{"id":380,"date":"2015-12-30T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T12:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/30\/some-thoughts-on-dickens-and-popular\/"},"modified":"2020-10-28T17:10:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T17:10:01","slug":"some-thoughts-on-dickens-and-popular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/30\/some-thoughts-on-dickens-and-popular\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts on Dickens and Popular Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Right now I am reading Bleak House<\/em>. \u00a0I haven’t read any Dickens in longer than I can remember. \u00a0I read most, if not all, of his novels when I was very young and then burned out on him. \u00a0A few of his novels have really stuck in my memory but Bleak House<\/em> is not one of them. \u00a0All I really remember is that there is a case of spontaneous combustion in the book at some point which I found disturbing as a child.<\/p>\n

I am about a third of the way through the book right now and I am finding it fascinating. Fascinating, not necessarily because of the story itself though that is good, but because of what constituted popular literature in Dickens’ day. \u00a0His books were immensely popular. \u00a0They were serialized in magazines and newspapers and people waited eagerly for the next installment. \u00a0So eagerly that when The Old Curiosity Shop<\/em> was being serialized crowds waited at the docks in New York desperate to find out what happened to Little Nell. \u00a0I read somewhere that the poor and illiterate would pay to have the latest installment read to them.<\/p>\n

And now we view Dickens as difficult. \u00a0If you ask the average person to read Dickens they are going to refuse, probably with memories of high school forced readings of A Tale of Two Cities.<\/em> \u00a0If someone finds you voluntarily reading Dickens they are likely to view you as a bit of a show off.<\/p>\n

How have we gone from a world that goes crazy over Dickens to a world that goes crazy over Fifty Shades of Grey<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I know there are beautifully written, literary works of fiction being produced in our day. \u00a0However, those are not usually the ones that take the average reader by storm. \u00a0Dickens did in his day though. \u00a0I wonder what makes the difference. \u00a0Obviously many in his day were not well educated. \u00a0Many were just average people. \u00a0But now, reasonably well educated, average people view Dickens and authors like him as too difficult. \u00a0So many popular authors of their day such as Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope have now become challenging. \u00a0But when they wrote they were what the average person read. \u00a0They were the popular authors of their day.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, I worry about our day. I worry about a world that won’t commit to an eight-hundred-page novel but instead wants everything in 140 character tweets. \u00a0(Though the thought of trying to condense Bleak House<\/em> into a series of tweets sounds like it could be entertaining.) \u00a0I am not sure what it is. \u00a0Do we have less time? \u00a0A shorter attention span? \u00a0Has our reading style really been dumbed down? \u00a0Are we less literate? \u00a0Do we have too many distractions? \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0Maybe it is a bit of all of that.<\/p>\n

But Dickens should be read. \u00a0His characters are clear and appealing. So many have become part of our language, \u00a0Scrooge, for example. \u00a0His depiction of London and the England of his day is enthralling and horrifying in equal parts. \u00a0His ability to tell a story is obvious. \u00a0He had his flaws like any author does, I don’t always feel drawn to his female characters, \u00a0but what really amazes me on rereading him is just how readable he is. \u00a0He knows how to hook a reader. \u00a0That is why they waited on the docks for the next installment of The Old Curiosity Shop. \u00a0He had them in the palm of his hand. He was a consummate storyteller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right now I am reading Bleak House. \u00a0I haven’t read any Dickens in longer than I can remember. \u00a0I read most, if not all, of his novels when I was very young and then burned out on him. \u00a0A few of his novels have really stuck in my memory but Bleak House is not one of them. \u00a0All I really remember is that there is a case of spontaneous combustion in the book at some point which I found disturbing as a child. I am about a third of the way through the book right now and I am finding it fascinating. Fascinating, not necessarily because of the story itself though that is good, but because of what constituted popular literature in Dickens’ day. \u00a0His books were immensely popular. \u00a0They were serialized in magazines and newspapers and people waited eagerly for the next installment. \u00a0So eagerly that when The Old Curiosity Shop was being serialized crowds waited at the docks in New York desperate to find out what happened to Little Nell. \u00a0I read somewhere that the poor and illiterate would pay to have the latest installment read to them. And now we view Dickens as difficult. \u00a0If you ask the average person to read Dickens they are going to refuse, probably with memories of high school forced readings of A Tale of Two Cities. \u00a0If someone finds you voluntarily reading Dickens they are likely to view you as a bit of a show off. How have we gone from a world that goes crazy over Dickens to a world that goes crazy over Fifty Shades of Grey? I know there are beautifully written, literary works of fiction being produced in our day. \u00a0However, those are not usually the ones that take the average reader by storm. \u00a0Dickens did in his day though. \u00a0I wonder what makes the difference. \u00a0Obviously many in his day were not well educated. \u00a0Many were just average people. \u00a0But now, reasonably well educated, average people view Dickens and authors like him as too difficult. \u00a0So many popular authors of their day such as Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope have now become challenging. \u00a0But when they wrote they were what the average person read. \u00a0They were the popular authors of their day. Occasionally, I worry about our day. I worry about a world that won’t commit to an eight-hundred-page novel but instead wants everything in 140 character tweets. \u00a0(Though the thought of trying to condense Bleak House into a series of tweets sounds like it could be entertaining.) \u00a0I am not sure what it is. \u00a0Do we have less time? \u00a0A shorter attention span? \u00a0Has our reading style really been dumbed down? \u00a0Are we less literate? \u00a0Do we have too many distractions? \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0Maybe it is a bit of all of that. But Dickens should be read. \u00a0His characters are clear and appealing. So many have become part of our language, \u00a0Scrooge, for example. \u00a0His depiction of London and the England of his day is enthralling and horrifying in equal parts. \u00a0His ability to tell a story is obvious. \u00a0He had his flaws like any author does, I don’t always feel drawn to his female characters, \u00a0but what really amazes me on rereading him is just how readable he is. \u00a0He knows how to hook a reader. \u00a0That is why they waited on the docks for the next installment of The Old Curiosity Shop. \u00a0He had them in the palm of his hand. He was a consummate storyteller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,66,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-dickens","category-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2894,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/2894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}