Hard Times

Mark called to tell me his youngest uncle, the one who is not much older than me,  is dead. So I'm at Elinor's,  a place I've never been before, listening to him playing Susanna I'm crazy loving you.  Nursing a margarita after a Baileys.

It's a dark place illuminated by Christmas decorations. People sit around drinking. They're in a convivial mood. Or at least that's how it seems. Maybe they drink to forget. Maybe they nurse their own dark secrets.

Which has all or nothing to do with Hard Times. Which I got through over a week ago. I've just put off writing this because I've been busy trying to decide what I should do.

I loved it. When Dickens relaxes into a story and it becomes about people rather than politics, he's a joy. Young Tom Gradgrind ended badly as supremely selfish people do. The bounder was exposed in all his fat pseudo humility that was another form of arrogance. Look how I struggled to come up. Look where I am now. Look who I'm married to. Ugh. . The thought of Louisa and Bounderby in bed together is beyond repulsive.

Typically there was only one happy ending. Sissy Jupe. The natural girl who thought with her heart rather than her head. The one who withstood the assault of facts no matter how many times they assailed her with them.

They all started out as caricatures and softened into human beings somewhere in the middle.

Stephen Blackpool's story was tragic. No joy in life and the ending such as it was. With death came rest.

Hard times indeed.

And now in keeping with the season I move on to his Christmas books.

The Sacrifice of Louisa Gradgrind

I object to this. To the sacrifice of Louisa Gradgrind, a beautiful young girl brought up by a hard fact-based man to a bounder like Bounderby. Everything Dickens could do to build up a picture of just how disgusting this man was, he did. And then, he marries this girl who had a soul, though her father did his best to purge it out of her...I don't know how Dickens could have described Gradgrind as a kind man. That seems to be akin to describing Arthur Clennam's mother (in Little Dorrit) as a kind woman. How come narrowness in one instance is forgiven and not in the other? Sure, he did take in that poor girl, Sissy Jupe. But still....

This is why I like Rosa Bud and Lizzie Hexam who refused to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their brothers or friends. Who refused to marry where they did not love, no matter what. Those are heroines worth having. As for Louisa, she married saying, "it doesn't matter" and it blighted her whole life. 30 years older but even that's not as bad the fact that he's, well, Bounderby! A bounder through and through. His stories (which if I remember were not true) of what he had to struggle through to grow up. Ah.

Anyway, I am sort of halfway through the book. In other words, I have completed Book the First. I wanted to take it up as soon as I put down Edwin Drood because this time, I wanted to get through the remaining books with no space in between.

Facts, facts, facts - Coketown. Dickens's description of Coketown and its inhabitants - the sarcasm that runs through the narrative - not the gentle humorous sarcasm that ran through Pickwick, but something harder, less forgiving and less forgivable.

I also have a few words to how he describes Stephen Blackpool's wife - the creature. She is a drunk and a degraded human being, not even a human being, less than an animal, a thing not worthy of living, a thing that ties down this good man who has been patient and forgiven her over and over. And yet, when he describes a man who is a drunk (like the one described by Dismal Jemmy in Pickwick) there is still some saving grace and he is still with his wife (whom he abuses) and his child. The wife is no longer a being but an object of loathing here. I feel sorry for Stephen Blackpool and doubly so, because he cannot marry his love and the stay of his life.

When the narrative moves from Bounderby (who is all caricature) to Blackpool, it gains life. Then he leaves off being so bitingly sardonic and starts to be human....more like the Dickens I love.Anyway, I hate Louisa's brother who is selfish and self-involved to the last degree. How could she love him? Well, who else did she have to love.

And I can't remember what happened to Sissy...I read this book twice before, and I still can't remember.

Never the mind...when I finish it I will write another update and hopefully, move on to the Christmas books (in keeping with the season).

And then, I will end with Sketches by Boz. I have to say, that as funny as they may have been at the time, I really dislike reading his sketches - I didn't like the Mudfog Chronicles or the Uncommercial Traveller. I love Dickens best when he is telling a story and not when he is commenting on someone or something or describing someone or something.

The offices of circumlocution.

Ah well....

The Mystery of John Jasper

I read this book faithfully after Dombey and then just didn't write about it. Sort of fitting that my ardour would have cooled with the unfinished novel. And yet, the novel itself was interesting and exciting. Rather strange to call it The Mystery of Edwin Drood when Dickens made it clear almost from the first page who was going to be the murderer.

