Dickensblog

The Dickensian Games?

Sounds good to me! (Scroll down to the bottom of the article.)

If ever anyone deserved to be haunted . . .

Here's MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher on the upcoming movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past:

Also, they might have avoided incurring the wrath of Charles Dickens, whom I hope rises from the dead and goes on a zombie rampage throughout the boardrooms of all the soulless corporations that had the slightest thing to do with this sure-to-be cinematic atrocity.

Honestly, I hope so too. 

What larks!

David Copperfield with Rowan Atkinson and Colin Firth? I am SO there. According to various sources, though, this project is not yet a certainty, as they're scrambling to find financing. Let's all keep our fingers crossed!

(Speaking of Atkinson, my new Oliver! cast album has arrived, hurray!)

Dickens from all over

I'm subscribed to Google News Alerts to help me find the latest tidbits of information on our Mr. Dickens. Over the past few days, I've noticed an interesting trend in my inbox. Take a look.

• "In the oil-rich Permian Basin, which produces about 20 percent of the U.S. supply, the revenue drop reminded Ector County Judge Susan Redford of a well-known Charles Dickens line.
  
  'We went from the best of times to potentially the worst of times in a matter of 12 months,' she said." The Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas), April 16


• "You don’t have to be a literary scholar to recognize the ageless lessons of life that Mr. Dickens penned on each and every page of his stories, but Tale of Two Cities teemed with antidotes for our times.
  
  "'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us….'" The Star Exponent (Culpeper, Virginia), April 16


• "'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' This is the line Charles Dickens used to open his novel 'A Tale of Two Cities.'" The Lufkin Daily News (Lufkin, Texas), April 18


• "Perhaps the memorable opening lines of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities more accurately captures our current conditions.
  
  "Dickens wrote: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.'" Daily Dispatch Online (South Africa), April 21


• "For locally owned bookstores, the opening line of Charles Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities' seems to sum up the recession: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'" KentNewsNet (Kent, Ohio), April 21

While "the best of times" seems to have become a reporters' (and the occasional judge's) favorite, it's not alone.

Cinderella's shoes

First of all, I just want to say that although I don't always respond to every comment, I deeply appreciate them all. When one is planning and then running a blog dedicated to a single 19th-century author -- or at least when I am -- one occasionally has moments of wondering if there will be any interest in the project, or if one will end up just prattling away into the void. So your feedback and fellowship are a wonderful encouragement. You all help make this little blog what it is and help keep it going, and I'm very grateful.

Now then, I just wanted to share a cool little discovery I made the other day while looking something up in Little Dorrit. My copy (1985 Penguin Classics edition) uses Dickens's original "running titles" -- a brief line describing the action on the page -- at the tops of many of the pages. Some of them are just simple, straightforward descriptions, but others provide intriguing bits of insight or even snark. (The page where Affery tells Arthur about her marriage to Jeremiah is headed "A Love Story.") 

I often forget to look at these running titles as I'm reading, so there are probably quite a few I've never even seen yet. Just the other day I noticed for the first time that on the page where Amy and Maggy are visiting Arthur in his apartment, and Arthur notices how cold Amy's foot is as he touches her shoe, the running title is "Cinderella's Shoes." 

Till I saw that, it never occurred to me to connect the various "dots" of the chapter -- Amy's fib about going to a party, her daydream of dancing with Arthur, and above all her "Prince Charming" kneeling by her shoe -- and see the reference Dickens was hinting at. I wonder how often I miss things like that? At any rate, I'm so glad I finally saw this one -- it warms my mushy little heart! :-)

'Little Dorrit,' part four

This is, I think, the least interesting installment. They could have cut a few things and spaced some other things better. (And of course it doesn't help that this is the only installment where Amy and Arthur are never together.) But we'll get into that more later. 

Fanny is a total hoot with Mrs. General. And I think her father is scared of her. She's one of the characters they got exactly right (with one small exception that I'll note in a minute) -- everything from her part-motherly and part-condescending relationship with Amy, to her insufferable pride and tactlessness, to her occasional secret wistfulness is just how it was in the book. And Emma Pierson couldn't be doing a better job. Don't ask me about the weird makeup, though. I've seen various complaints about it on the Internet, but I can think of no explanation for it.

Sparkler's sharing his secrets with Amy -- showing again that she's one of those people to whom the helpless and hapless are instinctively drawn -- is kind of cute. I like poor Sparkler, even if Amy's not much of a fan. He's one of those blundering young buffoons you can't help but like, especially if you've grown up on a steady diet of P. G. Wodehouse.

Oh my gosh, oh my GOSH, get Mr. Dorrit in the toga!! I'm dying laughing. Costume designer, whoever you are, I love you.

Okay, people, can we please stop harping on Pet and Arthur now? It's over! It's so over it never even got started.

And Blandois, quit grabbing women by the chins (not to mention other parts). It's really disgusting.

Flora is determined to match up Arthur with everything in a dress, apparently. Arthur's face is priceless when he's left alone with Mr. F's aunt. He looks like a scared six year old. Not that I blame him. I'd have eaten the crust if I were him, out of sheer terror.

An exchange

I recently shared the article by Scott Timberg with my friend Mike, pointing out the comparison between Kafka and Little Dorrit in particular, as he's a great Kafka fan. In the ensuing discussion, it emerged that not only have I read hardly any Kafka, but he's read hardly any Dickens. As that situation needed to be remedied immediately, I proposed an exchange: I would borrow and read his copy of The Basic Kafka if he would read a Dickens novel. 

I tried to be merciful and steer him toward Great Expectations or one of the other shorter novels, but he declared his intention of tackling all 900-odd pages of Little Dorrit. So we'll see how that goes. If he likes it (and only if he likes it) I may have him do a guest post here. In the meantime, I'll post about Kafka at my LiveJournal page, for anyone who wants to read my impressions. And may God keep giant insects from haunting my dreams. . . .

What's a fangirl to do?

Speaking of Harriet Walter, as I was the other night, I see she's getting raves for a new audiobook reading of Hard Times. This has me torn. On the one hand, I'd love to hear her performance; on the other hand, I loathe abridgments (as you may have gathered from this anecdote). What to do, what to do . . . ?

It's like the time I found out that Hugh Laurie had done an (abridged) audiobook of Great Expectations. My inner conversation went something like this:

It's Hugh Laurie reading Dickens!

But it's abridged!

But it's Hugh Laurie reading Dickens!

But it's abridged!

But it's Hugh Laurie reading Dickens!

. . . and so on. So I finally bought it, and listened, and winced at every abridgment like a car with bad shock absorbers hitting a pothole. But still . . . it was Hugh Laurie reading Dickens. So in the end I wasn't sorry -- but I still dug out the book and savored several of the cut passages to recompense myself for having missed them.

(I have a problem, don't I?)

All I'm really saying is this -- Ms. Walter, if I go for it, you'd better make it worth it!

I never wanted a Kindle . . .

. . . until I read this: 

With the Kindle’s free Whispernet wireless Internet access, I was able to quickly purchase and download the complete works of Charles Dickens (more than 200 works) for less than $5.

Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my screen.

News, glorious news

That cast recording of the new London production of Oliver! with Rowan Atkinson -- a live recording, no less -- is now available from Amazon.co.uk. Go here to order yours!