Dickensblog

TCM alert

Oliver! airs on TCM today at 2 p.m. Eastern, as part of the channel's 31 Days of Oscar celebration.

R.I.P. Albert Finney

The acclaimed British actor, who played the title role in the 1970 film musical Scrooge, passed away on Thursday at the age of 82. 

Birthday roundup

Just catching up on a few Dickens birthday articles from yesterday: 

• The BBC's HistoryExtra website shared a few quirky facts about Dickens's home life, including his love for parties and his taxidermied pets!
• Newsweek offered a few basic Dickens facts and popular quotes in honor of the day.
• Female First compiled a list of actors who have played Dickens. I knew about Simon Callow, Dan Stevens, and Ralph Fiennes, but not the others. (I certainly didn't know about Anthony Hopkins!)
• And finally, Londonist had an article about the pubs that every Dickensian should know.

Happy 207th birthday, Mr. Dickens!

He looks good for two hundred and seven, 
So let's turn up that dial to eleven. 
Everyone gather here
To wish Dickens good cheer
In a voice he can hear up in heaven.

(Do you know how many words in the English language rhyme with "seven"? Almost zero, that's how many. I should have come up with the birthday limerick idea back when he was two hundred and six.)

Meet 'The Seamstress'

Have you ever wanted to know the story of the seamstress who goes to the guillotine together with Sydney Carton? You're in luck!

Yesterday was launch day for The Seamstress by Allison Pittman. I've already had a chance to read and endorse the novel, which digs deep into revolutionary French history to tell the story of Renée the seamstress, her cousin, Laurette, and their guardian, Émile. Allison has built a plausible and absorbing backstory for this character of whom we had only had a glimpse before, and I loved getting to know her better. Her talent, loyalty, and quiet strength take her farther than she ever could have dreamed, but also lead her directly into danger. But though we already know her unjust fate, it's impossible to wish that she had lived her life any other way.

Now there are two things I should tell you hardcore Dickensians going in (because you'd never forgive me if I didn't): (1) Renée's story doesn't converge with Sydney's until the end, which is understandable, since she doesn't meet him until the last moments of her life. I do like the way he's brought in, though. (2) There are some slight changes made to Dickens's account of things. You'll have to judge that part for yourself. But to do that, you'll need to read the book, and I hope you will! Aside from adding a bit of depth, color, and background to the story we already know and love, it's an excellent story in its own right.

Birthday festivities

Dickens's birthday is coming up, and the Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth will offer free admission to celebrate! Go here to learn more. In the meantime, Dickens fans in Philadelphia held their annual birthday bash by the Dickens statue in Clark Park. Philly Voice offers a glimpse into their hallowed tradition.  

Dickens in America

Still playing a little bit of catch-up here! This thoughtful and comprehensive article from City Journal's Autumn 2018 issue deals with Dickens's complicated relationship with the United States. A sample:

To Dickens and British radicals, the United States was a land of hope and freedom—freedom especially from the dominance of class. In a celebrated Boston speech, Dickens confided to his audience that he had “dreamed by day and night for years, of setting foot upon this shore, breathing this pure air.” But after visiting the “prisons, the police offices, the watch-houses, the hospital, the workhouse,” he began harboring doubts about the prospects for the American experiment. . . .

The “Emperor of Cheerfulness,” as Boston publisher James T. Fields called Dickens, became thoroughly disillusioned after he saw other city institutions for the broken, the criminal, and the mad. 

BBC Dickens miniseries news

My friends, I've failed you badly. I promised you book reviews, and then I left you dangling. For that I sincerely apologize. I have so many books that are due (overdue, really) for reviews, I couldn't seem to get all the reviews written! I haven't given up on that project, but today I have something else to share: news of the upcoming series of BBC Dickens adaptations.

Steven Knight, who will co-produce these with Tom Hardy, has told Collider that their Christmas Carol script is "largely done," that Hardy will star (whether as Scrooge or another character is not known), and that they're aiming for Christmas 2019. He also had some general thoughts on the other adaptations they plan to do. Like most adapters these days, he speaks of wanting to make them "modern" and gritty and so forth; as with most adapters, we'll have to wait and see exactly how these particular projects end up interpreting those terms.

We've been having a good discussion of the news in the Dickensblog Facebook group (thanks to Art for getting that started). Which reminds me, if you're a fan of this blog and you're on Facebook, please come join us there! 

TCM alert

The 1935 film of A Tale of Two Cities will air Saturday at 12 p.m. Eastern.

Merry Christmas!

"Christmas has become the most industrialized bacchanalia of the year, in which the gluttony is amped up now by the ease with which once exotic goodies are commonplace on the gourmet websites. . . . Much of the blame for initiating this is often given to Charles Dickens, mostly on the basis of one voluptuous paragraph from his magical moral fable A Christmas Carol. . . . 

"However, blaming Dickens is misleading and unfair to him.

"Dickens had not set out to write a blurb for gluttony. His idea was driven by a Christian impulse to awaken his readers to the vast social inequities of his time. Walking at night through some of London’s poorest neighborhoods he said he had composed the story in his head “weeping and laughing and weeping again” at sights of grinding poverty and stubborn spirits. The spirits he embodied in the family of the clerk Bob Cratchit and the uncaring greed in Cratchit’s employer, Ebenezer Scrooge. . . .

Dickens’s narrative genius was underpinned by an instinctive empathy for his subjects. A Christmas Carol was the most sentimental of his works. The dark actor, Scrooge, repents as few greedy men in the real world ever do. A few years on, as Dickens found success and wealth, he embraced the story’s final celebratory flourish and began his own family’s Christmas feasts with the toast right out of the mouth of Tiny Tim, Cratchit’s lame son: 'God bless us every one!'"

That's from an article by Clive Irving in The Daily Beast. I recommend reading the whole thing -- it's rather rambly but very good. I had hoped to write something for you myself on the recent spate of Dickens-related Christmas-themed cookbooks, but in truth, I just haven't had the time to do it. (Also, I'm not exactly Martha Stewart, so anything I wrote about cookbooks wouldn't be all that trustworthy.) I am on vacation the rest of the week, though, and I plan to take some time and write some Dickens-related (but non-cooking-related) book reviews for you all, so I hope that will be enjoyable. And I hope you've had a merry Christmas.