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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #15 on: 19:41:24, 14-07-2008 » |
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Oh - and I can't stand F.R. Leavis, either - the man was a Stalinist.
No, he was a Cambridge Liberal. I must say I am surprised at your fondness for Dickens, SK. I would have thought he was a hopeless leftie in your books. Regards Sapphic tendencies in Dickens. Miss Wade in LD is a baddie and a lezzie, but with a sympathetic history. But Esther Summerson in BH keeps on about how lovely Ada is, how sweet Charley (Charlotte) is, how sweet Caddy Jellaby is, and so on. I suspect that this sort of female attraction would not be expressed nowadays. I can't think of a single male character in Dickens who could be regarded as remotely gay. I don't think Dickens was any sort of leftie. George Gissing (in his unsurpassed study of Dickens) actually makes the point that Dickens was fundamentally a conservative - ie, one who believed that human goodness, rather than state intervention, would more effectively end poverty. He articulates his (very simplistic) political credo via the person of Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times, who comes up with a wishy-washy refutation of Slackbridge's rabble-rousing. As to the presence of gays in Dickens: I've always had a feeling about Dick Swiveller in Old Curiosity Shop; and I've often wondered about the marriage of M. and Mme. Defarge...... |
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...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #16 on: 20:18:19, 14-07-2008 » |
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As to the presence of gays in Dickens: I've always had a feeling about Dick Swiveller in Old Curiosity Shop; and I've often wondered about the marriage of M. and Mme. Defarge......
Hm. Not convinced. Mind you there are precious few possible gay men in the English novel prior to Evelyn Waugh that I can think of. And camp isn't the same as gay. For a conservative, Dickens certainly laid into Establishment figures and institutions, but I can imagine you would too, SK. There was a vast reservoir of sentimentality in the man. Anty - I have identified with Miss Havisham for years. I read Great Expectations on the train travelling though Turkey last winter. |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #17 on: 20:50:09, 14-07-2008 » |
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I must say I am surprised at your fondness for Dickens, SK. I would have thought he was a hopeless leftie in your books.
Not so much a leftie as a bit of a sentimentalist - the social evils that Dickens described so vividly tend to be alleviated by benevolence rather than systematic change,as Orwell pointed out in his essay. And A Tale of Two Cities displays a vehement hatred for the revolutionary mob. Having said that, Gradgrind and Bounderby live on, and still run call centres and contract cleaning agencies ... |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #18 on: 20:59:16, 14-07-2008 » |
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There was a point in my early to mid-twenties when I strongly identified with Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend; I still do, from time to time, nowadays.
Anyone remember an ITV series called Dickens Of London? Shown in late 1976 and featuring Roy Dotrice giving a superb performance as yer man (and yer man's father). I can vividly recall one point where CD is writing O.C.S. and he virtually orgasms (I kid you not!) on all the evil things he's making Quilp do. It's stayed in my mind for years.....
