Dickensblog

Small world

Ignatius Press has a series of Ignatius Critical Editions of great novels, "designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature." Among them are two Dickens works, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. And one of the critics who contributed an essay to their edition of Great Expectations is Dr. Crystal Downing, who was my adviser on my undergraduate honors project! I didn't know of her interest in Dickens (my project was on Dorothy L. Sayers), but I'm sure what she wrote is well worth reading.

Amazon links to the two books are here and here.

Dickens on TV again

A tip of the hat to Inspector Lewis for prominently featuring A Tale of Two Cities in tonight's episode!

Helplessness to passion

"Let us also speak of Dickens, who is often undervalued because he hits the eternal verities on the nose. Sure, we cannot help being aware of his in-your-face morality, yet we are moved by it nonetheless, because, tossing sophistication to the wind, we wish to see the just rewarded and the unjust punished. No writer besides Shakespeare has created more memorable characters attached to vices and virtues. In even their least sympathetic characters, one senses a kind of helplessness to passion quivering between the poles of good and evil. Both Miss Havisham and Mrs. Macbeth probably would have preferred to behave themselves."

Roger Rosenblatt, "How to Write Great," Sunday Book Review, New York Times, July 27, 2012 (H/T Enuma Okoro)

I recommend reading the whole article -- it's really good. Also, there's a Tale of Two Cities reference elsewhere in it!

More on Gad's Hill Place

ITV has a video and short article about the opening up of Gad's Hill Place to tourists this summer.

Will Dickens appear in the Olympic opening ceremony?

One would certainly hope so, seeing as how it's London and all. And hey, if Voldemort and Mary Poppins are going to face off, anything can happen!

I have plans tonight and may not be able to catch the entire thing. But if you watch and happen to spot anything Dickensian, drop by and let us know!

Update: I don't have access to a live feed, and this isn't being televised live here, but I hear Kenneth Branagh showed up as Scrooge. So there's that! Will put up pictures and/or video when I find them.

Update: Thanks to commenters Elizabeth and Zeb for reporting, respectively, that Branagh was attired simply as Generic Victorian Gentleman, and that all we got of Dickens was a teensy clip from David Lean's Oliver Twist film. How depressing. Dare we hope for anything in the closing ceremony?

 

Joyce Carol Oates tackles the Inimitable

Oates reviews the Claire Tomalin biography in the new issue of the New York Review of Books.

Bicentennial updates

• Gad's Hill Place is opening to the public for the first time today!
• A new memorial plaque will be unveiled in Grantham, England, on Friday.
• The Dickens Fellowship website has information about London's "Dickens Day in the City" on August 16. They also have a list of various other special events and exhibits going on. And the University of London is hosting a Dickens Day of its own in October, focusing on "Dickens and Popular Culture."
• And speaking of the Dickens Fellowship . . . I'm going to their Bicentenary Conference in Portsmouth next month! This will be my first Dickens Fellowship conference. I'll try to blog while there, but if I can't manage it, I'll be sure to blog about it when I come back!

'Great Expectations' to premiere in Toronto

Thanks to faithful reader Ames for alerting me to this story! The new Great Expectations feature film will have its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September. And so will Mister Pip, the film that revolves around a man who teaches Great Expectations to his students!

From Dickens to the GEICO cavemen ads

The program 99% Invisible draws a line between the two. I'm . . . not sure how I feel about that.

(Also, "Barnaby Rooge"??)

Three steps behind the rest of the world, as usual

Speaking of Dickens and movies, it turns out that both Sydney Carton and David Copperfield are referenced in Hugo! Had I known that, maybe I'd have gone to see it in the theater instead of waiting for the DVD.