Tuesday, 7 Feb. 2012...

[Extollager]

... will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.

I propose that Chronsfolk discuss some Dickens-related ideas for deployment around that time. The obvious idea is that we start discussing a book in January and finish up on that date, with a toast in one's favorite beverage. Others might have other ideas. One other idea is that we read one or more works of sf or fantasy that appear to have been inspired by Dickens or to have a Dickensian quality, either instead of or along with a book by the Inimitable himself.

I anticipate some worthwhile media offerings in connection with the bicentennial, as well, no doubt, as some rubbishy stuff. Perhaps it's too soon to say to which category this will belong:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/nov/04/helena-bonham-carter-miss-havisham

(but it could be pretty great!).

 

[dask]

If the world is still around. Of course, February 7 is pretty early in the year and I don't think the know-it-alls have quite figured out exactly what day the world will end (no one really expects kia's to know-it-all anyway). If we're still here I think I'll give it a try, if I can find a Dickens book thin enough to read in a month.

 

[Extollager]

Dask, I think if the world economy sort of wipes out, Dickens may be all the more relevant. We're going to need to rediscover the fact that life can be human and good even if you don't have very much.

Here are some thoughts about possible selections:

1.Dickens's Selected Journalism -- this is a Penguin edition. I would nominate this book if the sentiment is in favor of a relatively short book, or else #2 below. I don't think Dickens is at his best in his shortest novel, Hard Times.

2.Great Expectations -- one of his best, no doubt about it, and shorter than most of them; and there's apparently both a movie and a miniseries coming out based on it

3.The Mystery of Edwin Drood -- also relatively short, but in this case that's on account of Dickens dying before it was finished

4.If people are willing to read a big juicy Dickens novel, we could go with any of several great books

 

[thatollie]

I'm going to read all of his novels (in my collection) from January 1st onwards.

 

[Extollager]

I'm going to read all of his novels (in my collection) from January 1st onwards.

Reading them in any particular order?

Myself, I have two left -- Pickwick and Dombey and Son -- but I confess that I started back in the Seventies! (However, I've reread a number of 'em.)

 

[thatollie]

I was thinking of starting with Bleak House, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and then on in no particular order. But saying that, I may read the Christmas Books at Christmas.

 

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for bringing this particular fact to the attention of us Luddites.... Great idea us doing something to celebrate such a significant figure in English literature!

@Thatollie: I too have set myself probably in 2012 to read all 14 of his novels as well as short stories, travelogues & selected journal items. Can I suggest, aside from the idea of reading the "Christmas stories" around the festive season to kick things off, to read the newly released and rather glorious looking Penguin Black Classic edition Sketches By Boz. It collects a lot of his early observations of London life and was his first published book and to this end will be instructive in witnessing the development of his ever burgeoning mastery of characterization. I'm starting from this point and THEN moving on to the 3 key travelogues available (Pictures From Italy incl. other part of Europe, American Notes - Public release & France travelogue) BEFORE starting the 14 novels in Chronological order OR I may include the travelogues and novels in as close an order as I can. This will take the entirety of 2012 for me to complete (reading other books as well) and probably into 2013 before I'm done but that is the plan for 2012-13...

 

[Extollager]

Thatollie and Gollum, your idea of majoring in Dickens during the whole bicentennial year is exciting!

I'd be willing to get on board with discussing Sketches by Boz before too long, if others like the idea. I haven't read this book and (blush) tend to forget about it.

 

[thatollie]

G-man, I'll have to think about this in a couple of weeks. Right now, my brain is only able to focus on my own writing.

 

[Extollager]

I have to mention: Dickens must be the first author really to nail the profile of the hoarder, with Krook of Bleak House, who is not a miser but who self-professedly can't bear to part with any of the astounding clutter in his multi-story residence. Somehow I ended up watching some of the A & E TV series about Hoaders just this weekend and am amazed by how Krook-like the scenarios are.

 

[dask]

I have both Sketches By Boz and Selected Journalism. Any preference which one to read for the event?

