The Museum of Literary Souls

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In the history of Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, the brief period that followed Mr. Berger’s “improvements” to great novels and plays is known as the “Confusion” and has come to be regarded as a lesson in why such experiments should generally be avoided.

The first clue Mr. Gedeon had that something was amiss was when he passed the Liverpool Playhouse on his way to catch the train back to Glossom, his brother having miraculously recovered to such an extent that he was threatening to sue his physicians, and discovered that the theatre was playing The Comedy of Macbeth. He did a quick double take and immediately sought out the nearest bookshop. There he found a copy of The Comedy of Macbeth, along with a critical commentary labeling it “one of the most troubling of Shakespeare’s later plays, due to its curious mixture of violence and inappropriate humor bordering on early bedroom farce.”

“Good Lord,” said Mr. Gedeon aloud. “What has he done? For that matter, what else has he done?”

Mr. Gedeon thought hard for a time, trying to recall the novels or plays about which Mr. Berger had expressed serious reservations. He seemed to recall Mr. Berger complaining that the ending of A Tale of Two Cities had always made him cry. An examination of a copy of the book in question revealed that it now ended with Sydney Carton being rescued from the guillotine by an airship piloted by the Scarlet Pimpernel, with a footnote advising that this had provided the inspiration for a later series of novels by Baroness Orczy.

“Oh God,” said Mr. Gedeon.

Then there was Hardy. Tess of the d’Urbervilles now ended with Tess’s escape from prison, engineered by Angel Clare and a team of demolitions experts, while The Mayor of Casterbridge had Michael Henchard living in a rose-covered cottage near his newly married stepdaughter and breeding goldfinches. At the conclusion of Jude the Obscure, Jude Fawley escaped the clutches of Arabella and survived his final desperate visit to Sue in the freezing weather, whereupon they both ran away and went to live happily ever after in Eastbourne.

“This is terrible,” said Mr. Gedeon, although even he had to admit that he preferred Mr. Berger’s endings to Thomas Hardy’s.

Finally he came to Anna Karenina. It took him a little while to find the change, because this one was subtler than the others: a deletion instead of an actual piece of bad rewriting. It was still wrong, but Mr. Gedeon understood Mr. Berger’s reason for making the change. Perhaps if Mr. Gedeon had experienced similar feelings about one of the characters in his care, he might have found the courage to intervene in a similar way. He had been a witness to the sufferings of so many of them, the consequences of decisions made by heartless authors, the miserable Hardy not least among them, but his first duty was, and always had been, to the books. This would have to be put right, however valid Mr. Berger might have believed his actions to be.

Mr. Gedeon returned the copy of Anna Karenina to its shelf and made his way to the station.