Rant about Dickens

[alexandral]

This is just a rant, but I just can’t curb my feelings. **

The rant stems form the watching ”Our mutual friend” - very well-made adaptation, lovely actors, settings, and altogether great 8 hours of watching.. Truly, the dramatization was really good!

Nonetheless, I just must say that I don’t like Dickens. I feel very weird saying it. His first book I have read was “Oliver Twist” . It was saccharine, sentimental and had little boys dying. Was a string-pulling sort of book for me. I have also read “Nickolas Nickelby” and this book made the same impression – saccharine plus dying. I found this book and “David Kopperfield” also very long and **gasp** boring. I haven’t finished “David Copperfield”. If I don’t like the book, I usually quickly look at the ending to get to know what happened and leave it. I never can read a book I am not interested in **Feels very guilty**

I have watched few TV series made from the Dickens books, but it is not really fare to make an impression about the book writer from the series..

I am torn and wrong, but I don’t like:

1. There seem to be same types of characters in every book : Poor but saint girl, Old childless couple of saints, dying boy, Scheming underworld characters…
2. The stores are far-fetched – lost children, false identities, inheritances..
3. There is always somebody dying FOR A VERY LONG PEROID of book-time from consumption, or wounds..
4. Too much saccharine
5. Too long


UPDATE This all said, dangermousie just reminded me (thank you!!) that The Pickwick Papers Is Dickens's book too. AND - I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THE PICKWICK PAPERS, but again, this book is a little different from the rest ;)

I am dissatisfied with myself , I AM A BAD-TASTED person who doesn’t appreciate one of the greatest English writers O WOE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??????????

Comments

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with you.

I adore Dickens for his really complcated and delightful secondary characters, for a truly spectacular gift of description and language and even for some amazing primary characters (the leads from Great Expectations, Nicholas, Eugene from OMF), and his burning sense of social justice but for a lot of people of good taste (including my husband) the other characteristics of his work: sentimentality, plot coincidences, etc outweigh the things I mentioned above.

This said, Our Mutual Friend is my favorite Dickens book bar none, and much as I love the adaptation (and I do) it doesn't even come close. The book Eugene Wrayburn is one of my Top Fictional Crushes of all time.

And I don't find the desease thing as surprising any more, because in the Victorian times so many people died of so many horrible and not so horrible deseases, sickly people were a lot more common (I will never forget an introduction to my copy of Nicholas Nickleby where the writer said that when Miss Fanny Squeers admires Nicholas' straight legs, it would be something out of the common way because so many people had rickets, especially in such a plays as Dotheboys).

Also, I suggest trying The Pickwick Papers as even people who don't like Dickens often like this one: there is no melodrama, just prodigious fun.

In a way, I think it's a pity Oliver Twist is his best known book because I think it's his weakest. He hasn't yet learned to balance melodrama and social issues (though of course many people think he never had and I think you'd be one of the number, but I do think it's balanced better in his later books). But whenever I find too much fault with the admittedly oversentimental OT I think about how he was writing about very real, very horrible conditions and his books were a social crusade as much as literature and resulted in some good changes and I don't feel as against OT as I normally do (I think despite the layer of sentiment, OT is an incredibly angry book actually).

As to David Copperfield, it's another one of his I don't care for. I love Steerforth the doomed bad boy and the screwed up Rosa but grown up Davvy isn't my thing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

P.S. Re: length. Length is one of the things I love about Dickens and other Victorian authors, it allows me to absorb into his world. I think pace might be more of a problem if you don't like the leisurely way he tells his story.

And as to coincidence, it's obviously a literary contrivance to a degree but society used to be much smaller back then.

The best thing about Dickens never comes across in adaptations actually, because IMO it's his gorgeous use of language. He is one of the few authors with whom I can actually just open a book randomly and read a few sentences slowly and just fall in love with them.

Sorry for the length, but Dickens is one of my faves.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Because i have this easy-persuaded mind, i feel like giving "Our Mutual Friend" a try too (i loved Eugene Wrayburn **sigh**. You know , i thought that he is going to die, and definitely would have never forgiven it to Dickens).

The best thing about Dickens never comes across in adaptations actually, because IMO it's his gorgeous use of language

This is very true!. His wit and descriptions are amazing! **has to be fare**

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

You have just reminded me that The Pickwick Papers is Dickens book too! How could i forget! This i a totally and absolutely GREATEST thing. I MUST read it in English now ( i have read it in Russian translation)! Sam Weller was my first and forever fictional crush!