Daniel Blanton

About five minutes ago, I just finished the very last paragraph on the very last page of one of Dickens’s most beloved novels, Great Expectations: I confess sadly it was too much of a struggle for me to finish it when it was first assigned to me in high school, and even now as I lay the book down I must admit the British Literature course I am currently taking required me to have the book finished a good two weeks ago. So even though I had already taken the test and written a paper or two on the novel, I thought since I was so close to the end it might be a good idea just to finish the darned thing, if only to avoid having to read it again in the future. Upon finishing the novel once and for all, and evaluating it in context with every other Dickens novel I’ve ever read, a startling conclusion presented itself before me: a teacher who makes his students read Charles Dickens and then wonders why their writing is bad is like a mother who decides to live next to a nuclear power plant and then wonders why her children have cancer. So if you come across any particularly bad writing as you read this, please excuse me, as I have been studying Dickens intently for the purpose of writing this and may have been infected.

Now, I do not mean to say Dickens was a bad writer. Instead, I simply mean to say Dickens was a good writer who did a lot of bad writing. Many literary scholars wonder at what kind of great works Samuel Taylor Coleridge may have produced if he had never gotten himself addicted to opium: they see Coleridge’s genius shining through the few poems he did write, and lament he was kept from writing much more. Fans of Dickens will read his work and see the mind of a genius, and when I read something like Great Expectations, I also see the mind of a true master of language. The difference, however, lies in the fact these fans will often perceive Dickens as a visionary in complete control over his creative faculties, whereas I, on the other hand, see him in the same way I see Coleridge: as a writer whose great potential and talent was largely spoiled by unfortunate limitations.

First off, it’s important to remark the following — although an informed opinion — is merely an opinion. With this in mind, you’re now probably at the verge of throwing this rant down to the ground. Who am I to criticize Charles Dickens, after all? Surely I can have nothing of real value to say — but hold on a moment. A few years ago, I would have been incredulous at the thought Charles Dickens produced anything less than high-quality work. One cannot think of classic British literature without his name leaping to mind; as far as 19^th-century British literature is concerned, his popularity is matched by no other. The difference between the way I looked at classic novels then and the way I look at classic novels now is now, having read considerably more novels from the time period, I have a standard by which to evaluate new works I encounter. I reference specifically the Russian authors — in fact, I am of a very strong conviction everything written in Russia during the 19^th century put together holds more inherent quality than everything written everywhere else in the world during that same time frame. It is rumored in literary circles Hemingway remarked his chief goal as an author was for the very best of his works to surpass in quality the very worst of Dostoevsky’s works; toward the end of his life, he declared he had failed. Finally, of all the novels I have read, I have only encountered five I consider to be perfect: two of them are from 19^th-century Russia. I bring this up only to eliminate the argument I am holding Dickens to too high a standard and I must change my usual criteria when evaluating 19^th-century works. For if Dostoevsky and Turgenev were able to write what they wrote in their circumstances, then I must hold their contemporary Dickens to the same plumb line and question why he did not produce works of equal measure.

But now an entirely different problem arises: how does one measure literary quality, or any kind of artistic quality in general? To do this, we must examine certain examples individually and parse out positive and negative elements. While we have so many differing opinions on what good music is, somehow bad music is far easier to recognize: so I’ll begin with passages from Dickens that strike me as “bad music.” Let’s begin with Great Expectations.

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself pip, and came to be called Pip.

