Yesterday I read Charles Dickens, one in a series of “Brief Lives” biographies. This is not to say that Dickens’ life was brief, because it was not, but this biography is. Nevertheless, the two authors, Melisa Limaszewski and Melissa Gregory (both academics and it shows in the somewhat dry writing) are successful in portraying the amazing person that was Charles Dickens. He was amazing in his rise from genteel poverty (his own words) to becoming perhaps the best known author in the world; as well as in his productivity, his energy, his vision for the world and of the world, and his management of a very complex and large family network, as well as his maintenance of true and long friendships, working relationships, and reform projects.
Dickens wrote a lot (he wrote books, letters, articles, plays, and notes for periodicals, working on many pieces all at the same time) and he wrote well. He walked up to twenty miles a day and he was big on socializing and theater-going, as well as writing for the theater and performing on stage in plays and reading his own works out loud to enthralled audiences. He had one wife, two devoted sisters-in-law, one lover, many children, and many friends. How did he do it all?
Dickens was truly a superhero, a super being I’d like to see when I look in the mirror. But I don’t. It’s enough for me to read my beloved book-a-day, scribble out these few sentences, and burn another dinner. I admire Dickens and I love his writing. He makes me laugh so hard and he reaches deep inside me to get at what I care about and dream of and wish for, for myself and my family and the world. And I would love to throw just one party as good as the Christmas party thrown by Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol.
Some of Dickens’ best books were written as serials, with new installments coming out every month and sometimes even weekly. The fast pace of his writing did nothing to dilute the richness and depth of his characters, the fascination of his plots, and the strength of his philosophical and moral themes. Those themes were so strongly conveyed within a context that was so recognizable and genuine, that they are still persuasive and moving and applicable to us today, reading Dickens almost two centuries after his birth.
Many of Dickens’ contemporaries are writers that we know (Thackeray, my favorite Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and don’t forget Mark Twain) and yet I argue that it is only Dickens who still reads as fresh and vital as new fiction. Often in the novels of the other authors, the problems faced by the characters are borne out of societal conventions and proprieties, as well as legal and political constrictions, of that era and that now seem silly or old fashioned or strange. Dickens employs many of the same threats against his characters but also portrays the underlying problems that are still with us today: poverty, abuse of the poor and disenfranchised, corruption of power, duplicity, and pretension in all its worst and most damaging forms.
For this same reason, Dickens’ characters are still so alive, and so funny (when meant to be) or horrible; we recognize the vices of hypocrisy and greed, avarice and affectation. Even his stock characters are deeper than their defining traits; they are drawn as real human beings, good and bad within.
And no author ever has been such a master of the name: the evil teacher called M’Choakkumchild in Hard Times, the sniveling backstabber Uriah Heep inDavid Copperfield, the conniving and twisting Dick Swiveller in The Old Curiosity Shop, the hypocrite Seth Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit (Martin Chuzzlewit for heaven’s sake!), the very good Cheeryble brothers of Nicholas Nickleby, John Peerybingle in The Cricket on the Hearth to name just a very few of the fantastic names Dickens came up with.
The underlying theme of Dickens’ books is the rarity and value of the genuine: that which is truly felt and presented and persevered with, is what ultimately prevails. Truth, in other words, will out. In the case of Dickens, he wrote very genuinely of the times he had lived in and was living in, and matched that truth with absolute genius at conveying plot and character. What results are simply perfect books that are a joy to read, funny and tear- jerking and inspiring. Rather than read the biography of his life, read again his very own writings: Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop,Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend.
I plan on reading more of his Christmas Tales (“A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire”, “The Seven Poor Travellers”, “The Holly-tree Inn”, “The Wreck of the Golden Mary”, “The Perils of Certain English Prisoners”, and “A House to Let”) as we approach December 25th: look here for my reviews!
