Better Than Starbucks discussion

I could never imitate the inimitable, but if you were able to communicate with the wonderful Charles Dickens, what would you like to say to him?

thanks!!!!

"Please, sir, may I have some more?"

exactly!

Stan wrote: ""Please, sir, may I have some more?""

yes indeed - though I will never understand how he managed to do everything that he did do - just reading about his life is exhausting - the monthly sometimes weekly deadlines for his book installments, the 100s and 100s of letters, the lengthy daily walks, the speeches, the magazine editing, the charitable work, the relentless socialising and party going, not to mention the reading tours - how did one man do all this? I think he worked himself to death.
Do you have a favourite Dickens? Mine is constantly changing - but at the moment it's Our Mutual Friend

For me, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Tale of Two Cities are all on the same level.

Same three as Stan, and Bleak House.

oooh yes Bleak House is always in my top 3 - Mr Tulkinghorn is one of nastiest of villains - he seems to be intent on destroying Lady Dedlock just because he can. Did you see the BBC adaptation a few years ago with Gillian Anderson - it made me able to like Esther, which I've never managed before.

maybe it was a thing of the times, maybe he more or less created it, but i was always put off by the characters' names, but as soon as i have read a few pages, i get into the story and forget about that.

Dickens spent a long time choosing his character names - there are long lists of variations of them in his manuscripts. It seems like he could not settle down to write until he had the perfect name - as if the name was the essence of the character for him.

well, he picked a little too perfect for my tastes, but i love his books in spite of the naming

I think the only time I have problems with names in books is

???

Lee wrote: "Stan wrote: ""Please, sir, may I have some more?""

yes indeed - though I will never understand how he managed to do everything that he did do - just reading about his life is exhausting - the mont..."

Oliver Twist. Bleak House remains the only Dickens I couldn't get through.

Didn't think my partial comment posted!! Wifi problems. What I meant to say is that the only books where the character names trouble me are those 19th century Russian tomes in which everybody seems to have 5 different names - I struggle to work out who is doing what to whom.

lee, i wrote a novel (never to be published, apparently) and first draft i had three generations and two lines with the same names! in real life that woulda happened, in a novel it was impossible

what I could do with for War and Peace etc is an app which highlights all the names of each character in the same colour.
On a completely different note - how on earth did Tolkein keep track of all his characters in the Lord of the Rings??

I think I would be so in awe of standing next to old Dickens that I would be utterly speechless! I mean, it would be like having tea with Albert Einstein. What do you say to such a man?

My favorite Dickens is whichever one I read last, which at this moment is Great Expectations. Bleak House is likely to be my next future favorite.

Listening to either of them would be great, but you are right, asking them anything might be a tad overwhelming:)

I would like to take issue with Dickens over his bumping off of Dora in David Copperfield - shes so much more fun than boring old Agnes - though I guess all that baby talk might get a little wearing - especially over breakfast.

Aw, baby talk at breakfast worth killing for:)

In one of Jasper Fforde's "the Eyre Affair" series David Copperfield is on trial for the murder of Dora. A "generic character" has had to be trained up to take his place in the book in the meantime!
Strangely, Dickens had a baby daughter named Dora who died not long after the monthly installment in which her namesake died.

weird

Loved you in Dr. Who...

Edwin Drood, I need to know! Also, completely understand your love for Rochester, it's a gorgeous place (and sorry your wishes weren't carried out, but your actual burial spot is lovely too).

Lee wrote: "I could never imitate the inimitable, but if you were able to communicate with the wonderful Charles Dickens, what would you like to say to him?"

I would say: Keep Calm and carry on feeling peace and hope. Realism, today, in XIX, is very alive, for sure- - Although students seems that they don't read. Some of them, we DO -. Our society, needs more writers that express reality, like "non-fiction journalism", but, please, being serious.

Stan wrote: "For me, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Tale of Two Cities are all on the same level."

I agree.

I'm currently near the beginning of Our Mutual Friend for a 4 or 5 month long group read, and so far, so good, although it was slow to draw me in. Good thing I like Dickens.

I'd tell him that his great granddaughter Monica turned out to be a good writer and was the second best selling female author after Daphne DuMaurier at that time. I wouldn't mention that Monica became largely forgotten later.