Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That makes sense.

I think sometimes I have the opposite of literal mindedness. I don't see the obvious thing in front of me.

Like there, for example, I was imagining something like sunshine, with some confusing emotional associations.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Maybe it's just mental laziness. It's of a piece with my impotent confusion in the face of the practical world.
 

jenks

thread death
I think also the period Dickens writes about (usually 20-30 yrs before his present time) is one in which childhood is being ‘invented’ that there is a phase between being born and adulthood. Dickens, as noted above, seems finely tuned to that moment when the world reveals itself to young eyes - the hypocrisies, the venality and the loss of innocence - it is a view borne of Romanticism but tempered by a belief in hard work, industry, self improvement, making one’s own luck.
As for school in itself, invariably it is a middle class luxury, I’m not certain but compulsory schooling isn’t introduced during Dickens’ lifetime. And in Nickleby Dickens makes a point of highlighting the brutality of schools after a national scandal in which essentially unlicensed schools visited such violence on their pupils that a number were killed.
 

luka

Well-known member
Jack where are you in Dvd Cprfld? imat the bit where hes walking to Dover. He goes along the road i live on through Greenwich and Blackheath.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Making very slow headway due to insomnia attacks this week. He's at the school and awaiting the other boys arriving.
 

luka

Well-known member
insomnia is annoying cos you cant use the extra time for anything useful. all you can do is stare at the ceiling in the darkness and ask God why he wont let you sleep
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It's a comforting book, though. Its the sort of book you can imagine settling into, sinking into, in front of a roaring fire. Despite all the unhappiness its full of. It reminds me of how books made me feel when I was a kid.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's fun to finally meet famous characters like Betsy Trotwood and Mr Micawber. Put a face to the name at last.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
The only thing that has ever helped my insomnia is Dramamine, the motion sickness medicine, if you all haven't tried that.
 

luka

Well-known member
When and Where does the Battleship stock character first emerge?

'A handbag'

Big bosomed, grand, browbeating matrons/dowagers.
 

jenks

thread death
Dickens is rather lazily dismissed as sentimental - that line by Oscar Wilde about having a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell - but I just read something half way through Copperfield that I felt was very touching and rather gently carried off. I know we’re all soi-distant theorists cynical about mere story and character but I found it rather moving (obviously I’m attempting to avoid spoilers for anyone who is still reading it.)
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
i read a tale of two cities recently and enjoyed it a lot more than i thought i would. came out of it wishing i could be more like dickens. maybe not in terms of hairstyle (although rn i haven’t had a haircut since before covid so mine’s not much better). but for one, his ability to generate these lively, vivid characters that stay in your mind. the kind of characters where you don't even need for them to have a thematic or narrative reason for interacting, you can just let them bounce off each other for a while and the results are still fun to read.

it’s a quality that sort of slips through the cracks of the Good Writing checklist. it’s not the same thing as being able to write Well Developed characters at all. it's more like being able to write likable or even loveable characters--but not exactly that. but the most popular writers usually have it, while the aldous huxley types look on in frustration. “b-but where are the Ideas????”

quite frankly i’m not sure it’s a type of creativity that anyone around here specializes in. you typically need to be very viscerally in touch with human emotions, not interested in them in a weird detached or esoteric way.

it’s a subcategory of a broader distinction luka made one time. revealing the map vs. fancy. having a compelling perspective and approach vs. just making shit up, being able to pull specifics that you know people will like out of a top hat. i’ve always been envious of people who are extremely gifted at the latter.
 

luka

Well-known member
I was thinking along the same lines this morning. The characters are everything and as you say the plots are just a way to have them jostle together and interact and to allow us to observe them more closely. Shakespeare and Chaucer are two others who have populated the English imaginary in a similar way. Peopled the wilderness.
 
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