Double Vision

Frequently, topics and themes are doubled, in popular culture.  In movies, I can think of four such doublings, off the top of my head (hey, let me know if you think of any others).

1. Nuclear bombs being dropped by technical error: Dr. Strangelove in January 1964 and Fail Safe in October 1964.
2. Alien invasions, including destroying a branch of U.S. government: Independence Day in July 1996 and Mars Attacks! in December 1996.
3. Mega-disaster, eruption division: Dante’s Peak in February 1997 and Volcano in April 1997.
4. Mega-disaster, asteroid division: Deep Impact in May 1998 and Armageddon in July 1998.

Sometimes, it is direct competition.  Other times it’s coincidence.  Certainly they are not of equal quality.  The 1964 movies are both excellent though one is a taut drama and the other is over-the-top comedy.  Personally, I prefer the tongue-in-cheek Mars Attacks! to the derivative and unintentionally funny Independence Day.

What prompted this thought process is another such occurrence, but not in movies.  In 2009, two novels were published within a few months of each other on the same theme: the last few years in the life of Charles Dickens and his last book, the half-finished The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  One, Matthew Pearl’s The Last Dickens, I listened to in my car on the way to work and back.  The main protagonists in this book are Dickens’ American publisher and his bookkeeper.  It is Pearl’s third novel.  I had previously enjoyed his second novel. The Poe Shadow, which is a mystery/suspense story set during Edgar Allan Poe’s brief time at West Point.  This one was published in March 2009. 

A month earlier, I recently found out, Dan Simmons’ book Drood, was published.  This one is from the perspective of Dickens’ friend, the novelist Wilkie Collins.  I have not read this one, yet,, but I have it checked out from the public library.  I will let you know what I think once I have read it.  It may take a while, though, as it is nearly 800 pages long.  Incidently, it has been announced that Guillermo del Toro will be directing a movie version of the Simmons book.  Before I get to the Simmons book, I thought I would read Dickens’ half-novel instead.  Unfortunately, the public library does not have a copy.  What they do have (and what I am reading now) is a strange book called The D Case, which is set at a symposium to finish incomplete works (Schubert’s symphony, Bach’s Art of the Fugue, etc.).  Panelists at the symposium include Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Maigret, Porfiry Petrovich, Augustin Dupin, Hercule Poirot, and other famous detectives.  Interwoven throughout is the entire completed text of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which the panelists discuss after every chapter, and supposedly will create an ending for at the conclusion.  This is a rather amusing book by two Italian authors I had not previously encountered: Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini.  I’ll let you know about this, too.

So, what started this all is this question: “Why Drood?”  Also, the follow-up: “Why now?”