Dickens and Daughter

I had my week all planned, but my mother has been ill, and I have been with her. Thankfully, she is much better, so I’m back home, it’s catch-up time on the computer, and I’m posting a piece I was going to do on Tuesday as part of a Dickens tribute. I’m hoping to re-read his novels during the year, but thought I’d start by finding out more about him.

I have Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, but I wanted to see what people who knew him had to say, so (thanks to my Kindle and Project Gutenberg) I’ve downloaded The Life of Charles Dickens by his friend John Forster, and My Father as I Recall Him, by Mamie Dickens, his eldest daughter.

Mamie Dickens

Mamie, born in 1838, was christened Mary Hogarth Dickens in memory of her mother’s younger sister. Her book, published in 1897 (the year after her death), is very short, only six chapters long, but it offers the most delightful, and touching, glimpses of Dickens as a family man, as well as providing insights into the way he wrote. It’s very readable as Mamie seems to have inherited her father’s gift with words and makes him leap off the page.  She was obviously devoted to Dickens, and at the outset she says:

“But in what I write about my father I shall depend chiefly upon my own memory of him, for I wish no other dearer remembrance. My love for my father has never been touched or approached by any other love. I hold him in my heart of hearts as a man apart from all other men, as one apart from all other beings.”

She speaks of his ‘tender and most affectionate nature’, and remembers: “He was always glad to give us ‘treats’ as he called them, and used to conceive all manner of these ‘treats’ for us.” The biggest treat of all was Christmas, and she tells us: “In our childish days my father used to take us, every twenty-fourth day of December, to a toy shop in Holborn, where we were allowed to select our Christmas presents, and also any that we wished to give to our little companions. Although I believe we were often an hour or more in the shop before our several tastes were satisfied, he never showed the least impatience, was always interested, and as desirous as we, that we should choose exactly what we liked best.”

Mamie describes the dinners and parties held at the various homes where the family lived, the famous visitors, and the many activities organised by Dickens, who seems to have taken a leading role in everything – sporting events, theatrical performances, charades, conjuring shows. He was a charismatic figure who did everything, and did it all outstandingly well.

Charles Dickens

His writing was very much part of his home life. Whatever house they lived in, his writing room was always a special place. He liked peace and quiet when working, and preferred to be alone. He always wrote in blue ink, never in pencil; was very affected by the death of characters, especially children, and became so immersed in a story that he would actually take on the characteristics of his creations as he wrote. On one occasion, says Mamie: “... he suddenly jumped up from his chair and rushed to the mirror which hug near, and in which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote furiously for a few moments, and then went again to the mirror. The facial pantomime was resumed, and then turning toward, but evidently not seeing, me, he began talking rapidly in a low voice. Ceasing this soon, however, he returned once more to his desk....”

She gives an equally lively account of the way he practised his public readings: “...into their performance and preparation he threw the best energy of his heart and soul, practising and rehearsing at all times and places. The meadow near our home was a favourite place, and people passing though the lane, not knowing who he was or what doing, must have thought him a madman from his reciting and gesticulation.”

I have this image of him in the meadow, declaiming his work aloud, pulling faces and waving his arms around, to the consternation of passing strangers. Imagine their surprise if they had realised who he was!

Mamie makes no mention of her mother, or the split between her parents, but paints an enchanting picture of a magical childhood, packed with fun and games and laughter, emphasising her father’s love of children and animals. There’s an enchanting account of the family pets, with a description of Dickens’ sorrow when Grip, his first raven, died. Above all else, she says, he was a ‘home-man in every respect’, and she explains: “His care and thoughtfulness about home matters, nothing being deemed too small or trivial to claim his attention and consideration, were really marvellous when we remember his active, eager, restless, working brain.”

She says: “There never existed, I think, in all the world, a more thoroughly tidy or methodical creature than was my father,” and adds that his punctuality was ‘almost frightul’.

Mamie attributes Dickens’ obsessive attention to detail as sign of his love and affection for others, but personally, I’m inclined to think he was a bit of a control freak, and perhaps the happy family life Mamie remembers was as much a creation as the wonderful plots and characters Dickens brought to life in his stories, requiring constant supervision if it was to be maintained. I think stability must have been very important to him, and he wanted his own children to have the kind of life he missed out on when he was young.

The small, plain stone which marks Dickens' grave
at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

The book ends with Mamie’s account of her father’s death and funeral, which I found very moving. However, Tomalin believes Dickens was taken ill while he was with his mistress, Nelly Ternan,  and if this is true, Mamie must have made a conscious decision to perpetuate the myth of her father as a perfect family man. 


