200 years on a genius with a Twist
Back in 1852, in the novel Bleak House, he invented the word 'boredom' — not that such a description could ever be applied to the canon of work of Charles John Huffam Dickens.
The quintessential Victorian author was born 200 years ago today and, aided by recent television remakes of some of his finest works, a renaissance of public interest has manifested itself in sales at the tills of bookshops across the land.
Here, JAMES BENSTEAD takes a closer look at a fascinating character and his enduring legacy.
IT seems ironic that the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth has fallen in the week that the bulldozers prepare to do their worst at Burton’s Bargates site.
It’s the sort of dilapidated eyesore that wouldn’t have looked out of place as the backdrop to one of his haunting tales of starving children and murderous misers.
Certainly the greatest writer of his age, Dickens’s work has transcended time, language and culture to allow him to take his place among the most influential of history’s literary giants.
His extraordinary life experiences — born into the poverty of 19th century London, pulled out of school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory to earn six shillings a week to support his family — made their way into his writings.
If you’re yet to discover his enchanting characters, epic stories and social commentary, firstly — where have you been? Tales like Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol are among those to have been adapted for screen, stage and a range of other media, but if you really don’t know your Artful Dodger from your Miss Havisham, there’s never been a better excuse to put that right.
Today, while wreath-laying, speeches and an animated Victorian market take place in Portsmouth, the town where he was born, the nation will unite to pay homage to one of its favourite sons on the bicentenary of his birth.
And his genius, it seems, hasn’t been lost on Burton and South Derbyshire.
Sarah Owen, the manager of Waterstones book store in Coopers Square, Burton, revealed Dickens continued to be a popular seller, despite some stiff competition.
She said: “After knocking out sale items in our chart after Christmas, Great Expectations made it into our top 20. That says it all.
“I think in tandem with the recent television remakes of Great Expectations and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens’s popularity has surged because he’s been in the news.” The 46-year-old, who has worked for the book giant for 21 years, believes at the heart of Dickens’s success is simply his ability to entertain as a storyteller par excellence.
She added: “He had a very interesting outlook on life. With characters in his books he does so much for happy families, but his own family life was . . .
well, weird.
“It’s the storytelling that continues to make him popular. People from different generations can continue to associate with that.
“If you think of A Christmas Carol, it’s a bit of a horror story, a ghost story.
Scrooge is a very nasty piece of work but there’s hate and redemption, which people like as an ending to a story.
“It’s timeless, it’s not dated because you can move it, as people have done — there’s been many variations of that film.
It’s been moved from Victorian times into present times.” The latest wave of Dickens fever began gathering pace towards the back end of last year, when award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin took on one of her biggest challenges.
Charles Dickens: A Life is a compression of a more than eventful existence into 400 pages and was, according to Tomalin herself, ‘like writing five biographies’.
It’s a perfect starting point for the Dickens novice and, according to BBC news and art and entertainment reporter Mark Savage, ‘zips through Dickens’s 58 years at the same breakneck pace he lived them, barely pausing for breath as he graduates from sketch writer to celebrated novelist, courted by royalty at home and abroad’.
I don’t profess to be an expert but, like many others I imagine, was hooked upon my first read of Great Expectations has all the epic qualities and enchanting characters that epitomise much of his writings and have made them a dream for TV and film producers.
Of course, there’s much more to learn and Tomalin certainly doesn’t pull any punches. Though Dickens’s charitable acts were widely celebrated, his darker side portrays a bully whose own daughter called him a ‘wicked man’.
This is a character who, having gone cold on his marriage, erected a partition in the bedroom so he could sleep apart from his wife.
Above and beyond all that, though, what emerges is an excitable storyteller, fiercely passionate about his calling.
He continues to enjoy the royal seal of approval. Today, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will be guests of honour at the wreath-laying ceremony commemorating the occasion at Westminster Abbey. BAFTA awardwinning actor and director Ralph Fiennes, Tomalin and Mark Dickens, head of the Dickens family, will be readers at the special service in Poets’ Corner where Dickens was buried in 1870.
Meanwhile, the British Council Global Dickens Read-a-thon is live on stage at London’s BFI Southbank, as 24 countries from Albania to Zimbabwe participate in a 24-hour reading marathon.
Then there’s the launch of a new Dickens Newspaper to mark the occasion. Using Dickens’s works as its content, the paper — also available as an iPad app — will not only celebrate the timelessness of Dickens’s writing but also explore his impact in changing the reading patterns of the public during his time.
These events are just the tip of the iceberg and, if you’re keen to get involved, visit www.dickens2012.org to discover just what the Dickens is going on . . .