The opium addict; in his opium den; consorting with lowlifes and having no control whatsoever on himself. The one thing I'm glad about is that Rosa Bud, unlike the majority of Dickens's heroines, did not succumb to Jasper's threats and suffer in silence. Instead she ran to her guardian (the Angular man who had been in love with her pretty mother) and threw herself on his protection and mercy. And everyone rallied around her and sayanged her and protected her. And in that time she even managed to fall in love with a sailor who had come into a fortune, not bad for the dear little doll.

I would have liked to have known a bit more of how the war between the two formidable females, Miss Twinkleton and the Bilikin would have played out. It was light relief during a heavy time. I would have also liked to have known who Datchery was and who sent him to investigate Jasper.

"Yer lie!" Deputy Winks was always good for a few laughs though I would have dearly loved to give him the drubbing of his life.

And so the narrative breaks off where the net is closing in around John Jasper. I am still curious to know how Dickens would have disposed of him. And what happened to Neville Landless since he clearly did not get the girl. And whether the beautiful Helena Landless would have married Crisparkle.

Dombey and daughter

So I'm wondering if I should go to Backyard tomorrow night or put it off until Mark's birthday...I haven't been this year, which of course has nothing to do with Dickens, just me rambling.

I wish I had written this post right after I had raced through Dombey and Son, unable to sleep, unable to put it down, picking it up surreptitiously at the office and in between assignments and during tea breaks.

In short, I loved it.

I didn't expect to.

But I did.

Before I had only read the first page and the utter coldness of the principle character and the fact that he was such a male chauvinist pig, put me off. Indefinitely. In fact, if I hadn't make a resolution to read ALL of Dickens, I would have probably given Dombey and Son a miss for the rest of my life.

But that was not to be. Dickens 2012 came along, and with it, my extraordinary resolution to read all of Dickens. And that included Dombey. Which doesn't tell you very much about Dombey. Just about my not reading it.

So I read. And I started to get into it. Even the coldness of Dombey failed to ice me over. I guess, it's because Dickens juxtaposed that with the stuff that was going on underneath his glacial exterior. How hurt he was that his son clung to his daughter instead of him. How he resented his affections going elsewhere. How the flatterers pandered to his weakest side and lulled him into a false sense of security.

His obdurate refusal of his daughter's love. The part where, when his son died, he wanted his tombstone to read "beloved only child" rather than "beloved only son" because he actually forgot that he had a daughter.

When the second Mrs Dombey came along, I was ready for her. But Dickens subverted the expectations. Edith was no cruel stepmother. In fact, she loved her stepdaughter more than she loved her husband. Recognising that she had been purchased by Mr Dombey like a piece of fine art, she refused to act like a piece of property he could show off. No, she was proud and angry and unwilling to submit. She fought him tooth and nail. And he got back at her the only way he knew how. Through Florence whom she loved. And by issuing his orders via a menial (his lieutenant as a subtle way of saying that the menial, a man, was superior to her).

I don't blame her for what she did. He pushed her over the edge. So she utterly destroyed him.

Edith was a very complex character...neither an angel nor a devil, but both in equal parts. It was the presence of people like her, and that woman whose name I cannot remember (see, it's been a while since I finished and I can't decide what to read next because Edwin Drood is not gripping me like it should) and when I had just finished I was so full of the story.

In the end I felt sorry for Mr Dombey when he lost everything and when he was forgiven (sort of the way Cordelia forgave Lear...well, Florence didn't "forgive" him, she begged his forgiveness for running away) I was happy.

That is the magic of Dickens. He can make you hate a character, but not too much that you do not forgive it. And if he has really painted something so awful that you cannot, he usually kills it off.

Witness that dwarf in Old Curiosity Shop. And Mr Carker in Dombey. I'm surprised that he didn't kill of Horlick in Great Expectations (although he did kill of Pip's sister whom he may have hated worse than Horlick).

I found Paul's death a lot more touching than Little Nell's. Well, you know how I felt about little Nell, and more importantly, her stupid grandfather. There was an element of that with Florence and her father...her inability to see his flaws.

Anyway, I loved the book and I read it very quickly.

And now I have Edwin Drood, Hard Times, the Christmas books and Sketches by Boz to go.

