Learning to (quite) love Pickwick at last
I wanted to start this post with the portrait of the young, dandified Dickens painted by Maclise but all pics seem subject to copyright. You can find it on the National Portrait Gallery page. The more familiar, ravaged face of thirty years later shows how overwork can kill a person. For years, I struggled to get through The Pickwick Papers, always giving up after a few chapters. Eventually (I think it was some time in the late seventies), I persevered, finished it and thought, ‘Never again.’ So why did I pick it up recently? I know a great deal more about Dickens now than I did back then and I was awestruck by how young he was (twenty-four) when he wrote this and made his name. In 1836 Dickens was not new to writing. He had worked as a shorthand writer in the House of Commons (which he despised ever after), had stories in magazines and published Sketches by Boz.
The publishers Chapman and Hall wanted some stories to accompany sporting prints by Robert Seymour and approached Dickens for the work. He said he knew little about sport (fishing, shooting etc.), they accepted this and the unfortunate artist found himself illustrating Dickens’ stories, rather than the other way round. This was to be typical of Dickens, never letting a publisher get the better of him and driving a hard bargain. Poor Seymour killed himself and eventually, as each episode became more popular than the last, ‘Phiz’ took over the illustrations.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, to give the book its correct title, is often described as Dickens’ first novel. It really isn’t a novel at all but a picaresque tale describing scenes and adventures. Mr Pickwick is an elderly (we are not told how old) gentleman who has made enough money in business for a comfortable retirement. Dickens doesn’t specify what this business was, which was to be a typical trait in his work. The other members of the club are Mr Tupman, ‘middle-aged’ and two younger members, Mr Snodgrass and Mr Wardle. These Pickwickians never come alive as characters in the way that the conman Mr Jingle does, or Sam Weller and his father. Having resolved to travel about keeping a record of their doings, the four chaps set off on their jaunts, travelling by coach and putting up at inns.
On this reading, I was struck by how early Dickens was using his incredible powers of observation (Peter Ackroyd says that he never forgot anything he saw) and piling on detail. For instance, he describes a room at an inn, itemising its contents quite unnecessarily and mentioning the mortal remains of a trout in a glass coffin,, where any other writer would just have said there was a stuffed trout in the room. He also had a great ear for the way people actually speak, which is perhaps better shown in Pickwick than in later, greater works where the characters are too much given to unrealistic, melodramatic declarations. There is an air of freedom about Pickwick and (for the main characters), of plentiful food and drink. When they stay at idyllic Dingley Dell as guests of the hospitable Mr Wardle, food abounds: cheeses, hams, fowls, great rounds of beef are set out and drink is also taken freely, at any hour of the day. Brandy and hot water is a favourite tipple throughout the book, along with rum, porter and ale. Dickens was abstemious himself but here, as in A Christmas Carol, he revels in descriptions of food and drink. The two young doctors, Benjamin Allen and Bob Sawyer are seldom sober. Dickens devotes a chapter to mocking a temperance society; he never liked spoilsports who would deprive people of pleasure.
Several themes appear here which would recur throughout his work. One is corruption, as seen in the Eatanswill election. It’s interesting to compare this with the election in Middlemarch, in which Mr Brooke is ridiculed and humiliated. Two very different writers, two very similar elections. Another is the ridiculousness of the legal system, as shown in the case of Bardell v. Pickwick, when Mrs Bardell sues Mr Pickwick for breach of promise. He spends some time in prison because he is innocent and refuses to pay the damages. In later books Dickens would attack corrupt institutions savagely; here he makes them funny. For example, at Eatanswill, the crier performed another concerto on the bell, whereupon a gentleman in the crowd called out “muffins”; which occasioned another laugh. This is such an English type of humour that you could hear similar examples today.
Less funny was his abhorrence of dirt and slovenliness. He never neglects to mention it if a man has a dirty face or grubby collar, or if a street is filthy. He was obsessively clean and well-dressed all his life and expected everything around him to be neat and orderly. Another subject he can’t keep away from is misery brought on by debt. One of the stories which pad out the book is all about the suffering inflicted on one family by the father being in the debtors’ prison. Even when he became rich and famous, Dickens never lost that fear of slipping into the abyss of poverty and debt which had ended his childhood when he was twelve and scarred him for life.
I seemed to be getting on well when, about three quarters of the way through the book, I just stuck; couldn’t go on. I read at least four other books before returning to Pickwick, determined to finish it. I don’t think this is just me; the end of the book is less good than the start. Mr Jingle turns up again but becomes a reformed character and is packed off to America. (Already, Dickens was seeing distant lands as a means of redemption, as Australia turned out to be for the Micawbers and Peggottys in David Copperfield. He even sent three of his own sons abroad; they all died fairly young, thousands of miles from home.) It would be more in keeping with the light-hearted spirit of the book if Jingle had been allowed to continue on his rakish way. After many mishaps, all couples who ought to be paired off have been. Mr Pickwick disbands the club and retires to Dulwich, where he likes to visit the picture gallery. So ends the story of the Pickwick Club. Perhaps Dickens had run out of ideas, perhaps Chapman & Hall’s quota had been fulfilled; who knows? The public would obviously have enjoyed following Pickwick forever. More to the point perhaps, is that while finishing Pickwick, he was writing Oliver Twist *at the same time*. Incredible.
