Happy birthday, Chuck! (Charles Dickens, b. 7 February 1812)
The famous English man of letters Charles Dickens observed a quiet 200th birthday today under his slab in St. Paul's Cathedral. The rest of London, however, was a bit more boisterous and giddy about the celebration.
My sister and I raised a glass to the old boy tonight at dinner. (Thai-style squid fried rice and a Pinot Grigio may not be what comes to mind when one pictures a Dickensian revel, but Dickens knew how to describe a good meal - and few of his characters would turn down a lovely bit of fish and a bottle of good wine.)
I even marked his birthday in a way of which the old man would have thoroughly approved - I worked on some of my own fiction writing at lunchtime.
For the majority of people today, Charles Dickens probably means one thing and one thing only. A good chunk of the rest have bad flashbacks to English Lit and compulsory cramming of David Copperfield or Bleak House in 3 days before the blue-book essay exam - AFAIC the moral equivalent of forcing a child to choke down a sumptuous feast with a stopwatch running, then inducing vomiting. (When I am God the first thing I will do is outlaw the compulsory reading of "classics" in high school.)
I really read Dickens once I was safely away from formal schooling and could take my time reading them. My favorite Dickens novel is his very first - The Pickwick Papers. Little in this 1837 book has aged - not its hilarious depiction of medical studies, nor of the legal profession, nor the newspaper industry and the vicious small-town politics therein - and one aspect that is blessedly obsolete is its unblinking look at life in a debtor's prison (clearly written by someone who knew this venue all too well). I'm a little in love with Sam Weller, snicker every time the Fat Boy shows up, re-read the Christmas chapters every December - and as a writer I grit my teeth at the fact that this incredible volume was written when the author was 24 years old.
What about you? Read any Dickens lately? Remember any passages or characters with particular fondness? Favorite film versions of A Christmas Carol or Tale of Two Cities?
My sister and I raised a glass to the old boy tonight at dinner. (Thai-style squid fried rice and a Pinot Grigio may not be what comes to mind when one pictures a Dickensian revel, but Dickens knew how to describe a good meal - and few of his characters would turn down a lovely bit of fish and a bottle of good wine.)
I even marked his birthday in a way of which the old man would have thoroughly approved - I worked on some of my own fiction writing at lunchtime.
For the majority of people today, Charles Dickens probably means one thing and one thing only. A good chunk of the rest have bad flashbacks to English Lit and compulsory cramming of David Copperfield or Bleak House in 3 days before the blue-book essay exam - AFAIC the moral equivalent of forcing a child to choke down a sumptuous feast with a stopwatch running, then inducing vomiting. (When I am God the first thing I will do is outlaw the compulsory reading of "classics" in high school.)
I really read Dickens once I was safely away from formal schooling and could take my time reading them. My favorite Dickens novel is his very first - The Pickwick Papers. Little in this 1837 book has aged - not its hilarious depiction of medical studies, nor of the legal profession, nor the newspaper industry and the vicious small-town politics therein - and one aspect that is blessedly obsolete is its unblinking look at life in a debtor's prison (clearly written by someone who knew this venue all too well). I'm a little in love with Sam Weller, snicker every time the Fat Boy shows up, re-read the Christmas chapters every December - and as a writer I grit my teeth at the fact that this incredible volume was written when the author was 24 years old.
What about you? Read any Dickens lately? Remember any passages or characters with particular fondness? Favorite film versions of A Christmas Carol or Tale of Two Cities?