I do not, of course, agree with every contention
in this book - what self-respecting Dickensian
would wholly concur with any fellow-student's
interpretation of this beguilingly uncompleted
Mystery? - but I am very pleased to welcome and
commend it, a pleasure increased by its author's
being a neighbour and long-term friend. Other
readers will, I am sure, enjoy considering, and
agreeing or disagreeing with, John Thacker's
arguments, which, as they will recognize, arise
from a thorough, intelligent and well-informed re-examination
of the evidence, internal and external, about the
ways in which the novel was proceeding until its
composition was cut short by Dickens's sudden
death. This re-examination is well-based too in a
good sense of Dickens's working methods, as shown
in his previous novels and stories, and is
illuminated by comparisons and contrasts with
those of his most relevant contemporary fiction-writer,
his friend and colleague Wilkie Collins.
I had my own say, briefly, about
Drood in my Dickens and Crime (1962) and
would, I think, still stand by what I then wrote
in my (comparative) youth, though predictably
none of my reviewers singled out that chapter as
the one they most admired. Writing about Drood is
an exhilarating and for many of us a
suppositiously conclusive exercise ('We Know We
Are Right', to adapt Trollope's novel-title), but
it is a perilous and mostly thankless task. Other
readers prove recalcitrant in their
disinclination to acknowledge how impeccable are
our arguments for Edwin Drood's being dead (or
alive) or about Datchery's identity or about how
Lieutenant Tartar would have figured in the novel's
denouement.
Happily John Thacker's contentions
are not limited to such 'how would it have ended?'
considerations, though he offers
7
light on such matters. He regards
this wonderful fragment not as an incomplete
detective story but as the first half of another
novel by the still wholly competent mature and
great novelist: 'a novelist rather than a story-teller,
detective or otherwise' , 'a narrator concerned
with the psychology of a crime [for Thacker is,
rightly I am sure, convinced that a crime has
been committed] rather than a puzzle about the
crime itself '. It is not my task to summarize
the nature of John Thacker's arguments, let alone
to indicate where I find them most, or less,
persuasive, but it may be helpful if I mention
some of the areas which he traverses with unusual
attention or views from a fresh perspective. He
is much concerned with the novel's religious
dimensions: given that - assuming that - one man
is killing another in the hope of improving his
chance of capturing a woman's affections, why did
Dickens make the killer a Cathedral official and
arrange for the murder to take place early on a
Christmas Day which was also a Sunday? How does
this relate to Dickens's apprehension of
Christianity, and of its central belief in
Resurrection, and to his feelings about the
Established Church? And why is John Jasper a
musician instead of some other kind of Cathedral
personage? The theme of Temptation is related to
Dickens's own life and to his earlier writings.
There are intriguing speculations about the lives
of Edwin Drood and his murderer, and their family
relationships, prior to the narrative, and Edwin's
character is scrutinized more fully than in most
Drood studies. A more familiar topic, the cover-design
and its implications, is the subject of an
appendix, which makes new suggestions.
So there is plenty here to engage
the reader's attention and exercise his powers of
judgment. A learned and brilliant French observer,
Sylvere Monod, remarked in 1953 of the then
extant books on this novel: 'Most of the Drood
books are alarmingly serious in tone [This, to my
mind, read better in the original French: 'Le
ton general de cette litterature est alarmant. II
est effroyablement serieux.'] Their authors
often seem to forget that they are dealing with a
novel, with imaginary characters, and with one of
the greatest humorists of all time' (Dickens
the Novelist, in Professor Monod's
translation and revision, 1968). John Thacker's
book does not invite such
8
criticisms. He remains well aware
that this is a novel, and a Dickens not a Wilkie
Collins one, and though his argument raises
serious issues about Dickens's outlook and his
art, there is an agreeably light touch in the
exposition. This is an enjoyable as well as a
thoughtful and well-informed book, and I commend
it.