I can never love Pickwick as I love say, Great Expectations. But I do now see it as a work of youthful genius, a fanfare announcing the arrival of an astonishing talent and a harbinger of great things to come.
The publishers Chapman and Hall wanted some stories to accompany sporting prints by Robert Seymour and approached Dickens for the work. He said he knew little about sport (fishing, shooting etc.), they accepted this and the unfortunate artist found himself illustrating Dickens’ stories, rather than the other way round. This was to be typical of Dickens, never letting a publisher get the better of him and driving a hard bargain. Poor Seymour killed himself and eventually, as each episode became more popular than the last, ‘Phiz’ took over the illustrations.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, to give the book its correct title, is often described as Dickens’ first novel. It really isn’t a novel at all but a picaresque tale describing scenes and adventures. Mr Pickwick is an elderly (we are not told how old) gentleman who has made enough money in business for a comfortable retirement. Dickens doesn’t specify what this business was, which was to be a typical trait in his work. The other members of the club are Mr Tupman, ‘middle-aged’ and two younger members, Mr Snodgrass and Mr Wardle. These Pickwickians never come alive as characters in the way that the conman Mr Jingle does, or Sam Weller and his father. Having resolved to travel about keeping a record of their doings, the four chaps set off on their jaunts, travelling by coach and putting up at inns.
On this reading, I was struck by how early Dickens was using his incredible powers of observation (Peter Ackroyd says that he never forgot anything he saw) and piling on detail. For instance, he describes a room at an inn, itemising its contents quite unnecessarily and mentioning the mortal remains of a trout in a glass coffin,, where any other writer would just have said there was a stuffed trout in the room. He also had a great ear for the way people actually speak, which is perhaps better shown in Pickwick than in later, greater works where the characters are too much given to unrealistic, melodramatic declarations. There is an air of freedom about Pickwick and (for the main characters), of plentiful food and drink. When they stay at idyllic Dingley Dell as guests of the hospitable Mr Wardle, food abounds: cheeses, hams, fowls, great rounds of beef are set out and drink is also taken freely, at any hour of the day. Brandy and hot water is a favourite tipple throughout the book, along with rum, porter and ale. Dickens was abstemious himself but here, as in A Christmas Carol, he revels in descriptions of food and drink. The two young doctors, Benjamin Allen and Bob Sawyer are seldom sober. Dickens devotes a chapter to mocking a temperance society; he never liked spoilsports who would deprive people of pleasure.
Several themes appear here which would recur throughout his work. One is corruption, as seen in the Eatanswill election. It’s interesting to compare this with the election in Middlemarch, in which Mr Brooke is ridiculed and humiliated. Two very different writers, two very similar elections. Another is the ridiculousness of the legal system, as shown in the case of Bardell v. Pickwick, when Mrs Bardell sues Mr Pickwick for breach of promise. He spends some time in prison because he is innocent and refuses to pay the damages. In later books Dickens would attack corrupt institutions savagely; here he makes them funny. For example, at Eatanswill, the crier performed another concerto on the bell, whereupon a gentleman in the crowd called out “muffins”; which occasioned another laugh. This is such an English type of humour that you could hear similar examples today.
Less funny was his abhorrence of dirt and slovenliness. He never neglects to mention it if a man has a dirty face or grubby collar, or if a street is filthy. He was obsessively clean and well-dressed all his life and expected everything around him to be neat and orderly. Another subject he can’t keep away from is misery brought on by debt. One of the stories which pad out the book is all about the suffering inflicted on one family by the father being in the debtors’ prison. Even when he became rich and famous, Dickens never lost that fear of slipping into the abyss of poverty and debt which had ended his childhood when he was twelve and scarred him for life.
I seemed to be getting on well when, about three quarters of the way through the book, I just stuck; couldn’t go on. I read at least four other books before returning to Pickwick, determined to finish it. I don’t think this is just me; the end of the book is less good than the start. Mr Jingle turns up again but becomes a reformed character and is packed off to America. (Already, Dickens was seeing distant lands as a means of redemption, as Australia turned out to be for the Micawbers and Peggottys in David Copperfield. He even sent three of his own sons abroad; they all died fairly young, thousands of miles from home.) It would be more in keeping with the light-hearted spirit of the book if Jingle had been allowed to continue on his rakish way. After many mishaps, all couples who ought to be paired off have been. Mr Pickwick disbands the club and retires to Dulwich, where he likes to visit the picture gallery. So ends the story of the Pickwick Club. Perhaps Dickens had run out of ideas, perhaps Chapman & Hall’s quota had been fulfilled; who knows? The public would obviously have enjoyed following Pickwick forever. More to the point perhaps, is that while finishing Pickwick, he was writing Oliver Twist *at the same time*. Incredible.
I can never love Pickwick as I love say, Great Expectations. But I do now see it as a work of youthful genius, a fanfare announcing the arrival of an astonishing talent and a harbinger of great things to come.