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...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #19 on: 20:59:29, 14-07-2008 » |
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Having said that, Gradgrind and Bounderby live on, and still run call centres and contract cleaning agencies ... Remember this chappie?  That's how I always imagined Mr Gradgrind (Boyson, as Education Minister, shared Gradgrind's views on the sole importance of 'facts' as well). |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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ahinton
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« Reply #20 on: 21:23:30, 14-07-2008 » |
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Having said that, Gradgrind and Bounderby live on, and still run call centres and contract cleaning agencies ... Remember this chappie? That's how I always imagined Mr Gradgrind (Boyson, as Education Minister, shared Gradgrind's views on the sole importance of 'facts' as well). Ah, yes - those heady days when good old Rhodes-ia held sway in and on its own terms (I'd not fully appreciated that you're even old enough to remember that!). But now look at it! Is it any better? No, of course not! Is it any worse? (and, if so, whose fault might it be?) - er - answers on a probably undeliverable post card, no thanks... |
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #21 on: 21:47:55, 14-07-2008 » |
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Having said that, Gradgrind and Bounderby live on, and still run call centres and contract cleaning agencies ... Remember this chappie? That's how I always imagined Mr Gradgrind (Boyson, as Education Minister, shared Gradgrind's views on the sole importance of 'facts' as well). Ah, yes - those heady days when good old Rhodes-ia held sway in and on its own terms (I'd not fully appreciated that you're even old enough to remember that!). But now look at it! Is it any better? No, of course not! Is it any worse? (and, if so, whose fault might it be?) - er - answers on a probably undeliverable post card, no thanks... Actually, I think it has got worse. It's true that Rhodes Boyson was a great advocate of "the facts", but I remember him coming to my school to give a talk to the Sixth Form when he was still in opposition in the late seventies, and at least - IIRC - there was some sense of knowledge being valuable for its own sake. What is unforgivable now is the appalling tests mentality - a very New Labour view of the world that education is about kids sitting in uniform behind desks being softened up for a lifetime of sitting in uniform behind desks, with the language of SATS morphing effortlessly into the evasive verbiage of the human resources professional. To get back on topic, I think that is a world that Dickens would have described rather well. |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Antheil
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« Reply #22 on: 22:53:35, 14-07-2008 » |
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But with Dickens it's the names as well isn't it? So perfectively descriptive of the characters. Hence Polly Toodle, Mrs. Todger, Pecksniff, Canon Crisparkle, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Wemmick, Magwitch, Captain Cuttle, Dodson & Fogg, (Solicitors) to name but a few. Absolute genius.
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #23 on: 03:00:32, 15-07-2008 » |
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And Scrooge which has become a synonym for parsimony!
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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martle
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« Reply #24 on: 12:33:53, 15-07-2008 » |
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I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but it strikes me that Dickens conforms rather well to a bygone image of the patrician Tory, essentially a far more liberal animal than we can remember in our lifetimes, much given to notions of social reform, temperance, cultural philanthropy, workers' conditions etc. - a parallel with 19thC republicanism in the USA. That's certainly how I've always read him.
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Green. Always green.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #25 on: 14:33:12, 15-07-2008 » |
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I can't think of a single male character in Dickens who could be regarded as remotely gay.
Though perhaps some of the boys in Oliver Twist might be described as Nancy's.  |
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #26 on: 14:50:13, 15-07-2008 » |
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I read the death of little Jo in Bleak House this morning, and yes, I cried as I thought I would, and I'm not a bit embarrassed about crying. Why can crying feel so good?
A bit more seriously, Ron, Fagin has been suggested as having paedophile overtones, with all those boys. Certainly he is the first person who shows Oliver any affection and respect, although with a view to manipulating him into being a criminal.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #27 on: 17:30:26, 15-07-2008 » |
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Why can crying feel so good?
I hope those of us who are a bit more scientifically savvy than I can put some meat on the following bones, but I heard somewhere that tears are practically identical chemically to blood plasma, and can help in relieving stress by removing various undesirable substances from the bloodstream. |
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #28 on: 19:33:14, 16-07-2008 » |
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Part of the attraction of Dickens is the illustrations by Phiz - I always think Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend* suffer from lacking them. Here's Jo the crossing sweeper (I don't know nothink) showing the mysterious lady (Lady Deadlock seeking the grave of her dead lover) the churchyard. Wonderfully atmospheric. * For a convuluted plot, Our MF takes the biscuit. Doesn't the hero have three different identities? |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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A
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« Reply #29 on: 21:40:57, 16-07-2008 » |
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Well, Don B, you have just cost me £9, I have bought B House and intend to wallow for a few months  in the wonderful language of Dickens ! It reminds me of the joke 'Do you like Kipling?' I don't know , I've never Kippled' Sorry, I'll get me coat. Thanks Don B in all seriousness  A |
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Well, there you are.
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