Clearing up misconceptions

No other writer has given me so much pleasure. No other writer makes me laugh quite so hard or cry so unabashedly, often on the same page. I am always amazed and appalled when I meet people who say that they don’t like Dickens. And there are many of them. I have found that those who claim to dislike Dickens have almost never read him. . . .

Many dismiss Dickens as too wordy, too descriptive, too sentimental, too depressing, too boring. All of these criticisms seem outrageously unfair to me—and patently untrue. Dickens is not really guilty of any of those things, particularly if you compare him to other Victorian writers. In fact, many of his critics are simply lumping him in with their own misconception of what 19th-century literature is: long and boring. Dickens is not too wordy or too descriptive. His style is light, lively, and entertaining.

“I hate it,” one young man said to me recently, “when they go on and on for pages describing a room.”

Dickens does very little of that; not nearly so much as his contemporaries Thackeray, Trollope, or George Eliot do.

“. . . and when they digress and talk to the reader? I hate that,” the young man added.

Thackeray does that all the time; Trollope does a good bit of it, too. George Eliot certainly feels the need carefully to describe and analyze every motivation of every character, with an analysis of what their motives may ultimately lead to.

Dickens never does that. He leaves a great deal to the reader to figure out. He is descriptive when he needs to be. His descriptions create atmosphere, and atmosphere is of prime importance in any Dickens novel.

Wayne Mergler, "Charlie & Me," The Weekly Hubris, May 24

Comments

[Marian]

Yeah, even as a kid, I rarely ever considered Dickens's books as tedious or hard to read. In fact, they're pretty easy to read, compared to other Victorian literature! They're long, but not hard. :) And it doesn't seem accurate to call them "depressing", either; most of them have happy endings.

[Nina]

Yeah, I sort of had the wrong conception of Dickens before I began reading him, too - I thought his novels would be very dark and that all his characters ended in misery. but actually, that's not true at all - yes, there is drama and sadness, but many of his good characters have happy endings!

“I hate it when they go on and on for pages describing a room.” This was exactly how my mother felt on trying to read DC. Of course this is kind of due to the fact that she read ATOTC as her first Dickens book and it's so different than the rest of his stories. :)

[Selenia]

I agree so much with this article.
"There is, quite simply, no other writer like Charles Dickens."
That is so perfectly true.

[Tim]

Like the writer of the article, I first encountered Charles Dickens by way of the card game 'Authors'. As a boy, I was also a fan of the Classic Comics where I read a truncated and illustrated version of Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. Later I discovered and read Dickens novels. Dostoevsky not Dickens is my favorite author but Dickens is my favorite author for the sheer pleasure of story-telling.
I have hardcover versions of all his novels and reread them regularly. A great introduction to Charles Dickens's novels is G K Chesterton's book on Dickens.

[Gina]

That IS a very good book. I need to remember to add it to the Amazon widget; I thought I already had, but I don't see it.

It's funny, I often find myself disagreeing with Chesterton's judgments about this or that character or novel or whatever, and yet I still love the way he writes about Dickens. He has such love and respect for him.

[Nina]

^ ^
I agree that I DISagree with Chesterton's judgments (just witness his DC review...'nuff said XD) but like you Gina, I do like how he appreciates Dickens' genius!