 

[Extollager]

I wonder if others would enjoy Dickens's essay "Night Walks" as much as I have. It's included in The Uncommercial Traveller and that Penguin edition of the Selected Journalism. Here's the Project Gutenberg edition of Traveller, with Chapter XIII "Night Walks":

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/914

This might whet your appetite for the upcoming centennial year as a time for digging in to this writer!

 

[GOLLUM]

In addition to what I listed you reminded me Sir that I too have a copy of the Uncommercial Traveller but I have read little of it to date.

Sketches of Boz I've just started on. This is the excellent Penguin Black Classic edition which must have one of the best Black Classic covers I've ever come across. It includes an informative introduction by Dennis Walder who helpfully points out various progenitors who would eventually develop into some of literature's most beloved characters. In fact reading this splendid new edition of Sketches of Boz before the novels is to be encouraged I think. This edition also features all of the original illustrations by George Cruikshank.

 

[Extollager]

This is the excellent Penguin Black Classic edition which must have one of the best Black Classic covers I've ever come across. It includes an informative introduction by Dennis Walder who helpfully points out various progenitors who would eventually develop into some of literature's most beloved characters. In fact reading this splendid new edition of Sketches of Boz before the novels is to be encouraged I think. This edition also features all of the original illustrations by George Cruikshank.

I have a Penguin edition (Walder as editor) of Sketches by Boz. It does look good. If others want to read and discuss it, I'm willing to get on board for that. If that's what people want to do, would we start now or at the beginning of 2012?

I can't promise to keep up with the discussion, though, due to press of work and so on.

 

[Vince W]

Check out www.dickens2012.org for all kinds of Dickens related events.

 

[Rob Sanders]

Charles Dickens was a fantastic writer, of course. If you want something SF/F orientated then the closest you can probably get is the Dickens short story 'The Signalman'...

 

[Extollager]

Charles Dickens was a fantastic writer, of course. If you want something SF/F orientated then the closest you can probably get is the Dickens short story 'The Signalman'...

I think that story deserves its fame. It is, overtly, a story of supernatural horror. With Dickens, though, there is a quality of the strange or the weird that often comes through in material that isn't overt fantasy!

 

[Extollager]

I'm glad to see other Dickens fans manifesting themselves.

Does anyone want to cite sf or fantasy authors who seem to him or her to be "Dickensian"? Here's something quoted from Wikipedia:

---"There are no heroes in [Philip K.] Dick's books", Ursula Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."---

I think it is likely that Tolkien was influenced by Dickens. For an incidental example, one could compare the bit in The Fellowship of the Ring in which Bilbo gives his after-dinner speech with that early in the book in which Pickwick speaks. They seem close enough that Tolkien seems to me to be echoing Dickens.

 

[Rob Sanders]

What about China Miéville's 'Perdido Street Station'? Dickens often makes the city the star of his books and I got the feeling that Miéville was very much trying to give New Crobuzon the same kind of feel. It certainly had a Victorian resonance.



________________________________________________________________
Rob Sanders Speculative Fiction

 

[GOLLUM]

I've just started on Sketches By Boz, I may also read another of the travelogues and a collection of the so-called "Christmas books" in the festive season...so up until the New Year anyone else planning to read these particular works MAY wish to join in prior to the 'main event'; namely the novels in 2012.

My goal is to begin reading the novels in Jan 2012 in Chronological order. Like Extollager, I have work commitments, so I don't know how practical it will be to try and synchronize readings here? Especially as not everyone has all of the novels nor may choose to read them in a specific order or wish to wait around until others have 'caught up' etc.

My plan is to simply label any posts where I'm discussing or commenting on a Dickens novel with the title of that work. That way anyone else who has not yet read that work but intends to do so in 2012 may decide to avoid those particular posts in this thread or may decide to read them anyway along with anyone else who of course is just interested in Dickens or wishes to join the discussion at the time or a later stage of the year.

Of course I'm just one person, so other members will no doubt decide upon how they are going to post here.