What the…?

Being given some cash for my birthday (last December, this was) my eyes lit up at all the infinite options of what to spend it on.  It just so happened we had decided to take a Christmas Eve jaunt to Newstead Abbey, home of Lord Byron, so we were guaranteed a book section in the gift shop.

From previous visits I knew all the Wordsworth classics would be £2.50 so I blew some of the money on the below books, completely ignoring Byron in favour of a massive chunk of Charles Dickens, on a whim.

Fancy arrangement and photograph done by Crissy as my photos have a long history of looking awful.

As I was sorting which ones I wanted, it called to mind that episode of Doctor Who, where they meet Dickens and he ends up exclaiming, ‘What the Shakespeare!’, ending all the speculation on what people used to say before the well known phrase, ‘what the dickens?’.

I did get more books at a later date – and by other authors – but will leave that for the next post as I haven’t gotten around to badgering the wife to take an arty photo yet.

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

In what may be Dickens’s best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman — and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of “great expectations.” In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride.

Glancing about for my next read, I came across Great Expectations and I had to read it owing to the fact that there was a French teacher called Miss Havisham at school and that is as good a reason as any when the choice before me is so great.

The start is a brilliant set piece, a graveyard scene, an escaped convict and a boy alone on the foggy marshes.  It’s one of those openings that doesn’t just grab you in and keep you hooked from the off but is one of those memorable set pieces that will stay fixed in your memory for years.

It’s not far into the book when the word farinaceous (consisting of or containing starch) pops up thus reinforcing how good this book is.  Add in some trademark Dickens character names like Mr Wopsle and Pumblechook and a story that progresses smoothly to make this one of the higher echelon of  British classics in my opinion.

Pip’s voice is wonderfully written, it feels accurate and full of regret.  Most importantly it feels human and his thoughts, humbleness and understanding of key life events show a maturity of writing that comes through his natural growth of character throughout the book.  As far as narrators go Pip is one of my favourites.

Dickens has a great eye for human affectations, traits and emotional states, he really is a master and brings his characters to life, their often tragic ways and flaws, their hopes and beliefs.  What intrigued me is whilst plenty of characters have depths hidden which the reader is not aware of to begin with, others keep their singular attitudes and ways as anchors around the story, to perhaps ground the characters on their journeys towards redemption or otherwise.

The Uncommercial Traveller – Charles Dickens

This volume contains a series of lightly fictionalised but sharply observed and often polemical observational sketches published in Dickens’s periodical “All the Year Round” based on an authorial persona of a traveller at leisure.

Not the most thrilling of blurbs ever, I grant you but I couldn’t find anything more substantial which for a book like this, written by such a fantastic author is something that really needs to be addressed.

The Uncommercial Traveller is one of the Dickens books that doesn’t get mentioned very often.  Taking a diversion from his usual fiction, he shows his diversity with a range of essays from the comedic to serious social issues.

This collection of articles was written for the author’s own journal, All the Year Round in which he takes on the persona of the Uncommercial Traveller who journeys about and observes, giving insights into community and historical matters.

I read this book on and off over a number of months and have been intrigued by Dickens’ style.  His enquiring mind is at its best here, showing that even in his later years financial success had not dulled his need to take on the inequalities of the Victorian society or hold back with his incisive observances.

A mixture of hard-hitting journalism and observational pieces, it is the former that sticks in the mind the longest, looking at the terrible conditions people lived in – most especially in the workhouses – the lack of education and the closed class system of Britain at that time.

Although the book is not all doom and gloom by any means, Dickens’ trademark humour comes through and his joviality often belies sharp scrutiny on his surroundings.  Whether observing people in a theatre or the habits of children in church, his words are always alive with the love of experiencing things, whether good or bad, it is this insatiable curiosity that kept me coming back.