Charles Dickens

[Sybarite]

What the Dickens? No Charles yet?

A social campaigner whose concerns came out in his novels, Dickens is adored by some, but has been criticised by others for being sentimental and creating grotesque characters. Which seems a tad unfair, since the Victorian era was rather fond of sentimentality.

Dickens's works have never been out of print and his books have come to represent Victorian England for many readers.

Personally, I love the stories and the characters, but Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol apart, I can never get through the books. Just as you get going with some plot development, you get a load of padding – absolutely necessary at the time, since Dickens wrote for serialisation.

To an extent, I also think he suffers once one has discovered the French realists – but perhaps that is also partly because of the Victorian sentimentality that is hardly unique to Dickens.

I keep meaning to try David Copperfield again or Pickwick, but I may just end up sticking to the BBC adaptations, which seem to show Dickens in his best light as a master storyteller.


Wikipedia biography with a great many links

[spooooool]

Bleak House is my favourite i think, then Our Mutual Friend, Martin Chuzzlewit. Hard Times is very short?

[Jayaprakash]

People are grotesque, sentiment is human. What's the problem?

I've been re-reading Dickens' books for a while now. Sketches By Boz is often fun, but more interesting as a glimpse at Dickens honing his craft. The Pickwick Papers is marvellous - you can see Dickens finding his voice, turning a fairly mundane piece of job-work into the prototype for his big, crowded, compassionate novels. As such, it falters along the way and is somewhat patchy in construction, but a glorious, endearing mess results. I can't think of many writers who can express humour and the macabre equally well and Dickens shows off both sides of his talent here. I think all of life's in there, somewhere. Nicholas Nickelby is very much a young man's novel- but again, what a wonderfully crowded book. Ralph Nickelby and Wackford Squeers show him beginning to create real villains, and while the tragicomic characters are effective if melodramatic, and melodrama a bit much at times, it's all good, well-intentioned fun with its heart in the right place.

I'll probably take up The Old Curiosity Shop next.

I'd suggest that Dickens is best savoured in editions that reproduce the illustrations by Phiz, where possible.

[spooooool]

Dickens doesn't suffer for my having read Maupassant or Zola.

[titania7]

I think I can see what you mean, Sybarite. Dickens does seem a trifle inhibited after Balzac, Zola, and Maupassant. At the same time, he's someone one must appreciate for what he is--a giant of Victorian literature.

My favorite Dickens is probably Bleak House. It was poignant and dark, and, although a little convoluted at times, a first-rate work of literature. Nabokov was a big fan of this book. In fact, he gave lectures about it (a portion of which is in the edition of Bleak House I own). I must admit, I don't find Dickens as easy to read as Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy. There's some irony here since Nabokov didn't think any of Jane Austen's novels were any good except for Mansfield Park. But I'll save my thoughts on that for another time....

At any rate, back to Dickens. What's food for thought, in my opinion, is that in the time Dickens lived one out of every ten persons was a voracious reader of his books. That, of course, was before the age of computers, cell phones, and television. People craved the next "installment" of Dickens the way they now yearn for the next episode of their favorite soap opera (or "American Idol," which, by the way, I've never seen). Trollope was also a quintessentially Victorian novelist who was read a lot during the same time period.

I haven't read TONS of Dickens. So, I cannot speak with absolute, unmitigated authority on this subject. However, I will say that the novels by Dickens I've read--A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickelby, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations--have all made quite an impression on me. Like Victor Hugo and Emile Zola, he is a writer who delves into the lives of "the masses" and is able to vividly depict their struggles, both big and small.

It may be, in 2008, that his works have become old-fashioned. But I don't really think so.

Just my ten cents,

titania

PS You are right, Sybarite. The BBC production of Dickens' work are fantastic. I particularly like "Bleak House." Gillian Anderson makes quite an intriguing Lady Dedlock.

"A person is never known till a person is proved."
~Charles Dickens, Bleak House

[Robert Drane]

Dickens was a man of his time, but he's withstood time's test.

