Dickens December

 

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Long before I began “participating” in Jane Austen July, I began reading Charles Dickens in December. I began this practice when I read A Christmas Carol over the one holiday season (honestly, is there a better time to read A Christmas Carol?) after I’d received a number of Dickens volumes as a gift from my sister the year prior (the best gift I’d received in years, if not decades). I thought that having those hardcover volumes was as good an excuse as any to dive into Dickens when I did. I’ll admit to not having read Dickens in years. Indeed, at that time I had truly only read two of his books, A Tale of Two Cities (in high school), and David Copperfield (about a decade prior – and, both those times, those readings felt like a titanic undertaking, considering their word count) – despite the belief that I loved Dickens.

But did I? I said I did. But if I were honest, I’d have to admit that I loved the idea of Dickens. I’d watched Scrooge on TV for decades, in numerous adaptations; and versions of Oliver Twist, musical and otherwise; but I had only the above experience of reading him.

Which brings me back to where I began: I endeavoured to finally read Dickens. I was pleasantly surprised. Hitherto, I found reading Dickens a chore. In high school, I found his prose antiquated, and thus difficult. When I read David Copperfield in my early 30’s I was not in the habit of reading the classics; so, I read it in fits and starts. This time however, I found Dickens a both profound and funny. I learned something of life in the mid-1800s reading A Christmas Carol. I actually laughed out loud. Most importantly, I completed it with ease. I expect that it was short helped. That experience led to The Cricket on the Hearth the next year. And then The Chimes the year after that. Was I hooked? Not yet. But his Christmas tales paved the way to my deciding to read the rest of those gifted Dickens volumes.

I suppose, regardless my having read the Christmas tales as mentioned, I began my journey and eventual love affair with Dickens the very next year when I read Great Expectations. I’d watched a few videos that suggested it as probably the best entry to Charles Dickens; and I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with their opinion, now that I’ve read it. Once again, it helps that it is not very long (on the Dickensian scale, anyway).

Great Expectations led to The Pickwick Papers, then to Oliver Twist, then The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and then most recently to Nicholas Nickleby.

Shall I expound on each? Perhaps a word or two. GE is a phenomenal novel, certainly the best I’ve read by Dickens in these recent readings, thus far. PP was enlightening, showcasing Dickens’ earliest “novel” – in parenthesis because, to my mind, it is more a collection of linked vignettes than it is a bonified novel. Indeed, PP has more in common with his Sketches by Boz than it does his later works. OT, probably the most famous of his novels for its numerous adaptations, is a novel; but I gather it does not draw the same love these days as his latter novels do. I loved it, despite its criticisms by those supposedly more learned than I. ED, his last work, is unfinished, Dickens dying midway through writing it. It may be a miracle he got as far along as he did, considering the state of his health at the time. ED shows the same complexity in its unfolding as did GE. NN exhibits a leap in Dickens’ maturity of writing, fairly early on. It resides midway between PP and OT, to my mind, in execution: it is most assuredly a novel, but it is still rather episodic (as was PP) in form. One expects that, I suppose, considering Dickens published each of his books in serial monthly installments, throughout his entire career. One can see him change his mind as the stories progress, especially early on, certain characters falling by the wayside as he found their story either less interesting than others, or irrelevant to the plot – more so in PP than in NN, where I suspect he may have plotted out the progress of the book before beginning.

Last year, I read a couple of Dickens biographies, as well: The first was Charles Dickens: A Life, by Claire Tomalin; the second, The Mystery of Charles Dickens, by A.N. Wilson. Both were enlightening; but the Tomalin title was more inclusive (albeit more focused on his later life and his affair with Ellen Ternan), whereas the Wilson biography was far more concerned with how each of Dickens’ books could be construed as being culled from his own personal experiences, veiled biographies.

This year I am reading The Old Curiosity Shop and Sketches by Boz. I know something of how OCS unfolds, if nothing of the plot: Thus far it reads episodically as did PP and NN. Indeed, I see Dickens change his mind a few chapters in, changing the narration from a third-person-singular observer’s voice, to a more omnipotent view. The writer makes mistakes, and changes his mind between chapbook submissions. SB is Dickens’ very earliest works, short vignettes published in newspapers and magazines, before becoming a novelist, in earnest. One hears him find his voice in these sketches, in which he is an apt and consummate observer of the city around him. Honestly, I highly recommend this book: the sketches help illuminate Dickens’ world.

I’ve a number of Dickens’ works ahead of me, still, most of them long – indeed, his longest titles are still ahead of me. I do intend to reread both A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield, as well, understanding I come at them with a more mature outlook. This will take years still; but in the end, I’ll read all of Dickens, just as I will soon have read all of Jane Austen.

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby