A year on from the start of the Dickens Champion challenge, Immaculate Conception reading group have finished their fifth and final Dickens novel. This is how they celebrated:
A Dickensian journey
Well it was with immense satisfaction and a certain amount of relief that the Southampton Immaculate Conception Dickens Champions met to discuss our final Charles Dickens novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Our journey has come to the end. We have run, skipped and trudged up that mountain and stuck the flag on the top – victoriously. Incredibly we haven’t lost anyone on the way. No one fell off, a few did make some short cuts and sometimes we all got stuck on a barren plateau for a while. Amazingly we did pick up one or two on the way who were swept up with the excitement and enthusiasm of it all – well that’s how I like to tell it anyway!
We celebrated our last Dickens get together in Elizabeth C’s home and I think it fair to say that we trotted round there with quickened pulses at the prospect of Elizabeth’s fine baking. And also to admire and taste the special Dickens 200th Birthday Cake – of that – more later.
The door bell ringing. Greetings. The humming of news catch up and -mmm – yummy nibbles, crazy cheese and mucho cider, juice, wine and tea. A feast. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think of Dickens without thinking of cheese.
Varied opinions
Opinions of Edwin Drood were varied. Some liked it, some weren’t so keen. There was discussion around the fact that it lacked the humour and detailed characterisation of previous novels – it was gloomy and dark. Did Dickens have a premonition of his own death perhaps? After all, by this time he wasn’t well and he was a very busy man. Some liked the bit of Edwin Drood that Dickens wrote himself, while others were simply pleased that it was not another tome and we all agreed that the BBC adaptation was very good. In any event we all agreed that Dickens was a brilliant commentator on the social inequality of the time and his characters are still recognisable everywhere.
A successful adventure
We are very proud of ourselves and but we are still not quite finished with Dickens yet. There is talk of another London trip, walking the routes that Dickens himself walked, often through the night. And of course we want to visit the recently reopened Charles Dickens Museum.
Our evening finished with a flourish at the unveiling of the Charles Dickens 200th Birthday Cake. A Victorian recipe for a light fruit cake, baked with sour cherries, chopped apricots and walnuts and topped with a lemony drizzle and edible photograph of us all posed outside the Museum of London Dickens Exhibition. Looked pretty dry and heavy but tasted surprisingly light and lovely. Didn’t last long either!
Get involved
Read our Dickens Champions thoughts on a year of reading Dickens part 1 and part 2.
Catch up on all our Dickens Champions’ blog posts as they read and reviewed their way through Dickens in 2012.