I don't think he suffers in comparison with the French realists any more than an apple suffers in comparison with an orange. Some of his techniques were peculiar to him, and defined his particular genius. The prose, prolix though it seemed, has a powerful cumulative effect. It is more effective at throwing the reader right into the midst of the time the action took place than anything else we'll read. But we have to be willing to get on board, and he can be daunting to the modern reader. Once you experience his robust prose, his ingenious weaving of themes and characters and plot elements, the grotequries he creates, his little personal tropes - all of it - he becomes hard to put down. Little details become unforgettable - the stench of some mean-minded, snaggle-toothed pick pocket, or the sheer sinister presence of the vindictive, industriously-knitting Madame Defarge and everything she represents. GREAT STUFF, DICKO!

[titania7]

Bob, I appreciate the way you describe Dickens' prose. You're right in saying he's stood the test of time. He is a giant of World Literature and has created a plethora of vividly imagined, meticulously crafted characters. A friend of mine is reading Bleak House now and she made an interesting comment to me today. She said that she finds Dickens to be a writer whom it's best to read in increments of an hour or more at a time. According to her, when she's tried to snatch fifteen minutes of Bleak House at different intervals of the day she's found it to be frustrating. Perhaps this reiterates your point: the more you read of Dickens the easier he is to appreciate.

titania

"People can lose their lives in libraries.
They ought to be warned."
~Saul Bellow

[rabbitfast]

I'm glad to see this thread. Thanks Sybarite. I have mixed feelings about Dickens...Rather, I have to be in a special frame of mind to read him. Having said that, I love everything I've read (sadly, not much)--A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities... I also started Hard Times a long time ago but had to focus on school readings and have not returned to it yet. The same goes for Bleak House, and I have Little Dorrit sitting on my shelf.

[Robert Drane]

Originally Posted by titania7

Bob, I appreciate the way you describe Dickens' prose. You're right in saying he's stood the test of time. He is a giant of World Literature and has created a plethora of vividly imagined, meticulously crafted characters. A friend of mine is reading Bleak House now and she made an interesting comment to me today. She said that she finds Dickens to be a writer that it's best to read in increments of an hour or more at a time. According to her, when she's tried to snatch fifteen minutes of Bleak House at different intervals of the day she's found it to be frustrating. Perhaps this reiterates your point: the more you read of Dickens the easier he is to appreciate.

titania

"People can lose their lives in libraries.
They ought to be warned."
~Saul Bellow

Yeah, Titania. It IS hard to read Dickens the way you might read other authors. Even the old technique of going back a page or two after an interval is difficult, because there just seem to be so many knots to unravel with Dickens that you'd do well to remember them all! Your friend probably instinctively appropriates Dickens the way he actually wrote: in increments that were the equivalent of an hour's reading, or thereabouts.

It's also interesting what you - or someone else - said about "padding" in Dickens. Only one novel struck me this way (not that I've read them all) and that was Our Mutual Friend. But even then, I didn't see it as "padding" in the same manner I'd experienced Stephen King's writing. Sometimes I'd finish a King novel and find that 200 pages of it made no contribution at all to the novel's themes (not that this is a strong point), plot or resolution.

[Heteronym]

Apart from A Christmas Carol, all my attempts at reading Dickens have met failure. I can't get into his plodding style at all. Looking at a page in his novels is like looking at a freshly-painted wall that got too many coats of paint: I can see the words in excess dripping along the page.

Padding? Absolutely.

[Robert Drane]

Yeah you're right mate - Dickens was a plodder! What he needed was some of that Unbearable Lightness of Brain!

[Robert Drane]

Originally Posted by Robert Drane

Yeah, Titania. It IS hard to read Dickens the way you might read other authors. Even the old technique of going back a page or two after an interval is difficult, because there just seem to be so many knots to unravel with Dickens that you'd do well to remember them all! Your friend probably instinctively appropriates Dickens the way he actually wrote: in increments that were the equivalent of an hour's reading, or thereabouts.

It's also interesting what you - or someone else - said about "padding" in Dickens. Only one novel struck me this way (not that I've read them all) and that was Our Mutual Friend. But even then, I didn't see it as "padding" in the same manner I'd experienced Stephen King's writing. Sometimes I'd finish a King novel and find that 200 pages of it made no contribution at all to the novel's themes (not that this is a strong point), plot or resolution.

[Robert Drane]

Sorry - this post is not intended to be read.

[lionel]

Dickens’s work necessarily comes across as episodic, and I tend to remember moments in his novels with far more clarity than the story itself, although this is probably true of many other writers (or films for that matter). One such moment in Pickwick is when Sam Weller (before being employed by Pickwick) is cleaning guests’ footwear in the White Hart yard:

'There's a vooden leg in number six; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.’

The interesting point here is that Weller, a member of the working class, is using a metonymic device for those of a superior class; often, those in a superior position treat(ed) their employees as ‘hands’. Surely there's an element of social criticism in this quotation: Pickwick was in part written as a satire on gentlemen’s learned societies, but got lost on the way.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by rabbitfast

I'm glad to see this thread. Thanks Sybarite. I have mixed feelings about Dickens...Rather, I have to be in a special frame of mind to read him. Having said that, I love everything I've read (sadly, not much)--A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities... I also started Hard Times a long time ago but had to focus on school readings and have not returned to it yet. The same goes for Bleak House, and I have Little Dorrit sitting on my shelf.

My pleasure, Rabbitfast.

As I hope I made clear, I certainly don't dislike Dickens myself – although it's quite clear that I'm not the only one who has mixed feelings about him (and there's something pleasantly reassuring about that ).

The last one that I attempted to read (not for the first time) was David Copperfield. Brilliant story – loved it on the BBC, but found it frustrating, just when the plot was bubbling along nicely, to have a break for the social commentary (the padding – which was necessary for the format of serialisation).

And of course it's difficult not to have a sense that Dickens, through A Christmas Carol, is an absolutely intrinsic part of a traditional British Christmas.

I will try some more again.

[rictorr110]

I have just begun to read Charles Dickens at 33 and I have to say that I love the way he writes. It's true ,as some say, he is a bit long winded but when he gives you glimpses of a setting or a person he seems to be able to catch the essence of that person or place. It is almost as if he imbues it with a soul. His prose is worth it!

I also think it takes a certain level of maturity to really grasp what he is saying. His characters are so rich! Best of all.. he seems to be at once sharply observant of people and their faults but at the same time gentle in making fun of their purely human folly.

I am at this time reading David Copperfield and loved Tale of Two Cites and Great Expectations!

[jackdawdle]

an anecdote of dickens continuosly writing and telling his friend, who is paying a visit, to make himself comfrotable, that he'll be with him shortly, that he is only rounding out a chapter, i find fascinating. i'm sure this sort of blase attitude contributed to patches of bad writing but it's also a testament to the man's liberal nature, not to take his work and himself too seriously.

[Loki]

I've only read Hard Times, last year.
I found it annoying when Dickens reproduced the dialect (I don't know what dialect it was) of Stephen maybe, or some working man: I mean, ok, it's more realistic but I just couldn't read it, and there were no notes in my edition. Apart from that I've enjoyed the novel, which is the only one that deals with social issues, if I'm not mistaken.

Then I've read abridged editions of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations (great novel); I have the first at home but I don't know whether to read it or not. I would rather read Great Expectations instead.
Which is the best in your opinion between these two?

[lenz]

Loki - Yes, the dialect can be annoying, even for someone who's familiar with it.

Apart from that I've enjoyed the novel, which is the only one that deals with social issues, if I'm not mistaken.

I am afraid you are completely mistaken, my dear Loki! I would say that everything that Dickens wrote deals with social issues! In fact I don't think it was possible for him to set pen to paper without thinking about how he could encourage a betterment of life in England's horrible working-class world or how he could satirise the upper classes or the nouveau riche. His childhood experience of being taken from school to work in a blacking factory (look it up) was the chief terror of his life and haunted him to his death. Hard Times is a particularly direct piece of social criticism, but don't you see the same thing in Twist and Expectations? (I would say G.E. is the more sophisticated and slightly more subtle work - I prefer it) I encourage you to read a biography of Dickens - there are many. Ackroyd's is good; it would give you a good picture of Victorian England social and literary.

[Loki]

Oh dear! Sorry I didn't want to say that. I wanted to say that Hard Times is the only novel in which he openly deals with workers, not social issues. I remember that Hard Times was inspired by a strike of some workers (of the North of England, I seem to remember): he went there as a journalist and he wrote a story about this strike.

Anyway, I am already familiar with Dickens biography, and I know that the description of the workhouses are taken from his experience.