a time: his miraculous erudition, gleaned from the then deceased Abbe Faria, Italian priest and sage and the source of Dantes’ bequeathed fortune, who taught him everything under the sun: culture, art, politics, rhetoric, whatever…. I suppose Dantes’ years travelling in the east might also be cited for his vast knowledge, his intricate plans. But that reasoning fell flat to my mind. To elucidate, Dantes can detect a forgery at mere glance at any work of art, etc. It was then that I put the book down in disgust.

I vowed I would finish it, though. I decided to read a chapter a day. Just one. It would take some time to complete at that pace, but I’ve never been one to abandon a book.

I’m glad I did. Once I set aside my reservations and accepted the implausibility of Dantes’ encyclopedic knowledge, and the intricacies of his elaborate revenge plot, Alexandre Dumas’ masterful skill at what was once referred to as “Romance” drew me in. This is an intricately plotted story, with twists and turns, with no page unnecessary. It was still insanely implausible, to my mind. But I forgive it this.

To lavish praise and not merely complain, Dumas’ characters are well realised, his heroes and villains have concrete reasons why they do what they did. I empathize with them, but do not forgive their villainy. That said, I came to realise as I read on and Dantes’ revenge plots began to bear fruit, that he is the true villain of this story and not those who nearly succeeded in destroying his life. One might argue that they deserve what they got, but Dantes cared not a whit who suffered as he exacted his revenge.

Do I recommend this lengthy adventure? I do. But I also recommend patience with its page count. Forgive Dantes his unlikely encyclopedic knowledge, his possibly impossibly vast network of spies, informants, and debtors; gloss over Monsieur Noirtier’s miraculous ability to be understood after his paralysing stroke; and just enjoy this novel’s vast cast of characters whose tales are woven into an intricate web of twists and turns that make the journey worthwhile.

Because it is.