7 Quick Takes Friday

• My review of Gary Colledge's excellent book God and Charles Dickens has been published at Englewood Review of Books.
• The statue of Dickens in Portsmouth will be delayed until next year because of funding problems.
• To help out with the fundraising, two of Dickens's great-great-grandsons, Gerald and Ian Dickens, are walking the 75 miles from London to Portsmouth. They're following the route taken by Nicholas Nickleby and Smike.
• At The Millions, six Victorian scholars give their picks for best Dickens novel. I will long treasure this description of Our Mutual Friend, by Daniel Pollack-Pelzner of Linfield College: "The opening sequence plays like a Scorsese tracking shot on steroids. A body fished out of the Thames becomes gossip at a nouveau riche banquet, from which two lawyers slip out to a dockside police station, where they meet a mysterious man who runs off to take lodgings with a clerk, whose daughter becomes the ward of a dustman, who hires a peg-legged balladeer to read him The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And I haven’t even mentioned the taxidermist." He also calls the novel a "Facebook fantasy."
• At BoingBoing.net, they're doing a series on Enthralling Books. Jay Kinney selected Nicholas Nickleby as the book that enthralled him.
• The Gravesend Reporter has some nice pictures and descriptions of Gad's Hill Place.
• Artist Spike Zephaniah Stephenson -- what a Dickensian name! -- has an exhibition called "The Inimitable Dickens" at the Portsmouth Central Library. Hope I'll get to see it while I'm over there!

Comments

[Andrew]

A very good review Gina,I'll now look forward to buying the book.I agree with you that Dickens's Religion is a strangely overlooked part of his work and life,maybe it's something to do with Religion and Christianity in the mainstream these days being seen as sadly somewhat out of fashion and out of date? I don't really know it's curious anyway.
Thank you for the work you do on this blog it's a great resource.

[birdienl]

That was a nice review of 'God and Charles Dickens'. I haven't had time to read it yet, but I think I'll take it with me on holiday!