A far far better thing

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known..."

So I went from the interminable Little Dorrit to the much much better Tale of Two Cities. It was fantastic. I read it through in a few days (unlike Little Dorrit which dragged on for like, a month or more) and by the end I was racing through. I cried at the closing lines, of course even though I expected them.

Sidney Carton's character was interesting; in the end he proved the better man and he sacrificed everything for his love. And lived on evermore in her son named for him.

Charles Darnay, on the other hand, was colourless. I think he put his life and that of his family, needlessly at risk by going to Paris to "rescue" an old servant and a good man's life was lost because of it. Some may argue that Carton's life was worth nothing anyway, because of his aimlessness and the fact that he had lost the only thing which could have concentrated his affected, his stray powers, and made a man of him. And this death allowed him a nobility and honour that his life didn't.

But still, it was hard to see him go. Offering comfort to the poor seamstress at the end, dying with a "sublime peace" on his face.

So much needless slaughter. Madame Guilottine was a character in itself.

Madame Defarge was a monster of course. I quite liked the final confrontation between her and Miss Pross. I wish it had been more drawn out and more comic in character. I wish that stupid woman had suffered a little bit more when she died. But no, she just expired and then was locked in a house and left to rot. The other assassins were not as compelling - Vengeance, Jacques the Third...

Dickens made a case for the Revolution. But he did not agree with the way it was conducted. On the one hand, he excused it. On the other, he punished it. Especially at the end, when he prophesied what was going to happen to each of the main characters. That was satisfying, somehow. But after Madame Defarge was killed, I didn't have ire enough left over for the rest.

It was a good, good book.

I enjoyed it thoroughly.

And now, on to Dombey and Son.

The Last of Little Dorrit

And finally, finally I finished. Ironic that because Chubs co-opted my iPad to play Plants and Zombies, I was forced to borrow Jackie's leather-bound first edition to finish the book. This was in somewhat better condition than Martin Chuzzlewit and I read it straight through.

I realise I have been unfair to the book. OK, some parts were dreary and Little Dorrit was so good that she got on my nerves sometimes. I could better understand Fanny or Miss Wade or even Tattycoram.

But she got the object of her life which was to serve the man that she loved, raise him on a pedestal, take care of him, sacrifice herself for him. I guess it was a happy ending of sorts.

And the mysteries as they unravelled....after all that build-up, I couldn't feel the actual explanation was something of a let down. And it was not even very clear, when it came to the codicil that Mrs Clennam was supposed to have suppressed. The explanation as to why she didn't burn it and have done with it was poor, insufficient. She justified everything through the hard lens of her assumed religion (death and damnation forever). She could have come up with a suitable justification for burning the paper and thus, not thrusting herself into all this...

As for her suddenly having the energy to get up on her two useless legs and make her way to Marshalsea, I mean, that was utterly ridiculous. But I guess the ridiculousness was not the point, but the force of feeling that impelled it. It's like a Shakesperian play; you're not supposed to logically explain it - it is a play of emotions, the drama of what people are capable of and the stories they tell themselves about it.

Pet disappointed me but I guess her parents were somewhat to blame there - they had spoilt her to such a degree that her insistence of marrying that entirely unsuitable Henry Gowan (one of two characters in the book that didn't get his proper comeuppance, the other being Flintwich) and then suffering through it, cut off from her parents (except in terms of money which he unashamedly took) without a murmur because she loved him too much to credit his faults - it seems that Dickens's conception of a woman who loves is a woman who overlooks and continues to overlook the faults of her beloved. And in his narratives, that is seen as a virtue rather than the crass stupidity it is.

I think that women may go into these relationships blind, but their eyes are gradually opened and when they come to value the idiot they married at his true worth, they either leave him (preferable) or turn against him and make both their lives a living hell. I don't think they continue to meekly love him and excuse his faults.

But after Little Dorrit and after Nell, it would seem that Dickens takes this particular brand of stupidity as something to be proud of, write home about. It took me so long to get through this because it kept jarring on me.

The Patriarch who should have been a greater villain or affected me more, didn't affect me at all. The scenes that included him seemed to be lacking in life and colour.

Flintwich and Blandois were too unpleasant and made me want to kill each. So Blandois is crushed to death and Flintwich escapes (is that fair?).