Okay, not a bad start. This concise opening clearly informs us about our character’s real name and the origin of his nickname. But then we move down only half a page and we get this gem:

To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine — who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in that universal struggle — I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Just when I think I’m beginning to like the book, a sentence like this comes along and makes me want to punch myself in the face. This process repeats itself about every two or three paragraphs on average. First, let’s address what is grammatically wrong with this sentence. Halfway through reading this sentence, I found myself struggling to remember exactly what the sentence was trying to say. This happens because Dickens places the subject of the sentence after the sentence’s midpoint, instead beginning the sentence with a prepositional object. And as if this didn’t disrupt the flow of the sentence enough, Dickens separates the subject from the prepositional object to which it refers with not one, not two, but three dependent clauses and a compound usage of the same “being” verb were. By making you rush through the sentence to discover the significance of the prepositional phrase at the beginning, Dickens makes all of the elaborately melodramatic prose he sets up (“gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in that universal struggle” … oh, how pithy) entirely superfluous. Rereading the sentence becomes something one does not of admiration for the sentence, but out of a struggle to comprehend it. This is the definition of bad writing. And what is more, the sentence is entirely irrelevant in the grander scheme of what’s going on in this opening chapter. When we begin a book, we care about learning a little bit about a main character, and information relating to the main character’s family is certainly helpful. It’s certainly beneficial here to know Pip has deceased relatives, and in Pip’s five deceased siblings we can see Dickens smuggling in some sly social commentary on Britain’s high infant mortality rate. However, at this point in the novel, do we really care enough about Pip’s inner imaginings to read a ninety-word sentence about fantasies of dead children with their hands in their trouser pockets? Absolutely not! In theory, a child’s whimsical daydreams might certainly enhance the intimacy the story has with our character’s thoughts. Such passages might even provide special insight into the child’s perspective of the world. Yet just as Dickens allows endless phrases and clauses to disrupt the flow of his sentences, he allows his sentences to disrupt the train of thought of the whole paragraph, and by extension the whole narrative he sets up.

I could dig up an example sentence like this from nearly every page in Great Expectations, and I could do the same for nearly every other novel I have read by him. Even the grand opening to A Tale of Two Cities, which I remember liking, fails on the same level. Though grammatically incorrect (it mashes together no less than 14 independent clauses in a row without any kind of conjunction — take note semicolons had been around for at least 300 years at this time, and Dickens still refuses to use them here), the opening to this sentence works because of its contrast:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way….

I can’t help but admit this is poetry. It speaks a kind of mournful nostalgia for a time Dickens clearly yearns to have known but was born too late to take part in. But just as the sentence sets itself up for greatness, it has to spiral into this:

— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Wait … what?! This is the kind of sentence where you can know the meaning of each individual word, but when those words are put together, the obtuseness of the language becomes an indecipherable mess. Like, “being received in the superlative degree of comparison only”? What does that even mean? I would have to diagram this sentence to pick it apart, and I would even have considerable difficulty doing that. And before someone goes off saying, “you ignorant dolt, how can you assume just because you have difficulty understanding a phrase, everyone else does as well?”, I’d like to point out I searched that exact phrase on Google^TM and immediately I found page after page on all sorts of different sites where people were trying to piece apart that specific phrase. So I’m sorry for insulting this beloved sentence, but the phrasing is just downright awkward.

So why is Dickens’s prose so bizarre? Well, earlier on I mentioned how I viewed Dickens as a genius constrained by limitations — it’s about time to explain what I mean by that. Dickens’s sentences are long because he was paid by the word, thus incentivizing him to write longer sentences. Wait. What’s this? Ladies and gentlemen, someone has just called and informed me Dickens was in fact not paid by the word. But, surely that can’t be true! I’ve had three different English professors confirm it to me! After all, there’s no other explanation for how someone who commands language so beautifully could write so poorly! … Well, turns out those three English professors were wrong. The “paid by the word” story is actually a popular myth generated by frustrated readers trying to explain Dickens’s awful prose. In reality, Dickens was paid per installment, a policy that encouraged him to write very long and bloated novels. And yet, this doesn’t explain his strange sentence structure. The only reason I could provide for that was Dickens, as a writer, was, as many readers believed in the first place, in full control of his faculties …  and he made the decision to write that way consciously. Looking back at these passages I’ve analyzed, a picture begins to emerge — a picture of a writer who goes back and revises his sentences with 100% craft but 0% restraint. It’s like if he comes up with a phrase he perceives as clever, he can’t let go of it. When you’re writing like Charles Dickens, anything that possibly could be said about the subject of your sentence must be said.

