Dickensblog

TCM alert

David Copperfield (1935) airs on the channel at 8:15 a.m. Eastern Monday morning.

TCM alert -- a trifecta!

There's a triple-header of Dickens films on the channel early tomorrow morning, as part of a "coming of age" theme. David Copperfield (1935) starts at 2:15 a.m. Eastern, Oliver Twist (1948) at 4:30 a.m., and Great Expectations (1946) at 6:30 a.m.

Sam Mendes's next Audible drama: 'David Copperfield'

(And can we all just thank him for doing something besides Great Expectations?)*

The acclaimed director's next Dickens dramatization for Audible** comes out November 30. It will star Ncuti Gatwa of "Doctor Who" as David, along with Helena Bonham Carter (presumably as Aunt Betsey), Theo James, Jessie Buckley, Richard Armitage (already an award-nominated David Copperfield narrator), Jack Lowden, Toby Jones, Indira Varma, Ralph Ineson, and Reece Kenwyne Mpudzi. Deadline Hollywood has more.

*I imagine he'll get to GE eventually, but honestly, I think we just needed a little break.

**After Oliver Twist, which I still need to listen to (so many audiobooks, so little time). I'll share some thoughts here when I do.

'Demon Copperhead': A review

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper, 2022).

I got a shock a couple of pages into Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead: I realized I liked it.

I hadn't expected to. I figured I ought to read and review it because it was a takeoff on David Copperfield, written by an acclaimed novelist, and was turning out to be pretty popular. (It would even go on to win the Pulitzer, though I didn't know that at the time!) But I was leery. I knew the book was set in the modern world, and I've suffered through any number of poorly updated classics. Besides which, the setting -- the recent opioid epidemic -- promised to make this one especially gritty.

Well, Demon Copperhead is gritty, all right. But it's also enthralling, thanks in large part to the voice of its narrator and hero. Damon Fields -- nicknamed "Demon Copperhead" at an early age -- tells us his story with relentless frankness, both the worst parts of it and the rare moments of happiness. There's a lively wit as well as an earthiness in his recounting. He shows a weary acceptance of the way things are, and yet also, rooted deeply in him, a tendency "to wish for more than I can have."

'Demon Copperhead' wins a Pulitzer

Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, an update of David Copperfield set in the Appalachians, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction last week (sharing the honor with Trust by Hernan Diaz). I'm currently reading the novel and hope to have a review for you soon!

TCM alert

The channel is airing David Copperfield (1935) at 9:45 this morning as part of the 31 Days of Oscar celebration.

TCM alerts

David Copperfield (1935) airs at noon Eastern today, and A Tale of Two Cities (1935) airs at 6 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.

Keeping Christmas all the year

'Tis the season, as you know, when the world is rereading and rewatching A Christmas Carol. But the other day, inspired by a Twitter conversation about how Great Expectations is also a Christmas book (or at least part of it is), I went looking for Christmas references in other Dickens books as well. Interestingly, I found at least one reference in every single one of the novels! The majority of them were just passing references, but a few of them were significant. Besides Scrooge's Christmas ordeal, and the other Christmas books, we have ...

• The Christmas chapters in The Pickwick Papers, which include a goblin story that gives us a foretaste of the Carol
• David and Agnes getting engaged at Christmastime in David Copperfield
• Pip bringing Magwitch food, and later seeing him get arrested, on Christmas Day, in Great Expectations
• Edwin vanishing (and most likely murdered) on Christmas Eve in The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Occasionally, even a book that doesn't have a Christmas scene in it have film adaptations where Christmas scenes have been added! One well-known example is the 1935 A Tale of Two Cities, which places an important interaction between Sydney and Lucie on Christmas Eve. No doubt this was a nod to the Christmasy atmosphere that Dickens was known for. 

As Boze Herrington recently wrote of Dickens at All the (Dickensian) Year Round, "Christmas awoke something nameless and secret in him," something that makes it show up again and again in his stories as a pivotal time in people's lives. Watching for such incidences as we read him is one enjoyable way to "keep [Christmas] all the year," as Scrooge promises to do. And so, a merry Christmas to you all, not just today but always!

From the book pile

Today we have reviews of two excellent new Dickens-related books!

Charles Dickens: But for you, dear stranger (from the My Reading series) by Annette Federico (Oxford University Press, 2022)

The My Reading series from Oxford University Press, according to the Series Introduction, "is built on a simple presupposition: that it helps to have a book recommended and discussed by someone who cares for it." Annette Federico's entry in the series more than fills the bill. Federico cares deeply for Dickens, and her analysis of four of his greatest works -- Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, and A Tale of Two Cities -- is both thoughtful and affectionate. She truly demonstrates the value of a personal connection to the author being analyzed.

Federico comes to Dickens not as a detached or objective critic, or as someone trying to fit him into a modern landscape, but as someone eager to take what he has to give. She takes characters and elements in his work, including those who have been dismissed or even derided, on their own terms, and explores with fresh eyes what they meant to Dickens and what they might mean to us, his readers. She does this with elements that even I'VE derided (e.g., Little Dorrit insisting that Arthur always call her "Little Dorrit"), making me rethink my derision! 

Federico's book is short, but I can't exactly call it a quick read, because it's so dense with ideas and emotions that it merits reading slowly, and then reading again. Reading her take on Dickens's stories and characters is like spending time with old friends and yet seeing them in new lights. I absolutely loved it, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I'd go so far as to call it a must-read for all who love Dickens.

'Copperfield' retold

On Tuesday, acclaimed U.S. novelist Barbara Kingsolver will release Demon Copperhead, a retelling of David Copperfield set amidst the opioid crisis in modern Appalachia. The Guardian and The New York Times have their reviews up (be warned, the latter is a little spoilery).