Dickens

[Elessarina]

It is with great shame that I have got to this age hardly reading Dickens so decided to pull my damn finger out and picked up Hard Times yesterday.

And well good grief.. what I have missed all this time! Dickens is hilarious! His descriptions of people and his way with words have reduced me and Gareth (who's currently reading Copperfield) to tears of laughter...

I suppose you have to be in the right frame of mind and the right time of your life to pick something up and read it. Please don't judge me too harshly

[Rum]

I agree with you completely! He has gone a bit out of fashion these days but the way he describes people and their characters - you can almost see them. And of course his description of the social conditions - he was a big campaigner - are second to none.

They are a bit long winded for us these days given the fast pace of life and even modern writing styles, but definitely worth persevering with!

[Elessarina]

The way he describes people it's as though everyone he ever encountered must have been a mutant!

I intend to read more.. I have started off on a short one.. I have a list of books I want to get through before of the end of the year (about 11).. I intend to capitalise on my reading mojo returning! (i spoent 5 months reaidng 200 pages of a book Lee gave me ) Once I have got through those I think I will read another Dickens.. Any recommendation of a fairly easy second Dickens to tackle?

I know he as a big compaigner of social conditions and his situation re: his father etc. Although I would like to read up a bit more on him as I would like to know a bit more about him.

[Elessarina]

Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning.

"a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years"



"surmounted by no head worth mentioning."

[Bella Fortuna]

I've read loads of Dickens (though it has been a few years now) as well as Trollope, Collins, and other Victorian authors. He's wonderful, especially read aloud.

[PsychoSerenity]

Actually now you mention it, although we were made aware of several of the Dickens stories at school, I don't think I ever read any of them all the way through.

Maybe I'll download the audio-books.

[Elessarina]

Actually now you mention it, although we were made aware of several of the Dickens stories at school, I don't think I ever read any of them all the way through.

Maybe I'll download the audio-books.

Just start reading Hard Times by the time they start talking about crockery you'll be cracking up

[Pensioner]

Dickens was a brilliant writer and a commentator of the age he lived in.

Have a look at this site.

http://www.victorianlondon.org/

“Most of us remember how the two greatest novelists of our age have recorded such scenes as are presented every day in those poor homes were children have to take grown-up responsibilities with respect to other little ones not much younger than themselves. Who that has read The Curate's Walk can doubt that Thackeray had pondered almost painfully this phase of youthful life? Who that has ever heard of The Chimes and Mrs. Chickenstalker can forget how tenderly and truly Charles Dickens has depicted the motherly care of a little 'big sister'? But there cannot always be even this provision for the infants of women compelled to seek out-door work; and though it often happens (for the poor, thank God, are kind, and often tender and compassionate, to each other) that a neighbour, with enough young charges of her own to care for, will consent to look after an urchin just able to toddle about and play with a bundle of firewood in some remote corner, it is quite likely that the poor little creatures will be left with some careless [-36-] old dram-drinking hag, who is the only 'minder' to be found in an emergency.”

[Feck]

Old Hagg at 36

[Elessarina]

Old Hagg at 36

[Pensioner]

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[Pensioner]

Old Hagg at 36

You were old in those days at 36 in fact you were ancient Silly cunt. Trying to be Serious on this forum is a no no. Maybe that's why I like the place. :sighsm:

[Pensioner]

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[Elessarina]

In one of his stories there is a character called Mrs Chickenstalker