London

I have mixed feelings about Charles Dickens. This is probably an embarrassing admission from someone who’s preparing a public presentation on the works of Dickens for the fall and winter, but the fact remains. I’ve read most of the major novels, some more than once, and while I always start them with lots of gusto and enthusiasm, I’m never sorry to see them end. Many years ago, in an over-flowing of Dickensian high spirits, I bought a set of the Oxford Illustrated Dickens from Scribner’s bookstore on Fifth Avenue (I know I date myself). It was a snowy afternoon and, since the carton was too heavy to carry back to the Upper West Side, my wife and I got a cab and hurried home to unpack our treasure. Handling the books and trying to arrange them on the shelf (alphabetically? chronologically? according to the colors of the dust jackets?) was exciting—a case of book-lust gratified--but the actual reading proved to be anti-climactic. When it comes to novels, what accounts for this transition from appreciation to dutifulness? I never feel that way about Jane Austen.

So what prompted me, you might ask, to choose Dickens as a subject?  read more »