Dickensblog

New documentary series follows Dickens through Italy

David Harewood of "Homeland" and "Supergirl" hosts the two-part British series "Dickens in Italy with David Harewood," which traces Dickens's journeys through Venice, Genoa, Rome, and other Italian cities. The i offers a 4-star review of the series, crediting it with "balancing expert commentary with practical exploration." The Reelgood blog gives instructions on how to watch it outside the U.K., using the Sky TV website or app. 

Dickens and the magic of Christmas

"Dickens really loved Christmas. It’s a theme he wrote about regularly. In 1851, eight years after 'A Christmas Carol,' he published an essay on what Christmas means as we grow older.* In particular, he tries to identify where the magic goes as we age. Is Christmas less special as we get older? ...

"He worries that we might regret the lost magic of childhood, asking, 'Do we mourn the lost dreams of our youth?'

"'No!' he answers, but we must be attentive to where the magic shifts. ...

"Bring all the joy with you, says Dickens. Celebrate all the Christmases at once, past, present, and future. 'Let us be more thankful,' he says, 'that the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by the Christmas hearth.'"

--Fr. Michael Rennier, "Charles Dickens on what Christmas means as we grow older," Aleteia, December 24, 2023

*If you have trouble with the link to Dickens's essay, as I did, try this one instead. It's not very well formatted, but at least it works and it's legible. And a very merry Christmas to you all!

More 'Christmas Carol' tidbits

• In The Atlantic (paywalled), columnist Tom Nichols argues that the 1984 film with George C. Scott is the best Carol adaptation. Though I disagree on that, I was touched by the poignant memories connected to the film that he shared.
• In this Arizona Daily Star article, June Lockhart shares a couple of amusing stories from her film debut in the 1938 adaptation. 
• Paging Dr. Freud! Madeleine Wood of the University of Essex has a piece in The Conversation about how the story of Scrooge prefigured the work of the legendary psychoanalyst. 
• Did Bob Cratchit actually make more than minimum wage? Brandon Lewis investigates the claim in a segment aired by WCNC Charlotte. 
• And finally, Morgan Library & Museum literary curator Philip Palmer, actor Jefferson Mays, and others are interviewed in this engaging piece about why A Christmas Carol has been so compelling to so many for 180 years. 

Pip as Millennial (and Joe as Ted Lasso)

Eliza of the More by Reaping Substack explains: 

You see, when I came to read Great Expectations for the first time a few years ago, I found myself identifying very strongly with Pip, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that the reason for this simpatico was down to the years of professional disappointment, and constant sense of having been promised something that remained tantalisingly out of my reach. While not born between 1980 and 1995 (unless the novel has time travel themes that I hadn’t quite tapped into), Pip’s dilemmas, troubles, and struggles are incredibly reminiscent of my cohort. Really, Pip Pirrip is as much a quintessential Millennial as I am.

Go here to read her delightful piece in full!

Happy 180th birthday to 'A Christmas Carol'!

In honor of this venerable story, the blog Letters from Gondwana has a post about what may have made the weather so foul during a Dickensian Christmas, while over in the U.K., Simon Callow debates a Guardian editorial writer over whether Scrooge's redemption was personal or social.* (My hot take: Why not both?) There's forever something new to learn about the Carol!

*You may need to register for free to read the Guardian, though I was able to see both articles without doing it. 

'Collider' ranks Dickens film adaptations

This list of the top 20 features a few films I haven't seen yet, and a couple that I don't really care for, but I'm happy to see the 1958 A Tale of Two Cities, 2019's The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the 1951 Scrooge on there. The listmaker, Jeremy Urquhart, knows his Dickens films, and has put much more thought into this than such lists usually get.

Special deal on 'The Gospel in Dickens'

Plough Quarterly is offering the e-book version of my book The Gospel in Dickens free to subscribers this week! Go here and click the "Buy Now" link to learn more.

TCM alert

David Copperfield (1935) airs on the channel at 6 a.m. Eastern Friday morning. 

Dickens in 'The Saturday Evening Post'

The Post has a new page on its site showing the six Dickensian Christmas covers that renowned American artist Norman Rockwell created for them.

'The Artful Dodger' rides again

The Hulu/Disney+ series about the further adventures of the Dodger is now available. We find Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) living in Australia and working as a surgeon, who for some reason is always performing operations in front of a large and boisterous crowd. (To make extra money for the hospital? I'm not sure, but I can't imagine why else a hospital would admit audiences.) In his off-hours, he gambles -- so badly that he's racked up serious debt, and his creditors are threatening to cut off his hand.

And just in case life wasn't messy enough, along comes Fagin (David Thewlis), who has escaped the gallows and is eager to draw the Dodger back into a life of crime, just when his debts have made him vulnerable. Add to that a chance meeting with Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell), the governor's medically ambitious daughter who soon spots and exploits his vulnerability, and the Dodger is in even deeper than he thought.

The series relies rather heavily on common tropes, from the combination of period piece with modern music and jarring camera angles, to the restless, know-it-all, ahead-of-her-time heroine who's mad for science. And there were a few scenes -- extreme closeups of surgery and a couple of other medical gross-out moments -- that made me squeamish. But on the plus side, the pilot episode was lively, fun, and never dull, ably carried by its spirited cast. The characters are nicely fleshed out, especially Dodger, who blends a wild streak with an unshakable sense of responsibility and a compassionate heart, and I enjoyed following them through their machinations and maneuverings.

I probably won't review the rest of the series, as it's a spinoff/sequel and not a direct adaptation, but I do think I'll watch it. Even if I sometimes have to watch it between my fingers.