IdleRich

IdleRich
When and Where does the Battleship stock character first emerge?

'A handbag'

Big bosomed, grand, browbeating matrons/dowagers.
Good question... the above is WIlde obviously but I'm sure long before that.
I think of Mrs Malaprop in the Rivals being of that kind although it wasn't her most notable characteristic. Moliere? I dunno. For some reason I'm thinking plays not novels here.
 

luka

Well-known member
There are certainly battleships in Dickens who predate Lady Bracknall. I need to know the entire literary history of the battleship. all celebrated and lesser known examples of the type.
 

luka

Well-known member
Uriah Heep is like a proto-Gollum. Inspired by disgust at self abasing, secretly and slyly avaricious members of the lower orders. Writhing, undulating, scuttling, ingratiating, devious creatures. Unnaturally pale with long, thin, obscene fingers.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Listen to him talk

"It's like the blowing of old breezes of the ringing of old bellses to hear you say Uriah."
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Mum used to have a picture of him on the living room wall when we were kids. He wasn't her idol or anything, she had a whole series of sketches of Dickens characters. Wonder where they are now, haven't thought about those for years.
 

luka

Well-known member
there's always at least one rocky patch you hit when reading a very long book. enthusiasm flags a bit. maybe you don't look at it for a few days. you've made good, earnest headway walking with a cheerful, willing spirit but there's still so many miles of road ahead. i'm 400 pages into David Copperfield and there's another 476 pages to go.
 

jenks

thread death
I get that - I had a similar bump but you just need to ride it out as those great characters are just bound to return. I’m nearly 500 pages in.
 

luka

Well-known member
youre reading it too? i think im over my bump. got back into it this morning after having a few (hungover) days off
 

luka

Well-known member
i can't remember if I mentioned this before but the way Charles the first stands in for the mystery trauma in Mr Dick's life made me think of Freud so I looked up David Copperfield & Freud and it turns out it was his favourite novel. There's another bit later on where Copperfield's landlady advises him to play skittles which leads to him visiting Tommy Traddles due to the word association.
 

luka

Well-known member
"He was lying, with his head and shoulders out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude, half-resting on the box which had caused him so much pain and trouble. I had learned, that, when he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past reassuring himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the bedside, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. Time and the world were slipping from beneath him, but the box was there"
 

luka

Well-known member
A lot of Barkiss has gone into the Beckett character whose name I've forgotten. In a room which is the world, with a stick to reach for his few possessions.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's one of the things which makes reading Dickens so fascinating. Everyone who ever wrote a book afterwards has read him so his influence is everywhere. He's central to the literature in the way Shakespeare is.
 
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