Charles Dickens still relevant today

[Laura Smyth]

I know, many people hate Charles Dickens because he has been so misused and sentimentalized by popular culture, but he is still one of my favorite novelists.

So, I decided to reread Little Dorrit and except for the differences in the way we use the English language he could be talking about today's society and our financial systems. Great literature and clear-eyed insights into human nature are always relevant.

[Nina Vida]

I haven't read much of Dickens, except for Pickwick Papers in high school. I recently decided to read Great Expectations and was surprised at its modernity, and especially at Dickens' keen understanding and sympathy for the misdirections of the foppish/socially-climbing Pip.

[Laura Smyth]

Well if you decide to dive back into Dickens I really recommend Bleak House (I mean a novel that includes spontaneous human combustion and is set in the 1800s can't easily be topped). And of course David Copperfield, but my all time favorite Dickens is Bleak House.

[Scott Perkins]

I hate to hear that.

Dickens' voice was so modern and his wit was so sharp that we hear ourselves in it. So many of his plots and twists and characters are mimicked remorselessly today because he set the bar that we're all trying to clear. When reading the classics it is imperative to keep in mind that the things we might today view as "cliche" or "over-done" in modern literature were endlessly imitated in an attempt to reflect what we hold in our hands. What Dickens did was not cliche, it was made cliche by endless repetition from the pens and typewriters that followed him.

Not long ago I was reading a music critic talk about the number of bands whose entire catalog and careers could be summarized as "Variations on one song from the Beatles' White Album". (I'll have to find the article so I can quote and attribute accurately). So too could many more authors and screenwriters be summed up as churning out endless variations on the source material drawn from Dickens. But the quality of imitation does not strain the strength of the source material.

[Laura Smyth]

Very well said. I go back to Dickens again and again and am endlessly impressed with his ability to give us characters that are so precise in their moment and so recognizable in our own time.

[Scott Perkins]

I agree. I didn't want to blog in your comments thread, so I've expanded on my comments a bit over here: The Thing About Charlie from my own blog.

By the way, thanks for giving me an idea for today's blog post.

[Nina Vida]

So I ordered Bleak House. I will let you know what I think when I'm finished. Thanks!

[Allan Russell]

I love Dickens, always have probably always will.
It his his multidimensional characters that really work for me. Protagonists that you can both love and loath and for that matter, villains you deeply sympathise with even as you hate them.

[Laura Smyth]

I agree, Allan. I also love his names. My daughter (who has not yet decided to tackle reading the novels herself but has enjoyed some really good film versions of several novels) wanted her first dog to be Yorkshire terrier and was going to name him Fezziwig after the lovable character in A Christmas Carol. She ended up with a hound dog named Jack but still it warmed my heart that she was looking at dogs and thinking of Dickens.

I am rereading Little Dorrit and talking with her about our country's current economic problems and how our culture handles poverty and indebtedness and she has seen the connections herself. We may not have debtor's prisons as such anymore but we have plenty of people imprisoned by debt, left homeless, in prison as much due to the roots of poverty than any personal evil, etc. I was trying to think this morning what contemporary novelist is as keen a social critic in their writing? I'm sure we have plenty and it might be time for me to start reading a living novelist again. Any suggestions anyone?

[Allan Russell]

How right you are Laura. Who could fail to enjoy names such as Pumblechook, Tulkinghorn, or Podsnap.

An interesting approach to investigating moral issues with your daughter, I suspect she will end up a very compassionate and thoughtful person.

Australian society is perhaps marginally more compassionate to to those in extremis than that of the US, we speak of "battlers" rather than "losers". However, I work for a charity that provides support to people who are homeless and it is really distressing to see how powerless people are rendered by circumstance. I am ashamed that I live in a society that permits such injustice. Yet as a counter, I also see the best of people, much of our service is provided by volunteers and funded by those who have little themselves but still give to help others.

As to a contemporary who is a keen social critic maybe Arundhati Roy?

[Book Calendar]

I enjoyed reading A Tale of Two Cities, but did not much care for Oliver Twist, I found it too sentimental (the story was not to my personal taste, but it was well written). He was very much appealing to the popular opinions of the time. I find I have different reactions to different novels he has written. I also liked a Christmas Carol. His writing is still very relevant.

[chrisbookarama]

Bleak House is one of my favorites. I have a lot of his books that I haven't read yet. I hope I'll get around to them someday.

[Sharon (book pusher)]

I have noticed that on occassion a new popular novelist will be promoted as the new Dickens, or in chick lit you get the varriation; the new Austen and I think this process does a diservice to these great novelists. Often the only basis for these associations is a shallow popularity, thus Dickens becomes assocciated with popularity and sentiment rather than substance and the 'clear-eyed insights', you speak of, (this is just a general impression). I love Dickens, and I think he is timeless, perhaps for some younger readers the style of the 19th century novel is daunting, but then I think we should as parents, teachers, librarians etc., introduce these works in fun ways, like using film versions, or reading outloud some of the shorter stories, like A Christmas Carol, or just some of the best bits from the novels. Bleak House is one of my all time favourtite novels and it seems amazingly relevant and timeless, sometimes when I am between books and just can't get into anything new I pull down something like Bleak House and just re-read favourite chapters. On the subject of Bleak House I am sure I have heard of introductory law courses where amongst the text books, Bleak House will also appear as a set text, which says something about it's relevance, (I wish I remember where I read that). I love the way your daughter was seeking a pet and a name based on her Dickens experience, film versions first introduced my daughter to the books and she in her mid teens has begun to read the books also. Dickens is a bit like Shakespeare, and like Scott says the Beatles, he is the source of much imitation, which in itself kind of highlights his relevance.
I will be interested to see what authors people will recommend as contempory social critics. Interesting discussion topic.