READIN

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

🦋 British books

I wonder how much J.K. Rowling's diction actually resembles Charles Dickens', and how much that is a figment of my imagination inspired by their nationality and by the audio book format. I've been listening to Bleak House on tape for the last few days, and loving it (though to be honest, I don't think I would be digging it as much if I had not read the book already); my previous experience with audio books is mostly overhearing the Harry Potter books that Sylvia listens to from noon to night... but the expressions (and the characters' names) in Bleak House are definitely reminding me of Rowling! To be sure, Robert Whitfield (who is reading Bleak House) has a similar voice to Jim Dale's, and similar affectations -- I wonder if the creaky old-person's voice is a standard element of audiobook-reader training...

Anyway, I got the idea that Sylvia might enjoy reading Dickens. So when we were at the bookstore today, I bought her a copy of David Copperfield, which neither of us has read, which I am hoping she will read and recommend to me... Virginia Woolf called it, in a pull-quote on the back cover, "the most perfect of all the Dickens novels."

posted afternoon of May 15th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

🦋 Reading Dickens aloud

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn, at a dead loss—for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was on the market then—and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence half penny short—as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavor without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go "meandering" about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, "Let us have no meandering."

Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth.

-- David Copperfield

posted afternoon of May 16th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Charles Dickens

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

🦋 Suffolk, Yarmouth, London

Here is something that has been puzzling me about David Copperfield (which I've been reading, and lazily enjoying, for the past week or so): When David travels from his mother's home in Suffolk (northeast of London) to the school Murdstone sends him to, which I'm pretty sure was described as being near London though I can't find that now, he travels by way of Yarmouth, which is southwest of London (assuming Google Maps is not misleading me) -- and similarly, I believe, when he travels to work at Murdstone and Grinby. This doesn't make any sense to me. It is certainly possible I got mixed up about the location of the school; but in any case why would the carriage from Suffolk to Yarmouth not stop over in London? Never mind all that -- Google Maps is indeed misleading me. The Yarmouth referenced here is Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, fairly close to where David and his mother lived. (It is still farther away from London than is Suffolk, but I can easily imagine it to lie on a main road which bypasses David's mother's house.)

Also -- I wonder what age David is when he goes to work for Murdstone and Grinby. I've been thinking it is roughly in the range of ten to twelve, but I don't think that was stated in the text, it is just a guess. (The first time in the book that David mentions his age is when he is fallen in love with the eldest Miss Larkins, near the end of his time at Dr. Strong's school, and he is 17 -- I think that could fit with him being about 11 at the time he's working in London.)

posted afternoon of August 7th, 2011: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Monday, August 8th, 2011

🦋 Dickens, Sendak

This is an exciting find: when Steerforth is growsing to Copperfield about his lack of ambition and drive, he makes reference to his childhood --

At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognised for what they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who "didn't care," and became food for lions --

posted evening of August 8th, 2011: 6 responses