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 20th
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.
Larson’s story reads like a thriller with compelling historic
detail. In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years
of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William
E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and
his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and
scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His
frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s
growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who
are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is
mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of
Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with
the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both
become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession
for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night,
later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a
well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a
gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best
political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even
though we already know the outcome. ---Shane Hansanuwat
