5 ms·

Mutual Friends: The Adventures of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

37 points by samclemens 3y ago

Freak_NL 3y ago
Related to Dickens and Collins: anyone who's read works by Dickens (who hasn't) and Collins (usually The Moonstone or The Woman in White) and would enjoy a fictional exploration of their relationship in a somewhat darker, rather macabre setting with Wilkie Collins as an unreliable (opium addicted) narrator might consider reading Dan Simmons' Drood (2009). I had the pleasure of reading it earlier this year. While the premise is odd, Simmons succeeded in creating a work where it is easy to forget that he is not (by far) a contemporary of Dickens and Collins; his style and narrative in Drood are eerily close to how Collins (and his contemporaries) wrote. Most readers will know Simmons from his lauded Hyperion Cantos. Drood though, is something else entirely, but impressive nonetheless.
- disparate_dan 3y ago
  In fact, I discovered Wilkie Collins through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Drood; but now I find my Dickens is lacking and I need to explore beyond A Christmas Carol. But reading Dan Simmons is a delight, whether it’s Hyperion, or his Stephen King-esque works, or my favourite, The Terror, which is something else again.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    if you are looking to go deeper into dickens, start with "Great Expectations".
  - ghaff 3y ago
    My Dickens is pretty lacking as well; I vaguely remember not liking A Tale of Two Cities in high school. Bleak House is probably the one on my list. I did read and enjoy the two obvious Wilkie Collins novels (Moonstone and Woman in White) and have also seen the latter in what I think is an underrated musical. I've heard rather mixed things and haven't tried other works.
- rurp 3y ago
  I was going to recommend Drood and am not surprised someone beat me to it. I love a number of Simmons books but was going to skip Drood because I didn't really enjoy the Dickens I read in school but a relative convinced me to give the book a shot and it was well worth it! For anyone who likes Drood, Simmons has many other excellent novels worth checking out. In addition to the ones already mentioned to others I really enjoyed Illium (scifi take on the Illiad) and The Crook Factory, which is based on a true story about Ernest Hemmingway running a spy ring in Cuba during WW2. He uses actually historical documents in the story which is pretty neat.
  - Freak_NL 3y ago
    I feel privileged to never having read Dickens before my thirtieth or so (I'm not a native English speaker, so avoiding Dickens as a teenager was trivial); it would have given me the wrong impression. His works are great, but require increasingly more cultural baggage to fully enjoy (excepting the Christmas Carol, which is kept in the public consciousness by various factors, including muppets). I can't imagine assigning his novels to minors unless accompanied by lessons providing a lot of context — from historical notes on Victorian society, class struggle, and the meaning of words used daily back then, but obsolete now ('phaeton' is a fun one).
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      > I can't imagine assigning his novels to minors Then you shouldn't be teaching them. Learning about a world that's strange to you is one of the great delights of old literature. It's called "education."
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Some literature is almost certainly more accessible than others. I'm not sure where Dickens is on that list but it's almost certainly not on the very accessible side, especially at the high school level. Mind you, I'm not sure that some of the more modern novels we did in high school age especially well. But I loved A Picture of Dorian Gray, for example.
      - 3y ago
AlbertCory 3y ago
I sat through a 6-hour stage production of Nicholas Nickleby (it had a break for dinner). I liked it, or at least the parts I was awake for. He had a gift for throwing in minor characters that still stand out in your memory.

37 points by samclemens 3y ago

Related to Dickens and Collins: anyone who's read works by Dickens (who hasn't) and Collins (usually The Moonstone or The Woman in White) and would enjoy a fictional exploration of their relationship in a somewhat darker, rather macabre setting with Wilkie Collins as an unreliable (opium addicted) narrator might consider reading Dan Simmons' Drood (2009). I had the pleasure of reading it earlier this year. While the premise is odd, Simmons succeeded in creating a work where it is easy to forget that he is not (by far) a contemporary of Dickens and Collins; his style and narrative in Drood are eerily close to how Collins (and his contemporaries) wrote. Most readers will know Simmons from his lauded Hyperion Cantos. Drood though, is something else entirely, but impressive nonetheless.

disparate_dan 3y ago
In fact, I discovered Wilkie Collins through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Drood; but now I find my Dickens is lacking and I need to explore beyond A Christmas Carol. But reading Dan Simmons is a delight, whether it’s Hyperion, or his Stephen King-esque works, or my favourite, The Terror, which is something else again.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  if you are looking to go deeper into dickens, start with "Great Expectations".
- ghaff 3y ago
  My Dickens is pretty lacking as well; I vaguely remember not liking A Tale of Two Cities in high school. Bleak House is probably the one on my list. I did read and enjoy the two obvious Wilkie Collins novels (Moonstone and Woman in White) and have also seen the latter in what I think is an underrated musical. I've heard rather mixed things and haven't tried other works.
rurp 3y ago
I was going to recommend Drood and am not surprised someone beat me to it. I love a number of Simmons books but was going to skip Drood because I didn't really enjoy the Dickens I read in school but a relative convinced me to give the book a shot and it was well worth it! For anyone who likes Drood, Simmons has many other excellent novels worth checking out. In addition to the ones already mentioned to others I really enjoyed Illium (scifi take on the Illiad) and The Crook Factory, which is based on a true story about Ernest Hemmingway running a spy ring in Cuba during WW2. He uses actually historical documents in the story which is pretty neat.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  I feel privileged to never having read Dickens before my thirtieth or so (I'm not a native English speaker, so avoiding Dickens as a teenager was trivial); it would have given me the wrong impression. His works are great, but require increasingly more cultural baggage to fully enjoy (excepting the Christmas Carol, which is kept in the public consciousness by various factors, including muppets). I can't imagine assigning his novels to minors unless accompanied by lessons providing a lot of context — from historical notes on Victorian society, class struggle, and the meaning of words used daily back then, but obsolete now ('phaeton' is a fun one).
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > I can't imagine assigning his novels to minors Then you shouldn't be teaching them. Learning about a world that's strange to you is one of the great delights of old literature. It's called "education."
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Some literature is almost certainly more accessible than others. I'm not sure where Dickens is on that list but it's almost certainly not on the very accessible side, especially at the high school level. Mind you, I'm not sure that some of the more modern novels we did in high school age especially well. But I loved A Picture of Dorian Gray, for example.
    - 3y ago

AlbertCory 3y ago

I sat through a 6-hour stage production of Nicholas Nickleby (it had a break for dinner). I liked it, or at least the parts I was awake for. He had a gift for throwing in minor characters that still stand out in your memory.