Sketches By Boz - (Charles Dickens 1833 - 36)

[Extollager]

I recently read the Sketch on "Scotland Yard," which will interest readers who associate it solely with criminal investigation but are curious about what it was formerly like. Dickens was alert to London as a city of bridges (like my old stomping grounds of Portland, Oregon). It's interesting to see, in various Sketches, how Dickens notes changes that have involved some loss; in this he reminds me of his great admirer and, to a considerable degree, successor, Arthur Machen. (If you like Machen's horror stories, you should try his London essays, and if you like them, you should read Dickens!)

 

[GOLLUM]

An interesting comparison you make there Extollager. I hadn't actually made (or perhaps appreciated) as direct a link between Machen and Dickens..but I can see where you are coming from and certainly there's no doubt as to Machen's respect of Dickens.

I'm a great admirer of Machen but have never read his London Essays/wanderings...thank you for the heads up.

 

[Extollager]

An interesting comparison you make there Extollager. I hadn't actually made (or perhaps appreciated) as direct a link between Machen and Dickens..but I can see where you are coming from and certainly there's no doubt as to Machen's respect of Dickens.

I'm a great admirer of Machen but have never read his London Essays/wanderings...thank you for the heads up.

Well, let's keep the Dickens focus here and not get too distracted by Machen. Still -- Machen wrote an introduction to a book of selections (A Handy Dickens) and The Pickwick Papers was one of three books that he said he constantly reread (the others being Don Quixote and Gargantua and Pantagruel). I have a BBC audio CD set with a few precious minutes of Machen's voice, and therein he exhibits his love of Dickens. One of the great points of similarity between them is their fondness for roaming London streets... Machen seems to have been a good walker and Dickens was perhaps literature's greatest urban walker (compare George Borrow, the great countryside walker who lived at the same time, in Lavengro and The Romany Rye -- but he can write very well of London Bridge etc. too).

 

[GOLLUM]

Well, let's keep the Dickens focus here and not get too distracted by Machen. Still -- Machen wrote an introduction to a book of selections (A Handy Dickens) and The Pickwick Papers was one of three books that he said he constantly reread (the others being Don Quixote and Gargantua and Pantagruel).

Perish the thought Sir. I was merely responding to earlier coment regarding Machen and Dickens...

Having said that I've made a start on Pickwick Papers and am enjoying the premise so far. I'll start posting my thoughts soon in the appropriate thread.

 

[Extollager]

Herewith the Sketches by Boz thread is taken up again. I hope Gollum and others will soon make their presence known.

I read "Gin-shops." This is one of the sketches illustrated by Cruikshank. The people in the foreground of the picture are dwarfed by enormous barrels -- apparently they really were enormous; anyway Dickens calls them "great casks." Perhaps Cruikshank exaggerated somewhat; otherwise I'm not sure that even several burly barrel-movers could manage a full cask. Much of the sketch deals with changes to the exteriors of London shops as plate glass and gaslight came in. He describes the interiors -- the furnishings, the flirtations, the fights that break out.

 

[Extollager]

Here's a piece on walking around London at night -- such a key element of Dickens's nonfiction (as in this book) and fiction -- and that of Robert Louis Stevenson (in The Strange Case) and Arthur Machen, to name two more favorites.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/bo...ase-his-conscience-at-killing-off-characters/

 

[Extollager]

Increasingly I value books that deal with walking then and (when it is possible) now. I rejoice in Dickens and his contemporary George Borrow. In the 20th century, we had Patrick Leigh Fermor with A Time of Gifts and its sequels. Just now another writer has retraced Leigh Fermor's steps:

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Travels-with-Paddy-8120

 

[Extollager]

Here's a piece on walking around London at night -- such a key element of Dickens's nonfiction (as in this book)

There is some of the walking-at-night element in Sketches, but actually I didn't have the book right at hand when I wrote that, and was more thinking of Penguin's reprints from The Uncommercial Traveller etc. in their Selected Journalism book -- which, from what I have read, I would recommend over the Sketches if one must choose between the two.

I want to spend some more time with the Sketches and then start a thread on the Selected Journalism.

 

[Extollager]

Speaking of London walking, Dickens, and Machen -- you might like to listen to this audio file:

http://www.minimumlabyrinth.org/the-thin-veil-of-london.html

Admittedly it gets a bit silly here and there, truly. I could do without the electronic "music" bits.

I'd prefer something like "poetic feeling" or "imagination" to "spirituality," which has gotten to be kind of a catch-all word for things people like.

 

[GOLLUM]

TI want to spend some more time with the Sketches and then start a thread on the Selected Journalism.

I'm looking forward to the thread on Selected Journalism. I can't easily find a copy here, so I'll probably have to buy it online.

 

[Extollager]

It should be well worth your money.