Dickensblog

#Dickens150 calls for attendees and papers

In place of the Dickens conferences that had to be canceled this summer, a virtual conference will be held on June 9, the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death. Proceeds will be donated to the Dickens Museum, which, as we know, could really use them right now. 

Here's the website where you can register (starting tomorrow) and also submit proposals for presentations, panels, "lightning talks" of two to three minutes, and more (by May 10).

I hope to see you there!

(ETA: The event is not hosted by the Dickens Society, as I wrote originally. Thanks to Lydia Craig for the correction.)

R.I.P., Mike Quinn

The beloved founder of The Friends of Dickens New York, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, passed away yesterday morning. Our hearts and prayers go out to his widow, Su, and to all his loved ones.

An appeal from the Dickens Museum

As an independent (non-government-funded) museum, the Dickens Museum is hurting for funds right now. There are many people, places, and organizations in need of donations right now, I know, but if you could spare something for this particular cause, I know they'd be very grateful and put it to good use. Go here to read their appeal and to donate.

From the book pile, round 2

Today we have fiction and nonfiction both!

• Among the Fallen by Virginia Frances Schwartz (Holiday House, 2019). I adore this concept -- a Young Adult novel from the perspective of one of the young "fallen women" brought to Urania Cottage by Charles Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts to be rehabilitated. I adore it so much that I keep thinking "Why has someone never thought of this before? It was begging to be written!" So major kudos to Schwartz for writing it, and for researching it so well, and for exploring all sorts of different lives and responses among these young women. Kudos also for taking seriously what Dickens and Burdett-Coutts were trying to do, and how radical and important it was, without getting bogged down in 21st-century concepts of paternalism. At the same time, Schwartz's characters do demonstrate how difficult it was for many of the women and girls to make the changes demanded of them, and how resentful some of them might have felt to have their future, however promising, mapped out for them by someone else. And what she does particularly well is to point out how Dickens's own eventual "fallenness" cut him off from the house and how hard that might have been for the women -- and the double standard that allowed him to be "fallen" and still hold on to his place in society. Schwartz's heroine, Orpha, doesn't lose her gratitude and affection for the man who treated her kindly and encouraged her, but she can't help observing this fundamental difference between them.
  
  My one complaint is that the book is written rather melodramatically. Before you say "So are Dickens's books," gentle reader, I will concede that he certainly has his melodramatic moments. But the melodrama here -- consisting of characters shrieking and yelling and whooping and dashing and sweeping where ordinary people would talk and walk -- distracts from and at times obscures the story. I do wish some of that could have been toned down for the sake of the narrative, but all the same, I still like and admire what Schwartz has done here, and recommend giving it a read.
  
  
• Charles Dickens: Faith, Angels and the Poor by Keith Hooper (Lion Hudson, 2017). Most of you know by now my penchant for books about Dickens and religion, and Hooper's book is a worthy addition to that subgenre -- thorough, honest, and thoughtful. As the subtitle suggests, he places special emphasis on how Dickens's religious beliefs expressed themselves in his service to the poor. Even where I disagreed with Hooper, he gave me plenty to consider, and I appreciated his extensive research and his analysis.

(Today I've provided links to Bookshop. When you order from them, you can designate a local independent bookstore to receive 30 percent of the profit.)

Holiday blessings

Happy Easter and happy Passover, to all who celebrate. In this strange and difficult time, I'm grateful to all those who are doing their best to keep our spirits up -- like Gildart Jackson, whose "Fireside Readings" of Great Expectations have been a nightly comfort and delight. (For those who aren't able to tune in at 8 p.m. Eastern, the readings are being uploaded to YouTube.) Jackson tells Digital Journal that his goal with the readings is "simple old-world companionship as we are all locked in our homes. It is lovely to do it and to know that for some people it is helping them through the isolation."

From the book pile

We'll start off this round of reviews with some fiction.

• A Tale of Two Murders and Grave Expectations by Heather Redmond (Kensington Books, 2019). For her "A Dickens of a Crime" series, mystery author Redmond takes young journalist Charles Dickens as her detective, investigating crimes featuring plots and characters that will one day be repurposed for his novels. (The next installment, A Christmas Carol Murder, is due out in September.) Dickens investigates the strange cases that pop up around London with the help of the pretty and vivacious young Catherine Hogarth, along with his brother Fred and other characters, both real and fictional. Those who know Dickens's works well will enjoy the copious Dickensian Easter eggs scattered throughout these books; others may simply enjoy the mysteries and learn a few things about Dickens's life and world. (And if watching Charles and Catherine's relationship blossom makes your heart ache a little, well, my friend, you're not the only one.)
• Marley by Jon Clinch (Atria Books, 2019). Clinch is without question a fine writer, and one who clearly knows the original Christmas Carol forwards and backwards. He brings a prodigious imagination to bear on Dickens's characters and plotlines in writing this prequel, in which he takes the intriguing path of making Scrooge a good man who goes wrong through the noblest of motives -- trying to outwit and rein in his unabashedly crooked partner, Marley. The maneuverings and one-upmanship between the two men, and the other characters who get swept up in it all, make Marley a fascinating tale in its own right. And yet Clinch's almost unrelentingly bleak tone in this novel left a bitter aftertaste, with only the tiniest, almost imperceptible drop of hope to temper it. I was positively appalled by the fate he devised for Fan -- a fate not only cruel in itself, but one brought on by an unfathomably cruel ongoing deception of her. I can't deny Clinch's great creativity and skill -- but I can't help wishing they'd gone in a different direction. 

More reviews coming shortly! (Note: As Amazon is understandably tied up at the moment, I'll be linking to publishers' sites and other booksellers' sites instead for the foreseeable future.)

Fireside reading and a character competition

Those book reviews are coming, I swear, but first a couple of quick news items:

• Actor and audiobook narrator Gildart Jackson will begin reading from Great Expectations at 8 Eastern this evening at @firesidereading on Instagram. He plans to read a chapter a day.
• The Journalists' Charity, co-founded by Dickens, is honoring the 150th anniversary of his death by asking for "written portraits of a modern-day Dickens character." The Guardian has more.