Happy birthday Charles Dickens. So much has been written about him already that my few hundred words aren’t going to make much of a difference but here goes.
I’ve just finished Great Expectations for the second time. I picked it up having enjoyed the BBC’s adaptation which they showed over the Christmas period. It’s a great book and re-reading it has reminded me how enjoyable Dickens’ books are.
His plots are sufficiently intricate to retain the reader’s attention but are written in a way that you can pick the book up when you have a moment and catch up where you had left off. His characters are rich and interesting, expertly described without being clichéd or overly contrived.
I’ve read many of his books, if not all, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Hard Times and enjoyed them all. I’ve also seen many adaptations for both television and the cinema.
What has struck me most about these adaptations however is that they focus on the grim and dark side of Dickens, which exists in spades but lack much of his humour.
When I read Dickens, I find his work funny. In Great Expectations, Pip’s upbringing at the hand of Mrs Gargery and the relationship between him and the officious Mr Pumblechook, Joes’s uncle made me laugh out loud. His descriptions of John Wemmick, the lawyer Jagger’s clerk, are classic comedy especially his relationship with his aged parent and his later wedding.
Dickens’ work should be regarded not as long books but rather the serialisation of good stories. They can be picked up and put down, read in short bursts. This is how they were written and how they should really be enjoyed.
So happy birthday Charles Dickens, I’m sure that he will still be read in another hundred years.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 