I was planning to join the Dickens Month being hosted by Amanda at http://figandthistle.blogspot.com/2012/01/charles-dickens-month-post-first.html, so I've linked in - a little late, but never mind. Take a look nd see what other people are reading.

Tigers, Dragons - and Cannibalism

 “I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.”

If that’s not a first paragraph to entice you into a novel, I don’t know what is. Jaffy Brown, narrator of Jamrach’s Menagerie, by Carol Birch,  is eight years old when the tiger escapes from a menagerie, and is rescued by owner Mr Jamrach, who employs him to work with the animals. So far, so true - Charles Jamrach was a real person, who sold exotic animals at Ratcliffe Highway, in London’s East End, and in 1857 he really did rescue a young boy who was carried off by a run-away tiger. From this starting point Birch creates an imagined life for the unnamed, unknown boy which takes him on a nightmare journey where, once again, he escapes death. But it is many years before Jaffy undergoes another kind of rebirth and finally finds peace, and a kind of absolution, as he learns to live with his past.

Others have described the book as Dickensian, largely I think because of the first section with its colourful characters and the squalid conditions they live in. Jaffy learns about life and love with fellow worker Tim and his sister Ishbel. But everything changes when the two lads, accompanied by animal expert Dan Rymer, set sail to capture a dragon for one of Jamrach’s wealthy clients.

A sketch of the Essex drawn by a survivor -
part of Jamrach's Menagerie is based on the ordeal
of the shipwrecked sailors.

The tone of the book shifts in the second section, which charts the terrible events of the voyage. They are aboard a whaler, and there is a graphic description of how whale oil is produced, but that is a sideline and what follows is even more horrific. When the creature they seek (presumably a kimodo dragon) is caught and caged, the superstitious seamen believe it has brought them back luck, and their fears are realised when the ship is sunk by a waterspout. The remaining crew drift in the Pacific for more than 60 days, plagued by illness, madness and death. To survive, they turn to cannibalism until eventually the few who are left agree to follow ‘the custom of the sea’: one must die if the others are to live. They draw lots to find killer and victim, and it falls to Jaffy to shoot Tim.

This part of the story may carry echoes of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, but the ordeal of Jaffy and his companions is based on true accounts of the events which occurred when whaling ship The Essex was sunk by a whale, a disaster which inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. It may sound as if the novel is not for the faint-hearted, but the subject matter is sensitively handled, never sensationalised, and beautifully written, always in the character of its narrator.

In the third and final section, Jaffy finds it almost impossible to face Tim’s mother and sister or to pick up the threads of his old life, so he returns to sea. But eventually he forgives himself for what happened, and finds love and happiness with Ishbel and a menagerie of birds.

Reading this through, I’ve left out so much  – the descriptions of street life in Victorian London; the camaraderie on board ship; the exotic locations; the forewarnings of disaster that could almost be missed, but build a feeling of menacing unease... Then there are the characters – not just the central figures, but a cast of traders, aging prostitutes, and mariners, all with a story of their own if there was only time to step aside from the main story.

Looking Back and Stretching Ahead

Well, Christmas is over and another year has begun, so it’s time to review the last 12 months  and make resolutions for the future. Looking back, it’s taken me a while to get the blog up and running, in a format that I’m more or less pleased with, but I’ve enjoyed reading, writing, and exploring other people’s blogs.

Worst books that I posted about were, undoubtedly,  MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death and Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden – the first was so terrible I forced myself to read the second to see if it really was that bad, and it was. They were closely followed by Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, A Confidential Report, by Iain Sinclair, which I hated, hated, hated. And The Irish RM, by Somerville and Ross, was pretty dire, as well as being one of the unfunniest ‘funny’ books I’ve ever encountered.

On the plus side I discovered the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Christopher Morley’s enchanting Parnassus on Wheels, which should be required reading for all book lovers and, surprisingly perhaps since romantic fiction is not my usual métier, Love Letters, by Katie Fforde, which was well written and was a lovely, light, frothy, feel-good novel.

I read a lot of old favourites (classics mainly) which I didn’t write about, and had enormous fun racing through six books in seven weeks when I joined CarrieK’s Ireland Reading Challenge 2011 at the point when most other people were winding up. It was so enjoyable I’ve signed up for all sorts of challenges in 2012.

Highspot of my year was an invitation to be a guest blogger at Vulpes Libris ( http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/a-bookish-family/ ). The team there produce such wonderfully readable and erudite reviews that I was really honoured to be given the chance to write about my own love of books, and touched by the amazing response from those who read it.

