Dickensblog

More on 'Two Cities,' and a little on 'Martin Chuzzlewit'

• Here's an article that talks more about that upcoming dramatization of ATOTC, and why Terence Rattigan's adaptation has never been done professionally before. It also mentions that Stewart Agnew will play the lead.
• Elsewhere, the blog The East Room makes a strong argument that "it is impossible to think less of Darnay because of Carton’s act of heroic self-sacrifice." 
• Meanwhile, back at First Things, B. D. McClay has a new post up on how "Martin Chuzzlewit" is doing particularly poorly in that poll on the best and worst Dickens novels.

Review/recap: Your opinion needed!

It's been a while now since I've done a review/recap of a Dickens film or miniseries -- which kind of makes sense, because it's been a while now since a new one has come out. However, I do have two box sets of older adaptations sitting on the shelf, most of which I've never seen before. So I think I'd like to do another one pretty soon. I've narrowed it down to three possibilities to start with:

• Hard Times (1994), starring Alan Bates, Bob Peck, Bill Paterson, Harriet Walter, and Richard E. Grant.
• Martin Chuzzlewit (1994), starring Paul Scofield, Tom Wilkinson, Philip Franks, and Julia Sawalha.
• Barnaby Rudge (1960), starring John Wood, Barbara Hicks, Nigel Arkwright, Newton Blick, and Joan Hickson.

If any of you want to express a preference, put it in the comment section below. If we don't get any votes, I'll just go ahead and pick one!

Dress like Dickens

Do you have what it takes to be a dandy? The Dickens Museum holds a "Sunday Best" event on the first Sunday of each month, offering free admission to those who come "dressed to impress." But you have to meet their exacting standards -- AND you have to speak the right words (from Martin Chuzzlewit). Go here to find out how to pass muster!

Dickens for Breakfast is back!

The group calling itself Dickens for Breakfast is starting another group read! Some of you may recall how these work: They send out PDF files of the original installments of a novel, by e-mail. (Here's my description of their Tale of Two Cities read.) This time they're doing 18 monthly installments of Martin Chuzzlewit, which celebrates its 170th anniversary this year.

If you're interested in participating, contact Yuri Cowan at yuri.cowan@ntnu.no to sign up!

'Martin Chuzzlewit' (1994): A review

By Nina S., guest blogger

Martin Chuzzlewit is one of Dickens' lesser-known, or at least lesser-read, novels.  I first read it a few years ago in my campaign to read everything Dickensian I could get my hands on, and despite its reputation, I was surprised to find I enjoyed it very much, and it quickly became one of my favorite of Dickens' early works!  Recently, I stumbled across the 1994 BBC miniseries on YouTube, and decided to give it a go too, even though it was nearly six hours long. And in my opinion, it turned out to be one of the best Dickensian adaptations I've seen so far.

A few thoughts on 'Martin Chuzzlewit'

I actually finished the novel some time ago, but haven't had a chance to write about it until now.

So . . . this was not one of my favorite Dickens novels. But I didn't expect it would be. I generally favor mid- to late Dickens. And beyond that, a lot of the criticism that this book gets is pretty accurate. Doctor Who, for instance, was spot-on about the "American bit." I know I can't help being a little biased, but the parts about America went far beyond the kind of satire he usually does, and were just plain heavy-handed. Once again, I'm grateful that he at long last made up his quarrel with us, and inserted that conciliatory postscript into the book! But he really should have held off writing this until he was in a bit of a better mood, I think.

Also (spoiler alert) . . .

'The Mumbai Chuzzlewits' on BBC Radio 4

The new reworking of Martin Chuzzlewit has begun airing. As with A Tale of Two Cities, you can subscribe to the podcast or listen on the BBC iPlayer. Be careful if you subscribe, though. The final episode of Two Cities didn't automatically download to my iTunes, and I had to go manually download it before it disappeared off the Web! (Remember, these are only available online for a limited amount of time.)

The Inimitable is inexhaustible

So says biographer Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in this interview about the upcoming adaptations.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• The Northampton Chronicle and Echo has a piece about Holdenby House, used for Satis House in the upcoming Great Expectations miniseries.
• A press release from the BBC about upcoming programs touches on Great Expectations, spoof series Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, and various Dickensian documentaries.
• At SummitDaily.com, Patrick Williams points out, "Diligent reading of Dickens is a far better guarantee of high verbal SAT and GRE scores than all the drilling for vocabulary tests or Kaplan prep books -- take note, all students."
• BBC News talked to the curators of new Dickens exhibits at the Museum of London and the British Library.
• The Kansas City Star interviewed Andrea Warren, author of Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London.
• This article about the bicentennial mentions that the new radio adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit is a "reworking" set in Mumbai, India.
• Speaking of Martin Chuzzlewit, which I'm still reading . . . you guys didn't tell me it had a character named Pip in it! Imagine my delight when I got to the line "Pip's our mutual friend." What a quintessentially Dickensian sentence (even if Dickens himself had no inkling of it at the time)!

America, with all thy faults I love thee still

I've made it to chapter 16 of Martin Chuzzlewit, with Martin and Mark arriving in America. Just now Martin is talking to the editor of the New York Rowdy Journal (heh). I know my progress has been rather slow; it's my bad habit of reading many books at once.

So now I'm bracing myself a little, as I've been somewhat dreading this part. Dickens's quarrel with America -- though I realize he had his reasons -- is not one of my favorite things about him. I'm fond of my country, warts and all, and it makes me sad that he disliked it so much, at least on that first visit. I think that's partly why I waited so long to read this novel.

I have enjoyed it so far, though. I'm particularly eager right now to see if and how Tom and Mary are going to get together. Clearly they're made for each other, but equally clearly, they're the kind of "desperately honor-bound people" (as Robin McKinley brilliantly puts it in her novel Beauty) who wouldn't dream of letting down Martin -- the young hound. So I have a feeling this is going to be tricky . . .