Doing Dickens, Part 6 – Christmas Special

 ‘Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?’

Ah, Dickens and Christmas, two things that go together just like chestnuts roasting and open fires, or… I don’t know… raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens (I may be mixing up my seasonal references). The above remark from a little London barrow-girl, apparently overheard in 1870, pretty much sums up how inseparable Dickens and Christmas are in most people’s minds. And as the festive season gets into full swing, the Dickens reading group have worked ourselves into a fever pitch of yuletide excitement, with a whole host of Dickens-related events to fuel our obsession.

The first of these: a special Christmas Carol book club, which met in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street (a pub Dickens used to frequent), to drink wine, eat mince pies and talk about the book. Nearly half of our group of 12 or so were reduced to tears by it, with some of us sobbing pretty much throughout, even at Tiny Tim. One reader described it as “worse than the John Lewis adverts”. We all remarked on how strange it was to actually read something we already knew so well from film and TV adaptations, and loved that so much of the dialogue was the same – proof, if any more were needed, of how minty fresh and perfect Dickens’s writing is. We were still moved by the book’s humanist message of opening up your heart at Christmas (a time “to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures”), and its anger at complacency and ignorance (“are there no workhouses?”). We also loved how Scrooge suddenly becomes so silly and hysterical after his transformation, and how the book has such an exuberant, comic, holiday feel. But mainly, we were just so impressed that Dickens managed to conjure up this timeless fairy tale out of nowhere one night (apparently he composed it in his head while walking the streets of London, laughing and crying as he did so). I would also like to thank Dickens for A Christmas Carol because without it, It’s a Wonderful Life would surely never have existed.    

Next in our festive Dickensathon was an evening discussion of A Christmas Carol with the Guardian and the wonderful Claire Tomalin, author of Dickens: A Life. Tomalin pinpointed the moment of Scrooge’s transformation as right at the start of the hauntings, where he looks back at his lonely childhood and says “poor boy” – by pitying himself as a child, he is able to acknowledge what’s wrong with him as an adult. Discussions also ranged over the persona of the Narrator, the child-wraith figures of Ignorance and Want, Dickens’s hatred of workhouses (including the fact that all domestic servants were sent to them once they were too old to work. Did you know that? Neither did I. Bloody Victorians), and the slightly unsavoury descriptions of some of the book’s women: see page 87 and you’ll know what I mean.

Which brings us to the last, and best, plum in our December Dickens pudding: a field trip to the almost indescribable wonder that is Dickens World in Kent (who had, very kindly, given us some tickets), about which we had worked ourselves up into such a state of excitement that by the time we arrived we were like toddlers after ten slices of birthday cake.
Marooned in the middle of nowhere, Dickens World is part kitsch theme-park wonderland, part a recreation of the best Dickens film set you have ever seen, with a haunted house, 4D – yes, 4D – cinema, pub, shops and, to top it all, a Great Expectations boat ride (I don’t remember this in the novel but then it’s a long time since I read it at school), and is so unreal that part of me wonders if I dreamt the whole thing. In Sam’s words:

“From an unprepossessing retail park by the dockyards, we entered Dickens World like Tiny Tim Cratchit on Boxing Day, eyes all aglow with the giant turkey (theme park) before him (us). It was utterly magical, from the roofs of Dickens's London to the costumed staff pointing you to all the delights on offer. I particularly liked screaming so loudly on the water ride that I almost blacked out. A hearty 9/10.”

I leave the last word with Becky, however: “Looking back, in the cold light of day, I am not convinced that the Great Expectations log flume was that good. However at the time, the fit of hysteria that Sam and Louise were having in the back of our log, combined with the novelty and charm of the all consuming Victorian world we had entered, made travelling at 0.5 miles an hour past an unconvincing model of Miss Havisham seem like possibly the most exhilarating thing I'd ever done. Henceforth, if I am invited to another Dickens attraction – the acclaimed Dickens Birthplace museum of Portsmouth perhaps, or the Dickens House Museum of Broad
stairs, or the great Dickens Museum of London town – I will ask: 'Does it have a flume, sir?' And if the answer is 'No, sir', then I will not go, sir!”

And on that bombshell I’ll just say, in the time-honoured tradition, “God bless us, every one”, and wish you the merriest of Christmasses in the good old world!

Louise Willder, Copywriter

Previous Dickens posts:

Part 5: Nicholas Nickleby
Part 4: The Old Curiosity Shop
Part 3: David Copperfield
Part 2: Oliver Twist
Part 1: The Pickwick Papers

 

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Blog a Penguin Short 1: A Guest at the Feast

There is something very satisfying about reading an entire book in one sitting. Part of the pleasure of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prizing winning novel, The Sense of an Ending, is that you can spend a deeply pleasurable and indulgent afternoon devouring the book whole. You don’t have to worry about forgetting who said what when, of losing track of the plot as you nibble your way through the pages, piecemeal, when you get a moment here or there. The book is completely with you and the reading experience all the richer for it.

Last week we launched a new series of eBooks written with this experience in mind. The Penguin Shorts can be read over a long commute or a short journey, in your lunch hour or between dinner and bedtime, these brief books provide a short escape into a fictional world or act as a primer in a particular field or provide a new angle on an old subject.

To introduce you to the series, we are going to blog our way through all nine of the launch books, as we read through the series on our way in and out of work. To kick off, I’m starting with Colm Tóibín’s A Guest at the Feast. Celebrated as one of the finest novelists and short story writers of his generation Colm Tóibín, in his Penguin Short, turns his hand to his first piece of memoir, moving from the small town of Enniscorthy to Dublin, from memories of a mother who always had a book on the go to the author's early adulthood, from a love of literature to the influences of place and family.

