Dickensblog

'The Invisible Woman': A review and a giveaway

By Rachel McMillan, guest blogger

The Invisible Woman is a film that goes to great lengths to uncover the hidden Dickens, a Dickens unfamiliar to those who enjoy his happy endings and the moralistic brushstrokes that redeem Scrooge through Bob Cratchit’s tightly knit family.

Here, Ralph Fiennes has taken the sordid side of Dickens from Claire Tomalin’s biography of Ellen “Nelly” Ternan, and infused it into the film with no lack of passion, but a great deal of narrative depth and integrity. After the Toronto screening I saw, director/star Ralph Fiennes and his co-star Felicity Jones talked about their passion for the script as well as for the source material. The young Jones was challenged by the “meat” she found in the role.

At the same time, though, the film waded into soap opera territory: straining to find a dark side to Dickens that scholars know existed, without balancing his lesser qualities with his great talent.

Following Dickens

"I walk because Dickens walked and in that year of reading Boz, his accounts of London by night and on foot cast a spell."

Inspired by several of Dickens's essays, especially "Night Walks," editor and journalist Laura Freeman took a few night walks of her own through London. She recounts them in this fascinating essay for the Financial Review.

 

The minor characters of 'Little Dorrit'

Julie Davis at Happy Catholic's Bookshelf has a delightful post about Dickens's skill in drawing minor characters, particularly Mr. Pancks, Maggy, and others from Little Dorrit. An excerpt: 

Dickens may not spend a lot of time on his minor characters because he is generally juggling a cast that seems as if it contains the entirety of London. However, his ability to make us care about them is really a rare talent, whether we are rooting them on or hoping they will come to their just desserts.

'Little Dorrit' with a twist

At Book Riot, Rachel Cordasco has come up with "Better Endings for 10 Classic Books." Her tongue-in-cheek proposed ending for Little Dorrit is . . . interesting!

Picspam: Sir Alec Guinness, Dickensian

Posting about Alec Guinness the other day gave me the idea for this. Guinness played four very different Dickensian roles on film over the years. Click below to see images from all of them! 

Dickens vs. Bulwer-Lytton: A response to Mikhail Simkin

I'm finally taking a moment to respond to Mikhail Simkin's critique of my response to his study. (For those just joining us, a brief recap: Simkin claimed to have proved that there was no substantial difference between the works of Charles Dickens and those of Edward Bulwer-Lytton; a few critics responded in various forums; Simkin attempted to debunk our responses.)

I'll briefly address what I see as his major points, under the cut:

One question for Dickens

I got this question as part of a LiveJournal meme recently:

If you could see Charles Dickens face-to-face and ask him one question about anything, what would you choose?

My answer:

'Little Dorrit' music video

We haven't had one of these in a while, so here's a nice one! This video is by YouTube user bubblewrapstargirl. The song is "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri.

 

Podcasting Dickens

The other day I did a podcast with Emily Whitten of Redeemed Reader and Rea Berg of Beautiful Feet Books. I was there representing Youth Reads, a Web page that I run as part of my day job. But I mention it here because, in the course of our conversation about what constitutes a virtuous love story, Dickens came up quite a lot! At various points, you can hear us talk about Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend, and Little Dorrit.

Picspam: The button

Thanks to Marian for our first picspam, from Little Dorrit! Below the cut . . .