Dan Simmons et Drood

[jerome]

Notre ami (hum) Dan Simmons est en interview sur le web. Il revient sur son dernier roman Drood.

"Decider: Drood, like The Terror, references the real-life Franklin Expedition and mentions The Frozen Deep, an actual play written by Wilkie Collins in 1856. Was there something you discovered while researching The Terror that sparked Drood?
Dan Simmons: The truth is, I had the idea and impulse to write Drood long before I came up with the idea The Terror. I actually became interested in writing Drood when I read Dickens, Peter Ackroyd’s biography, around 1999. I was aware when doing research for The Terror of Dickens’ response to the charges of cannibalism among the Franklin Expedition. I would have been surprised if Charles Dickens hadn’t responded with lots of horror and outrage and public denials that Englishmen were capable of eating each other. It made for a nice little in-joke segue between The Terror and Drood. And perhaps a few of my readers picked up on the fact that after The Terror, which is set in the 1840s, Drood starts in the 1860s with Charles Dickens obsessing over the events of the lost Franklin Expedition."