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.

That was the opening sentence to one of his most beloved stories, Oliver Twist. It’s not enough to say there is a building in a town. He feels he has to say he can’t tell you the name of the town; he has to avoid addressing the fact directly the building is a workhouse by prefacing it with “anciently common” and so on; he has to tell us he deliberately avoids telling us the birthday of the main character; he even has to tell us the reason he omits the birthday of Oliver Twist is because at this point we don’t care about what his birthday was! If you know we don’t care, then why are you including this information?! So let’s say you’re writing a novel, and you’re deciding whether or not to provide some piece of interesting exposition on your main character. These are your options.

The logical, simple choice for a writer would be A or B, and this would be correct. But if you happen to be a young and impressionable hardcore Dickens fan, I’d put my money on your choosing option C, which would give you this sentence:

On this fine day — and it was as fine a day as any other, as far as fine days are concerned — our hero was born, and as no good child is born without being christened, he was christened with a first, last, and middle name, the latter of which surely would be no matter of interest to you, and for this reason I provide the first and last name of this character only, which you already know because I named this book after him.

Does anyone see for any reason at all why a sentence like that could be somewhat problematic? So as much as it pains me to say it … *breathes in* … it certainly seems as this point Dickens was a … let’s just say “less-than-excellent” writer. You know, at least on some level.

So now a new mystery arises. If Dickens is indeed a … “less-than-excellent” writer … then why is his work so popular? In the end, it all really boils down to his characters. Now why did I say “characters” and not “great stories”? Truth is, despite the fact the “paid by the word” thing was a myth, Dickens was still paid by installments, so even though he told great stories, it takes a heck of a long time for him to tell them. He deliberately stalls for time focusing on minute events and then tries to attach significance to those minute events 200 pages later when he brings characters back around in the most contrived way possible. Oh, remember Jaggers’s maid? I bet you were wondering why he included her in the story and spent such a long time describing her and her relationship with Mr. Jaggers, considering she had no significance to the story at the time. Well, turns out she’s actually Estella’s mother! And Magwitch was the father! Bet you didn’t see that coming, considering it’s the most unbelievable coincidence ever.1 And I understand the same could be said of modern TV shows, how everything is all about building suspense over time and developing and exploring characters — and you know what, writing a 1,000-page novel where characters come back around and interact with each other in extremely coincidental ways over a long period of time is perfectly fine! I mean, Victor Hugo does it in Hunchback of Notre Dame and he does it even more successfully in Les Misérables and neither time does it feel contrived, because the novel is well-paced and way more entertaining (you know, aside from those Grand Canyon-sized detours where Hugo feels there is no possible way he could tell you this story without giving the most in-detail description of the Notre Dame cathedral and the philosophy of architecture in general … but maybe that’s a subject for another rant). I can’t say I don’t have a soft spot for Oliver Twist, but that was mainly because I watched the movie religiously when I was a kid — I shiver in fear knowing some day I’ll have to force myself to read the book. But I have read David Copperfield, which is basically the same semi-autobiographical rags-to-riches story told in both Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, except this time barely anything happens at all. And I also read Great Expectations, of course, which you know my thoughts on. And on top of that, I have read A Tale of Two Cities, which had a pretty touching ending, despite the fact I can’t really remember at all anything that happened during the rest of the book. And then, of course, there’s A Christmas Carol, which is probably the most popular of Dickens’s works, and which I can say is legitimately good; that one gets a free pass. The bottom line here is I believe the specific details of Dickens’s stories are generally not culturally remembered all that well — their characters, rather, are what receive more discussion. We may not remember exactly what happens in a story like Oliver Twist or Great Expectations, but we remember Oliver, Pip, Miss Havisham, Magwitch, Fagin, Bill Sykes, and Dodger. Dickens’s characters are memorable because they are caricatures — and such striking ones at that. Oliver and Pip are exceedingly pitiful and meek; Miss Havisham is exceedingly decrepit and crazy; Dodger is exceedingly friendly, Fagin is exceedingly stingy, Bill Sykes is exceedingly violent, and so on, and so on. Dickens heightens this notion of caricature not only through the behavior of his characters but also through his physical descriptions of them. This certainly creates entertaining and memorable characters, which is why they’re well remembered. But something tells me it limits these characters’ dimensionality. And of course two-dimensional characters would be fine if Dickens were writing merely comedy, but Dickens’s satire is more than light-hearted politics; it is a biting discussion of poverty and terrible working-class conditions, a discussion which oftentimes gets undercut by the light tone and happy endings Dickens prefers to use.

