Edwin Drood

[Anna]

he'd dashed off to Egypt - that's what he said anyway
'cos at that point he thought he had killed Edwin, and that took away his motive, didn't it?
perhaps I misunderstood (and I've never read the book)

No, Edwin and Rosa, having been engaged so long (as specified in the Will) realised they would much rather be as brother and sister rather than as husband and wife, so Jasper realised he had no reason to kill as Rosa would never be possessed by Edwin. The Egypt connection was to do with Drood Snr. previously having been there I assume, although that was a little confusing, did Edwin as a child live there?

[DracoM]

< I thought it stretched the bounds of plausibility to have all Jasper, Edwin and the Landlesses all related. >

Me too.

They predictably played the opium / manic depressive / sickness of Jasper very hard, but IMO appropriately, and his bullhying of Rosa was very powerful and very nasty. Julia Mackenzie was a dream - total pro doing less is more so well.

Loved the settings / lighting and atmosphere. Cloisterham well suggested.

Opium den brilliantly done - again less is more - and Princess Puffer was excellent. Alun Armstrong as usual impeccable, unrivalled in these roles.

Much more satisfying than the appalling GE. It's a much thinner book, and the linearity of the plot far more in evidence and thus better adaptable to a concise TV frame, whereas GE sprawls and has at least three plots of some impact.

Was not Egypt where Herbert Pocket went to work? What was there about Egypt at that time that drew Brits?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

he'd dashed off to Egypt - that's what he said anyway

Yes: on his reappearence, to Rosa (having reminded her that he told her that's what he might do).

'cos at that point he thought he had killed Edwin, and that took away his motif, didn't it?

Yes: Jasper (having overheard Edwin & Rosa's conversation when she "broke off" their engagement and misunderstood their Happy exchange to mean that they were going to be married. That's why he "had" to kill Edwin; otherwise he'd (Jasper) "lose" her. When Grewgious told him that they'd broken off their relationship, he (Jasper) "realized" that he'd killed Edwin (jnr) for no reason: Edwin hadn't been a block to his designs on Rosa.

perhaps I misunderstood (and I've never read the book)

No, I don't think you have. And for the denoument, you don't need to have read the book - Dickens never got that far.

I thought it an excellent, imaginative conclusion (as good as we can expect) and a superb televisionated re-telling of the extant book.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Was not Egypt where Herbert Pocket went to work? What was there about Egypt at that time that drew Brits?

The various "trading" posts that led to the creation of the Suez Canal (completed just after Dickens' death).

[aeolium]

Yes: Jasper (having overheard Edwin & Rosa's conversation when she "broke off" their engagement and misunderstood their Happy exchange to mean that they were going to be married. That's why he "had" to kill Edwin; otherwise he'd (Jasper) "lose" her. When Grewgious told him that they'd broken off their relationship, he (Jasper) "realized" that he'd killed Edwin (jnr) for no reason: Edwin hadn't been a block to his designs on Rosa.

Yes - but what was unconvincing to me was that in the TV adaptation it relied on Jasper believing that he had killed Edwin when he had done nothing of the sort, only dreamt about it in his opium sessions. The actual murder he had committed was a year earlier, of the father. It makes a lot more sense if Jasper had really committed a crime on that stormy evening.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It makes a lot more sense if Jasper had really committed a crime on that stormy evening.

I'm not sure it does, aeoli: Jasper's patricide was what led him to Opium, which exacerbated his lust for Rosa and envy of Edwin jnr. An opiate hallucination is much more realistic than a mere "dream", and Edwin's disappearance the next day, together with his memories of the real murder, merely confirmed for him that the recurring vision had at last actually occured. The reappearance of Edwin was, for Jasper, an apparition, so real had his need to have him dead become.

[aeolium]

I suppose so, fhg, although Jasper mentioned that he had been having those dreams of killing Edwin for months. Perhaps it's more the whole parricide idea that I find a bit unconvincing. I don't think it's something that Dickens would allow one of his characters to do, as it would be too close to his own feelings of anger towards his own parents. Even in Martin Chuzzlewit, he pulls back from having Jonas kill his father Anthony though the reader thinks at one point Jonas may have done so.

Still, it works as a story on its own terms, and I can't deny that the Hughes idea is carefully worked out.

[Nick Armstrong]

the joy is the minor characters, the descriptions, the absurdities, the generosity of it all.

I caught up with the two episodes last night, and am very glad I did. Although the two-hour time span felt too rapid, even for this short work, there somehow seemed a better balance between the dark Gothic plot, and the 'subsidiary' aspects referred to by Monsieur Vinteuil above. The main characters convinced (I agree that Jasper's harassment of Rosa was particularly grim and well done). There was more enjoyment to be had from the other characters, as others have said before: Alun Armstrong spot on, his side-kick Bazzard great (could have been even more creepy). And the highlights were the double act scenes between Durdles and Deputy. The best line in the piece as they tucked into their bread and cheese with the choir rehearsing, was the diminutive Deputy's

"bloomin racket's enough to put an honest man off his lunch"



The completion seemed very neat, not necessarily in a good way: the parricide (I take aeolium's points about this), the return from their presumed graves of both Edwins, and the Morse-style climax with the perpetrator high in a church hurling himself to his doom.. it felt like TV drama (which it was!) rather than Dickens.

All in all, with some good Gothic visuals (Jasper striding out to do "the deed" through swirling leaves and flashes of lightning was done with sufficient verve to be exciting rather than clichéd), it was a good old winter watch...

[DracoM]

I think they were striving for the effect that where Jasper was concerned, what took place in 'real life' as it were, and what took place in his opiate-fuelled dreams was increasingly blurred. All the on-screen techniques of lighting, music, make-up etc tended to make the viewer wonder what he'she was watching, thus finding it easy to be convinced that Edwin Jr had indeed been murdered. Slightly dishonest, I suppose, since it meant that the way Ms Hughes had written the finale in the second epi had been allowed to influence how they packaged the material in the first, Dickens-based material.

[french frank]

I too watched the TV episodes . I've also started rereading the book which makes me feel that any other realisation stands on its own feet. So much of the novel just cannot be captured that an adaptation might as well do whatever it does best and not get hung up on 'authenticity'. If that's what you want, just read the book.

I agree with Draco's last. The repeated strangulations of young Edwin were so obviously an indication of Jaspar's troubled mind - his jealousy of Ned, intensified by his misunderstanding of what he saw when the couple were agreeing to part, together with his opium befuddled mind made him confuse the real murder with the one he kept imagining. Fair enough in plot terms, but not quite Dickens.

[vinteuil]

This morning - Thursday 19 January on radio 4 at 11:30 AM -

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

"Frances Fyfield investigates Dickens's unfinished last novel ... searching for clues on how the story would have progressed and for signs of the author's failing health."