The Dickens Tradition

 

I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts since I returned from Hilton Head last week, and have been unable to pinpoint the source of this anti-sorts-ness. Randomly, on Wednesday Patch asked me to drive her to the library so she could pick up some reading material. I never turn down a trip to the local biblioteca, and continued that habit. Once there, browsing the shelves with no ulterior motive in mind, I rounded a corner and there it was:

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens, in the pristine and handsome Everyman’s Library edition.

I knew instantly why I was experiencing this sort-less-ness. I haven’t read a Dickens novel since we’ve relocated to Texas, nearly eighteen months ago, and I always enjoy reading a Dickens around Thanksgiving.

Well, I like to say that. But in reality, the “tradition” only started in 2013, and I’ve never read Dickens two Thanksgivings in a row. In a sketchy order I’ve read The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield. In between I’ve read other non-Dickensian classics, such as Billy Budd, Ben-Hur, and, unsuccessfully, The Brothers Karamazov, in addition to heavy stuff about the JFK assassination, another topical November favorite, such as Mailer’s Oswald and Posner’s Case Closed.

Now I knew I needed to make up for lost time. I must read Martin Chuzzlewit to make up for lost time, and an old promise to perhaps the greatest novelist of the English language.

Promise? you say. Indeed, “promise,” I reply. Promise to set a great karmic injustice to rights. You see, thirty-five years ago, as a poor, struggling underclassmen in a prestigious northern New Jersey high school, I was assigned to read A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, for an English class.

I procrastinated.

Then, delayed.

Furthermore, I dithered. Dallied. Put it out of mind. In fact, I don’t ever recall cracking open the book, if ever I did take it out from the library.

No. With a blue-book essay looming on some unknown questions concerning the book, I did, unfortunately, what many students who take the low road do.

I cheated.

Sort of. I read the Cliff Notes for A Tale of Two Cities the night before, and prayed to the gods of B.S. I’d be able to bluff my way through that blue book.

I did. I remember getting a B on the test. Probably finished the class with a 90 or 92.

Seventeen years passed with Charles Dickens, London, Paris, and the French Revolution completely out of mind. Then, taking the train one morning into NYC for a horrible job I was working, I realized I had to set the scales of blindfolded justice to balance. To pay the piper. To make amends to a man whose work I short shrift. Short-shrifted? I dunno. It just made me feel bad whenever I thought of it.

So, during Thanksgiving 2002, I read A Tale of Two Cities, for the first time, cover-to-cover.

This is all a long way of stating that, from this December 5th forward, Hopper shall unfailingly read a Charles Dickens novel every Thanksgiving. Hopefully the Good Lord will give me remaining years to do so. After all, I have about eight novels to get through before I begin re-reads *. For those so inclined to inquire, those eight are, in order that they were published:

 

Oliver Twist

Nicholas Nickleby

The Old Curiosity Shop

Barnaby Rudge

Dombey and Son

Bleak House

Hard Times

Our Mutual Friend

 

As of this posting I am 155 pages into the 875-page Martin Chuzzlewit. I was a little nervous I’d not finish it before year’s end, but I think I’ll have it done by Christmas, leaving enough time to put away an old On-Deck SF paperback before 2023.

Happy Reading!

One of Hopper's numerous writing gurus

 

* The versions of Dickens novels I’ve read range from around 550 pages (Great Expectations) to David Copperfield (920 pages). If I assume the average Dickens novel to be 750 pages, I’m looking at 6,000 pages. Expectations took me three weeks to read, Copperfield six weeks, so the average Dickens novel takes me a full month to get through. 6,000 pages and eight months. Should be fun.