Dickenspalooza!

The Washington Times notes the large number of books about Dickens (or imitating Dickens) that's come out lately:

To paraphrase Voltaire, if Charles Dickens (1812-70) had not existed, some enterprising novelist would have had to invent him. Fortunately for us, several now have reinvented the beloved Victorian novelist, in an enticing flurry of books based on Dickens' hectically industrious life as well as his imperishably popular fiction. 2009 may be the best year Dickens has enjoyed since the 1830s and the dawning of his then-unparalleled and still remarkable celebrity.

And now for a discussion question:

It appears -- from my own admittedly unscientific and spotty research -- that while the majority of modern novels about Jane Austen are new takes on her stories and characters, the majority of modern novels about Dickens are about the man himself. If I've seen one Pride and Prejudice sequel, I've seen seventeen thousand of them, whereas most of the Dickens-related books cited in this article deal with incidents, real or imagined, in the life of the author, not in the lives of his characters.

I know there have been efforts over the years to finish Edwin Drood or make up Estella's backstory or what not. (I even made a botched attempt at the latter for NaNoWriMo one year, giving up two days in. I was simply not cut out to write a novel in thirty days.) But why do you suppose that, in general, these days we have so much of The Secret Life and Loves and Habits of Charles Dickens as Told by His Wife/Friends/Rivals/Servants/Publishers/Admirers, and so little of, say, Pip's Children or The Revenge of Uriah Heep or How Mr. Meagles Finally Snapped and Beat the Snot out of Henry Gowan? (Come on, admit it, you'd love to read that one.)

Comments

[Nibs]

It's interesting you ask this right now. :) I was actually trying to think of a way to make a sequel or prequel for any of Charles Dickens' books or characters, and I think the reason it is so difficult and/or rarely attempted is that Dickens is so "neat" in the endings to his books. You all that happens and a lot of what ever happened to his characters. He tells who marries whom and how they live afterward; villains die or go to jail for life; some characters are shipped off or never come into contact with the others. There's not much you can invent because Dickens has already covered most everything for the majority of his characters. At least, that's my take. ;)

[Marian]

The Revenge of Uriah Heep sounds like a good one! ;)

"You all that happens and a lot of what ever happened to his characters. He tells who marries whom and how they live afterward; villains die or go to jail for life; some characters are shipped off or never come into contact with the others. There's not much you can invent because Dickens has already covered most everything for the majority of his characters."

Quite true! There is a completeness about his novels' endings (the ones I've read/seen, at least); one doesn't get a strong feeling, if any, of "what happens next?"

There is a sequel to A Tale of Two Cities that looks like it might be interesting--it's called Evrémonde: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0595346200/ I haven't read it, though.

[Nibs]

There's also a prequel miniseries to DC called "Micawber". It explains why Micawber was in debt, and was broadcast on ITV around 2000-2001. I think it's out on DVD. :)

And I think I'll have to write The Revenge of Uriah Heep one of these days! Maybe there should be a Dickensblog Dickens sequel challenge. ;)

[Christy]

Yes, I would love to read the story of Mr. Meagles beating the snot out of Mr. Gowan. :)
I think it partly may be that Dickens himself was such a fascinating, contradictory man with such an adventure of a life. Quite as vibrant as any of his characters, the sort of person it would be great fun for a novelist to get his hands on.
In addition, how could anyone hope to succeed at imitating his inimitable writing style and inventing/continuing the sort of characters he invented? If I ever tried to write the story of poor Flora (nee Casby) and how she eventually found her happy-ever-after with a man who could give Mr. F's aunt as good as he got, I could never write a proper Flora, with her crazy, wandering, needy, good-hearted conversation.

[Nibs]

Methinks you are right, Christy. :)

It just occurred to me that they should do a version of "Lost in Austen" with Charles Dickens. Don't you think that would be great? There's so many characters you could choose to portray and it would be fun to see them interact! (And there's no time like the present since the bicentennial is coming up in 2012.)