LNW 2012 --- Loving Charles Dickens

Saturday Evening With Jane Smiley

by Jim Baird

It’s Saturday night, and we’ve got a date with Charles Dickens. We’ve read his David Copperfield, loved it, and now it’s time to meet the man himself.  Fortunately, we have a chaperone.  Jane Smiley, herself the author of thirteen novels (one a Pulitzer winner), loves Charles Dickens, too, and knows him well. In fact, one of her non-fiction books is an easy-to-read Dickens biography. She’s the perfect choice to introduce us to this Victorian gentleman.

The evening unfolded this way: some preliminary remarks and background, then questions from the audience. Since this was my first Long Novel event, I got some first-date jitters at this point. Almost nine hundred pages should provide enough material for a thousand questions, but I couldn’t think of even one. Fortunately, some veteran attendees knew what to ask, and Ms. Smiley’s answers were humorous and cogent. Good answers make for good questions, and the ninety minutes were over too soon.

There isn’t space to report all the Q and A, but in the summary below you’ll see a few samples.

To Begin: Some Recommendations

The reader who would like to experience the essential Dickens, and who would like a sense of his development as a novelist, should make it a point to read these titles, in order:

David Copperfield (a comic masterpiece)

Great Expectations (a darker masterpiece)

Dombey and Son (Her favorite)

A Tale of Two Cities (a look at good and evil)

Our Mutual Friend (Dickens’ perfect novel)

For those who would like to read more about Dickens himself, a deluxe edition of John Forster’s early biography—Forster was a Dickens friend and editor—has just been re-issued with period illustrations and engravings from the novels, pictures and material from other books. A really beautiful piece of work. Also, the Oxford Companion to Dickens is a great read. These two titles are a good introduction into the many shelves of Dickens scholarship that have been written over the 150 years since his death (he lived 1812 – 1870).

Some Dickens Facts

As a youngster he was healthy, not a big guy, fun to be around but not malicious, noticeably smart, deliberately informal in his wardrobe. Friends talked about how young Charles would make up his own lingo or pretend to speak as a foreigner, just for fun. He loved words. He would also tell made-up-on-the-spot tales on walks with friends.

 Most of the pictures we have of Dickens show him not smiling, and the same with his paintings. How so? He was known for his good nature and “merry look,” after all. Novelists weren’t respected at the time; in fact the quality of novels written after Walter Scott’s death in 1820 until Dickens got up to speed in 1835 was lousy. Charles wanted to make novel writing “respectable,” so he couldn’t afford to be seen laughing. Dickens’ books marked a turning point, from country settings and themes (in George Eliot, for example) to the gritty urban stuff that’s familiar even today.

Dickens was also a keen observer of people. His parents loved to put on family shows, so he was making up dialogue and coming up with characters as soon as he could walk. This training, along with amazing listening and verbal skills, make Dickens the best writer in English other than Shakespeare at representing people’s speech. We hear actual people’s voices in Dickens.

Questions and Answers

Q.          Was Dora, David’s “child wife,” an autobiographical character?

A.         The character of Dora is a fantasy figure, made up by Dickens. There was, however, such a girl in Dickens’ life, someone he met during his stint as a stenographer at Parliament. He learned shorthand after he left school, and he was pretty good at it, so in his late teens he was hired to record speeches. She was interested in young Charles, and he in her, but her dad was opposed; this young man wasn’t going anywhere, as far as he was concerned, so that was that.

         When the book came out, she remembered him, and got in touch. When they met again, it was a disappointment; she was shallow, a non-stop talker, no longer pretty or young. Interestingly, she re-appears as the character Flora in Little Dorrit, with the traits above, but also with a kind nature, and she’s the wisest character in the book.

Q.         Was Dickens good company?

A.         Yes, as mentioned above, also a great observer and eavesdropper. This began early in life, and he got so good at it that people who met him for the first time felt “scanned,” and “pinned like butterflies.” He was quick to pick up on things, too.

         He would walk amazingly (to us) long distances every day, sometimes as many as 30 miles, and he’d observe and eavesdrop the whole time, getting material for his stories.

Q.         Wasn’t Dickens a kind of provocateur in his time, a troublemaker?

A.         London in 1824 to 1832 was a real sewer, a city of nice enclaves surrounded by filth. Think of Mumbai in India today for a modern comparison. For example, graveyards would overflow with bodies, and nothing was done about it. Dickens was an insomniac, and he would walk all over London at night, and in his walking he saw the horrors and injustice.

         A couple of things from his life helped him see things that other writers, George Eliot for example, never could. First, his family was sent to the poorhouse. They deserved the sentence but the experience opened his eyes. Second, he was sent to work in a blacking factory, putting labels on cans of shoe polish, an experience he never forgot, and that motivated him to find a better life. The other boys at the factory were stuck there; he could have been.

Q.         How did Dickens write? Lots of drafts?

A.         Forster, later his biographer, helped edit the work as Dickens produced it. But since his books were published in serial, the text could be improved before the sections were gathered into an actual book. So, Dickens didn’t have to get things right the first time; he wasn’t a perfectionist.

         However, he did throw himself into the writing. One day his daughter, age 7 at the time, was sick and home from school. She stayed with her dad as he worked, and watched while he would write at his desk, then jump up and go to a mirror, where he would act out dialogue and emotions, then rush back to the desk and write everything down. This was his acting side—he acted in many plays in London—and he let the feelings flow through into his writing. This may be unique to Dickens among English authors.       

Q.          Who was influenced by Dickens?

A.         Kafka and Tolstoy, for example, loved him. But Dickens fell from favor in the 20^th century, to the point that his name didn’t appear on an authoritative list of great novelists published in the late 1940s. He was known and remembered at that point as a “children’s author.” As a result of efforts by the UC Santa Cruz “Dickens Project” in the 1960s, his reputation rebounded. Some times when an author dies, people say, “Thank goodness.” They’ve had enough. So, a reputation can fade for a few decades. We’ve seen this happen recently with Jane Austen. In fact, in Dickens time the comeback kid was Shakespeare! For an author, the hope is to stay in print, even digital, so people can revive the work, eventually.

Q.          What about Jane Smiley? Any books in the works?

A.         Always.

She’s got a current project based on her grandfather. It’s about a genius, based on Mare Island when it was still active, who goes wrong, then disproves Einstein.

Also, a kids’ novel about a character who brings horses to California from Oklahoma.

And, a trilogy of adult novels.

We finished the evening with wine and plum pudding. The pudding, fittingly enough, resembled a Dickens novel: large, colorful, and rich.