My favourite character, the one who always made me laugh (yes, right through to the pathetic, affecting finale) was Mr F's Aunt. I don't think Flora was quite so successful a creation (when it comes to women who ramble and lose their point in the rambling, I prefer Mrs Nickleby) I was always giggling and chortling out loud whenever she had a scene. She was an absurdity thrown in at the right and wrong places to defuse the tension and I loved her. She was a truly Dickensian creation. As were all of them, but maybe, the others, so serious, so caricatured...were not so.

At least I learned where "prunes and prisms" come from. Mrs General. And Jo, from Little Women, who ranted against prunes and prisms...well, now I know what she was talking about.

The thing about reading Dickens is that you start to see references to him throughout other people's fiction and life stories. Now I am reading Emily Dickinson's biography and there are plenty of Dickensian references. Whether it's to Micawber or Sam Weller (I'm so glad I started with David Copperfield and finally know who Micawber is).

I'm watching Bleak House now, which my friend Zarinah sent me as a Christmas present. It's a very good production, although I think more could have been made of the closeness between Ada and Esther and I don't think it did justice to the character of John Jarndyce. Here it suggests that he was sexually attracted to Esther, rather than regarding her as a benevolent patron. Maybe the benevolent patron bit wouldn't have translated into a 21st century production. And Esther speaks sharply to him, which she would, on no account, have done.

I write this from JB. It's three days after Christmas. The house has emptied out today. And Arnold is sleeping in the hall, because I'm here. And because I've had a cup of coffee (so as not to waste it), I'm wide awake and will be watching some more Bleak House.

One thing I notice is that because of the sheer number of characters in the book, the miniseries has difficulty in introducing/developing them all, except for the main characters. And those too, some of them not to well-developed.

Thinking about it, maybe Ada Clare was not well-developed in the book either. She was pretty, she had an affectionate heart, she was loyal. And that was it. Richard and Esther were much more well-drawn.

My next book will be A Tale of Two Cities. I feel that after such a book as Little Dorrit, I need to reward myself with one of his best.

Stalling

I haven't anything to update, really. I haven't picked up Little Dorrit since I laid it down and wrote that last post. It doesn't call to me like Bleak House did or even Martin Chuzzlewit or Nicholas Nickleby or Our Mutual Friend.

No, it lies a cold dead thing in my iPad...I haven't been able to get past the meeting of the two villains.

There is something to be said for CS Lewis's Perelandra where he described the evil as tedious more than anything else. Going through the new machinations of a truly horrendous mind is boring.

I guess that's why they invented people like Hannibal Lechter to up the ante and to make people keep watching. And they have to keep upping the ante, putting creativity and imagination into new and wonderful ways for people to be cruel and base and simply disgusting.

That's why I like children's (though not Young Adult books, especially Robert Cormier). Your villain (though bad) can't be too evil. You can have Jardis. But not Lechter. (Although we do now that Voldermort tortured and killed...it's just that the last three books are YA and most of his torture is offstage).

So instead of reading Little Dorrit, I read Cheryl's Strayed's Wild, Cameron Gunn's Ben & Me and have now started on Will Schwalbe's The End of Your Life Book Club. In England I bought a whole lot of literary biographies and autobiographies (Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Eudora Welty, Lytton Strachey, Emily Dickinson, Vladimir Nabokov), Vasari's Life of Artists (Part 1) and Dorothy Wordsworth's journals.

Yesterday I was at Kinokuniya buying people a whole lot of books for Christmas.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with Dickens. But I thought I would record it nonetheless, as this seems to be the only blog I update.

I haven't renewed my car insurance or road tax and yesterday I got stopped by police during a roadblock. In fact, Marking yesterday seems to have been an ill-advised project all around. I was too tired, I lost my phone and now, I don't know how I'm going to pay for my car insurance. I wonder if they will let me put it on the card.

On the bright side most of the deadlines have been meet and there is nothing urgent I have to deliver for the rest of the year.

Maggot has just walked in stretched himself out in my room. Which I was sort of in the middle of cleaning.

Today, I decided to hell with other obligations, I'd stay in and do the chores that had gone begging for the past few weeks.

And then I could wrap and label presents, write out cards for my colleagues and then, and then... by the end of next week, I'm done.

But I'm not looking forward to Christmas this year. No Dickensian good cheer in this part of the woods.