Charles Dickens (of course)
This must be the only literary website in the world that doesn't have a space devoted somewhere on it to our great bicentenarian. (Yes, there's been the great limerick thread on D&A but no specific tribute.) One can imagine that if he were alive today he would be the greatest of bloggers - alongside writing and directing the films of his novels, producing his own podcasts and audio-books, Tweeting and Texting... He would have had great fun with the language of the web.
So he wasn't a poet. It's just about the only thing he wasn't. He was certainly the cause of poetry in others. Eliot was going to name The Waste Land from a phrase taken from Our Mutual Friend. And I don't think any poet writing about the city since can fail to be influenced by him: just think of that fog in "Prufrock". Or think of Peter Reading's urban wastes. Anyway, let me kick off with a wonderful passage from Dombey and Son, describing the christening of Paul Dombey. Nobody sets a scene or establishes a mood better: Quote:
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Ok, here's an excerpt from Pickwick, a fine list poem in itself:
"'Ah! fine place,' said the stranger, 'glorious pile--frowning walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--Old cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little Saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins too-- matchlocks--Sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories: capital' and the stranger continued to soliloquize until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High Street, where the coach stopped." (Alfred Jingle in Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1837) Yes, it is truly terrifying to consider how he might have harnassed all that energy with modern technology. |
And art too....Van Gogh saw Dickens both as "a poet and an artist" who inspired his own art --he has over 40 references to him in the 100's of letters he wrote to friends and relations, e.g. "I have my books on perspective here, and a few volumes of Dickens, including Edwin Drood; there is perspective in Dickens, too. Good God, what an artist! There's no one like him." In his portrait-- L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux) 1890...the books on her table are Dickens Christmas Tales and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Without Dickens we would be missing a goodly number of van Gogh's, including, I suspect, his two empty chairs.
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Greg,
Dombey is one of my favorites. The opening chapter shows the pompous patriarch Dombey, his dying wife and the just born infant (whose birth will result in the wife's death) all before a cozy fire and all depicted in such elaborate detail that the arch of the novel unfolds right there in the first scene. |
Oh, I am so delighted that this Dickens thread appeared. He is absolutely one of my favorite writers, I return to his work again and again, to laugh, to cry, to be astounded by his modernity. And not least to be entertained.
I recently completed "Our Mutual Friend", and kept wondering how on earth could he tie it up so nicely if he was writing an espisode a week. I have always believed that he did not have a complete version at hand when he started the serialization. Does anyone know? BTW, when I was in London last, I visited his home/musuem which I fortuitously stumbled on http://www.dickensmuseum.com/about/ |
Nothing and no-one has touched my life like Dickens. For the personal and deepest joy and sadness and love it gave me, 'David Copperfield' - indelible. For the experience of, I would strenuously argue, the greatest novel, artistically speaking, 'Great Expectations'.
He is, for me, equal to Shakespeare. The second tier is under them. And also, he gave us two things I love almost as much: Dostoevsky (whose debt to Dickens is immense); and Christmas (not the debt part - the pretty part, the part I loved with my whole soul when I was a child). Barkus is willin' What larks, eh Pip? |
Thanks, Gregory!
We just watched David Lean's Great Expectations. Many wonderful moments. |
Yes, Susan, you're right, there really is a surreal poetry in Jingle's staccato monologues. That's a superb example.
Sharon, I didn't know that about Van Gogh. You're right: those chairs could be characters in a Dickens novel - just as objects and buildings and possessions take on a weird life of their own in his books. And he has a wonderful way of relating people to objects. Look at this description of Volumnia Dedlock in Bleak House: Quote:
Lance, I agree that opening scene of Dombey is superb. And I love Dombey's suggestion, as they discuss finding a wet-nurse: "Couldn't something temporary be done with a teapot?" Cally, no-one knew the power of a catchphrase better than Dickens. And those two have certainly entered my own life. In my opinion the best essay ever written on Dickens is George Orwell's, in particular where he says that the "outstanding, unmistakable mark of Dickens's writing is the unnecessary detail". |
Greg,
Orwell's comment about the unnecessary detail is so accurate. Unnecessary detail means the writer's need and desire to render his world into words will lead him to paint all of it, not part of it. I believe the reader senses that need and that desire. The unnecessary detail is the promise Dickens gives that a complete experience is unfolding like a wave breaking for the reader to seize and ride. Terrific thread. Lance |
It's not only the details Dickens shows us through Pip's eyes when he enters Miss Haversham's room for the very first time, it's the way he has Pip look again, and again, with more detail and significance unfolding each time. What Dickens knew that scientists who study perception are discovering now, is that perception breaks on our minds like waves, not all at once. When we see a thing, we see it in waves. We see an impression, then we see detail, then another impression with more detail. It's fascinating how Dickens renders this process in language. He just uses words to show us the perceiving mind.
I don't use this word often, but Dickens is awesome. Anyway, I don't have any books with me at the moment, but do find those pages in Great Expectations where Pip enters THAT room for the first time. It's miraculous. Cally |
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