Which brings us to my final point: the seriously underrated Hard Times. Oh, so you think you were reading a long boring rant vilifying a time-honored and popular author? Well, in fact this was all an elaborate ruse: a trap to lure you into a carefully concealed book recommendation. Hard Times is one of the least talked about Dickens works, possibly because it is as every bit as depressing as the title seems to indicate — as if getting people to read a book entitled Bleak House wasn’t hard enough. But the difference between Hard Times and something like Great Expectations is while both make equally apt points about contemporary British society, Hard Times hits these points much harder through its pessimistic attitude. Most of its characters end the novel in an unhappy position, as opposed to Dickens’s lighter novels in which characters will come across good fortune by chance. Within Hard Times we see the full horrific consequences of a defunct social mindset, hence out of all the Dickens books I have read, Hard Times emerges as my personal favorite due to its absolutely jarring impact.

Consider the way the book is divided up: the first segment is entitled “Sowing,” the second “Reaping,” and the third “Garnering.” This is a story in which the behaviors of particular characters are set up, and time is given for their behaviors to result in consequences that extend far beyond their own sphere. “Reaping” and “garnering” often mean the same thing, but here a distinction is made: the “reaping” is the simple cutting of the grain, the emergence of the consequences. By contrast, the “garnering” is where the tragic hero of the story must walk out into the field and gather up the wheat that has been cut: in other words, he must fully face and acknowledge the events taken place are the consequences of his own actions in the past. This book has been praised for its social commentary, but it is far more than mere cultural satire because it dares to fully explore and develop the painful struggle of each of its characters. More specifically, it is a story about characters slowly discovering their own humanity; a cautionary tale about allowing strict reason to rule so supremely emotions are seen as weakness, illustrating how a society founded on such austere principles will ultimately come to ruin. This is demonstrated through the character of Thomas Gradgrind, a schoolteacher who instills this philosophy into the children in his classroom and the children under his own roof. The result: his daughter Louisa suppresses emotion to the extent she resigns herself to a loveless marriage with a man thirty years her senior, and his son Tom entirely loses his emotions altogether, becoming a criminal and encouraging his sister to enter into the aforementioned union for his own financial benefit. Louisa and Tom see absolutely nothing wrong with their actions because they were instructed to see the world that way. And then, all at once, Mr. Gradgrind and children watch their world collapse around them. The book is highly cathartic, as it concludes in such a way we see every character receiving a fitting end, but even more important, it’s delightfully short. Though nowhere near as good as A Christmas Carol, it’s important to point out why this book stands out amongst Dickens’s oeuvre.

My goal here in writing this has not been to defame a great author. Rather, I write this as a means of calling attention to literary flaws we may not notice when we’re not reading an old text as carefully as we could. I don’t wish to see Dickens removed from any school curricula, but I caution any young students interested in writing well to take extra special care as to how they are reading Dickens. And amidst all of these negative points, I want to call attention to my one positive: I have been able to find a great book I like by an author I greatly dislike, and if you feel the same way I do about Dickens, maybe you should give Hard Times a chance. After all, take into consideration while critics who enjoyed the novel have called it one of Dickens’s best, Dickens himself is reported to have disliked it. Perhaps, then, one might conclude Dickens is at his best when what he writes is the least Dickensian.

¹I did not make this up. This is actually what happens at the end of Great Expectations.