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Why I Don’t Read Dickens
I’m interrupting my self-imposed sabbatical because my plan—a gloriously stolen hour of reading—has been derailed before it ever really started. I was confused, you see, and thought my dislike of Charles Dickens had to do with, I don’t know, being forced to read him in high school, when all classical literature was evil. I was wrong; even in high school, I had impeccable sense. I present to you the opening of Oliver Twist:
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
Or: “Oliver Twist was born in a common workhouse.” If you aren’t clear on that point, I’m sure Dickens would be happy to tell you about more details that he won’t be telling you about (oh, the abuse of praeteritio!).
For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, is remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would be never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.
I will leave you to muse on the happy thought of Oliver Twist never having been written. I am still choking on “concise.”
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could possibly have occurred.
Where was the story at? Oh yes: “Oliver Twist was born in a common workhouse.” We can now add: “Luckily.”
Skim, skim, skim, difficulty breathing, mattress, gasping baby, the possibility of dying if anyone who loved him had been around, never fully explained… skim, skim, skim… ah:
The result was, that, after a a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for much longer than a space of time than three minutes and a quarter.
Now, really? Three minutes and a quarter? It’s taken longer than that to get this far! And for an author so incredibly reluctant to name details, three minutes and a quarter is awfully precise. No wonder no one was trying to help the poor baby breathe; they were standing around with stopwatches.
So now we have the story up to: “Oliver Twist was born in a common workhouse. Luckily. Loving relatives would have smothered him, but when the world ignored his desperate gasps for help, he gave the world a swift kick in the nuts in return and took charge of his own lungs.”
That’s nice, isn’t it? Does it tell you how enthralled I am with this book that I gave up and blogged instead?
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Comments
Hilarious! I love your deconstruction, and I actually like a lot of Dickens (for very odd reasons), but have always hated Oliver Twist. Now I know why. Thank you!
Very odd reasons:
a) as someone who has, uh, problems with being concise, I am in awe of Dickens. The guy is The Grand Master of the Run-On Sentence. And HE got published! (i.e. maybe my writer’s hopes don’t need to be too rudely dashed?)
b) If I remember my high school english class correctly (and heaven knows I might not), he had a plot problem. His stories ran a chapter at a time in the newspaper, and I suspect he didn’t have a clue what next weeks chapter was going to be, but he promised the editor X number of words. He delivered the words all right! For some reason this tickles me given his self-conscious, pompous, I’m-majorly-erudite “writer’s voice”.
Um…now I’m having trouble remembering which books of his I did like. 
Oh I love this post - hilarious! I was an English major and I love the classics but I never liked Dickens. I remember finding Dubliners less burdensome (maybe short stories are easier to deal with—and maybe their plots made more sense because of the weekly submissions that Jane writes about). Anyway this is definitely one of those times when it’s not us, it’s him.
Oh that’s hilarious! I did enjoy some of the forced reading in school (Thomas Hardy, Emily Bronte etc.) but Dickens I couldn’t stand. Along with Nathanial Hawthorne.
Funder, I can sympathize with that. I was recently reading articles about Joaquin Miller, because the alternative was reading poetry by Joaquin Miller. Sad, isn’t it?
Jane, the serial thing rings a bell. I bet he would have done well at NaNoWriMo (speaking of—if you’re still doing it, carry on! Have a virtual pom-pom! George might need it to get out of whatever trouble he’s in…).
Marissa, of course it’s not us! We make sense!
Melinda, Hawthorne isn’t high on my list either. Probably no one will ever rank as low as Herman Melville, though. I refuse to read Moby Dick. Refuse.
But I have learned one thing—Oliver Twist gets much better when you see it as a comedy. And in that spirit, I challenge everyone to write the most absurd, run-on sentency, Dickens parody of a blog post that you can. Go on—it’ll feel great. If you let me know you’ve done it, I’ll put up links to them all (an idea cheerfully stolen from Jane’s great rider falls posts).
I was forced to read Moby Dick in high school. Blech. Can’t remember a word except the first line, and that only because Micah walked up to me one day, put his hands on my shoulders, and said “Call me Ishmael”. He’s never heard of Moby Dick. He thought the comedy writers of Spongebob Squarepants had come up with that little gem. I fell out laughing.
I’ve already hit writers block for NaNoWriMo. Out the window.
But I’m relishing the idea of creating a magnificent run-on sentence in the best Dickensian style. I think I have a copy of Bleak House here somewhere. Not quite as awash in Victorianisms as Great Expectations, but maybe enough to get me in the right frame of mind!
Oh goody. BTW, we aren’t stealing, 
we’re tapping our inner muse when we riff on an idea from another blog!
On Nov 10, 2009, funder said:
I tried to read Dickens, several times. I’ve even tried to read books ABOUT Dickens. My last attempt was by having Daily Lit email me a small piece of Oliver Twist every day - but that just made me extremely reluctant to check my email. I think I would rather read 19th century Supreme Court opinions than read Dickens again.