To Work: 388 from Victoria Park Road to Embankment (50 minutes)

It was bitterly cold yesterday morning. It proved difficult to keep my reader still as I tried to steal away the first few pages while keeping my morning vigil for the 388 to take me into work. It’s a good journey, I always get a seat and it allows for just shy of an hour of solid reading time. A Guest at the Feast opens with Tóibín's childhood in Enniscorthy, the story of how parents got together, his schooling (good at maths, giving ‘smart answers’ and being ‘no good’), childhood trips to the Wexford Town, and by the time I reach work, he is on his way to Dublin and University.

Back Home: 26 from Aldwych to Cassland Crescent (50 minutes)

In Dublin, Tóibín’s love of the arts develops. There is a wonderful scene in which he meets Frederick May, a forgotten Irish composer, responsible for ‘one of the greatest contributions to Irish beauty which was ever made’. He continues, reflecting on his mother, an avid reader that adored ‘smart’ books and stayed clear of those she found ‘slow-moving’. And finally, to the importance of place and the influence it has had on him and his work. And that’s it, a perfect gem of a book and an insight into one of our most profound writers, completely enjoyed and digested on a single day on my way in and out of work.

 

Matt Clacher
Penguin General Marketing

 

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Doing Dickens – Part 5

We were giddy with excitement this month talking about Nicholas Nickleby in our Dickens readathon gang – in fact if I were a Victorian heroine I might have had to lie down with some smelling salts. The reason: we have two new recruits! Our slightly augmented group was unanimous in agreeing that, contrary to our slightly low expectations, and perhaps compared to last month, this is an action-packed romp of a read. Nicholas is a slightly two-dimensional but incredibly dashing and spirited hero; his mother is hilariously annoying, taking rambling to a sort of stream-of-consciousness art form; and the book brims over with a host of deliciously theatrical extras, hideous grotesques and dastardly villains. The whole thing felt to me like a very jolly outing to a pantomime, hissing at the baddies and cheering on the goodies – apart from the desperately sad descriptions of the dreadful school Dotheboys Hall (I was glad to discover that, partly because of this novel, many horrific Victorian institutions such as this were closed down. Good old Dickens).

Without further ado, here are the thoughts of our readers:

‘This was my first foray into the Dickens read-a-thon and I quickly discovered that there’s an INTENSE amount of love for Dickens amongst the diehard core of book clubbers. And with good reason: Nicholas Nickleby is an absolute hoot, the sort of book the word ‘rollicking’ was coined to describe. Nicholas himself is a bit, well, beige – but it’s a minor quibble when the supporting cast is this brilliant. Personal favourites: the Crummles family’s theatre troop; the hideously lecherous usurer Arthur Gride; and the profligate Mr Mantalini, who repeatedly wins back his long-suffering wife through his seductive power of his moustache. Best of all is Mrs Nickleby –the most amusingly irritating mother since Mrs Bennet wittered her way through Pride and Prejudice.’  Jess Harrison, Classics

‘For me there is not a dud character in Dicken's Nicholas Nickleby, and a wealth of heroes and villains to choose from, all aptly named. For example, the tight fisted, Wackford Squeers, head of Dotheboys Hall, a school for boys, which bears more resemblance to a POW camp than an educational establishment, whose finest moment, I feel, was when, while watching his son eat, he ' hugged himself to think that his son and heir
should be fattening at the enemy's expense'. Or equally, the detestable Sir Mulberry Hawk, who like a bird of prey encircles and finally launches himself upon innocent Kate (Nicholas's
sister). There was just the right amount of humour (mostly provided by Nicholas's babbling mother, going off on another irrelevant tangent) to keep me from despairing at the overwhelming villainy and greed of the various monstrous characters. Even in a world seemingly teeming with evil, this book still creates a strong urge to be transported back to a Dickensian London street scene and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it…Bring on 'A Christmas Carol'!’  Rowan Powell, Art

‘I'm constantly delighted by how easy Dickens is to read and how bloody enjoyable it is. The names (Vincent Crummles, the Cheeryble twins, Peg Sliderskew – Wackford Squeers, for goodness' sake), characters (Kate and Nicholas Nickleby's spirit, Mrs Nickleby's inane ramblings that are all too recognisable for anyone with a mother over fifty, the utter villainy of Uncle Ralph and Sir Mulberry Hawk, and the wonderful kindness of Tim Linkinwater and the whole Cheeryble family) and plot (Lord Verisopht's duel! John Browdie's appearances! BROOKER!) made this a joy to read. Although it's a lot more shallow than my much-loved David Copperfield and a bit of a Victorian fairy story, it still tweaks the nose of just about every other book I've read this year, so I award it a solid 8.1. ‘  Sam Binnie

‘Nicholas Nickleby is an action hero who saves babies from conflagrations, turns the whip on violent headmasters, and spoils for fights with anyone who threatens the honour of a lady. He's so winningly flirtatious and handsome that I felt sorry for his enemy: evil Uncle Ralph, the usurer, who is essentially Ebenezer Scrooge but nastier and without the ghosts. A hugely enjoyable read with endless brilliant characters, it left me feeling claustrophobic on behalf of Nicholas's sister. Her own good looks and honour bring her not adventure but peril. She can only wait around dutifully for most of the book, hoping that the benign gentlemen will rescue her from the preying lechers. I can't decide if this storyline is social comment or if Dickens quite liked things this way.’  Becky Stocks

Next time – a quick read of A Christmas Carol, before we head into the new year, and Barnaby Rudge…