Now for the resolutions: 

• Take the library books back on time (or remember to renew them online). 
• Blog regularly. 
• Be organised, especially with challenges – don’t leave it until the last minute to read a hefty tome which requires much more time and thought. 
• Write reviews (or notes) at the time of reading, rather than typing up a ‘job lot’ every few weeks.  
• Stretch! I’d really like to try and read more non-English speaking authors (in translation, of course). I'm looking at modern Russian writers, Eastern Europeans, and Scandanavians, and any suggestions would be very welcome.

Finally, thank you for taking a look in The Book Trunk – and happy reading to you all.

Abandoning Baking for Books

Imagine a travelling bookshop: a horse-drawn caravan where the outer walls fold down to reveal shelves lined with books. Imagine the owner: a little man with a red beard, a bald head, and a missionary zeal to bring his own love of reading to American farmers. Now imagine a woman: a large, practical, homely woman, who wants the strange contraption and its even stranger occupant to move off her land as quickly as possible – but ends up buying the whole outfit, and  setting off on an adventure which changes her life.

Parnassus on Wheels, written by Christopher Morley in 1917, is an enchanting novel. It is warm and humorous, and a ‘must’ for anyone who loves books and reading.  Helen McGill has let life pass her by while she acts as housekeeper on the farm she shares with her brother Andrew.  He has become a celebrity author, but ignores the farm and his sister in favour of jaunts to seek material for his writing, so she is less than pleased when bookseller Roger Mifflin, who wants to retire to Brooklyn and write his own book, offers to sell his business to Andrew. Instead, she buys the van and its contents herself, leaving a note for her brother which predates Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine by some 70 years, and is every bit as memorable:

“Dear Andrew, Don’t be thinking I’m crazy. I’ve gone off for an adventure. It just came over me that you’d had all the adventures while I’ve been at home baking bread. Mrs McNally will look after your meal and one of her girls can come over and do the housework. So don’t worry. I’m going off for a little while – a month, maybe – to see some of this happiness and hayseed of yours. It’s what the magazines call the revolt of womanhood. Warm underwear in the cedar chest in the spare room when you need it. With love, Helen.”

Mr Mifflin, known as the Professor, agrees to stay on for a bit to show her the ropes, and together they eventually manage to outwit Andrew, who is determined to force his sister to return home. The book is very short, but packs plenty in: tramps steal the van, along with Bock the dog and Peg the horse (real names Boccaccio and Pegasus); Mr Mifflin is jailed, and Helen is ejected from a hotel. All ends happily however, and Helen finds love and a purpose in life.

The van (the Parnassus of the title) is as delightful as the yellow caravan acquired by Toad in Wind in the Willows, or the more ramshackle affair which features in Ann Scott-Moncreiff’s Auntie Robbo, and the poem painted in red letters on the pale blue bodywork is irresistible:

“Worthy friends, my wain doth hold

Many a book, both new and old;

Books, the truest friend of man,

Fill this rolling caravan.

Books to satisfy all uses,

Golden lyrics of the Muses,

Books on cookery and farming,

Novels passionate and charming,

Every kind for every need

So that he who buys may read.

What libraries can surpass us?

Mifflin’s Travelling Parnassus”

Inside, it has been ‘fixed up...  mighty comfortably’ with a neat little row of pots and dishes above the stove, a chest of drawers, a bed, a small table, a wicker chair, plenty storage space, and a pot geranium. But it’s the books which take centre stage in the novel. For example, Mr Mifflin tells Helen:

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night – there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.” And later he insists: “No creature on earth has a right to think himself a human being, if he doesn’t know at least one good book.”

As far as I’m concerned, this really is one good book, and I’m grateful to Lyn at http://preferreading.blogspot.com/ for bringing it to my attention.  I’d never heard of the author before, but she included it in her Top Ten Books 2011- Fiction and, since I had a Kindle for Christmas, I downloaded a copy from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5311, along with a follow-up, The Haunted Bookshop, and The Friendly Road New Adventures in Contentment by David Grayson, which provided inspiration for Morley.

PS: There is another lovely review of this book at http://leavesandpages.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/review-parnassus-on-wheels-by-christopher-morley/

A Disappointing Read

The Rose of Sebastopol is one of those novels where the idea of the book sounds far more interesting than the book itself turns out to be. Author Katharine McMahon’s notes and website, which describe her inspiration and research, were fascinating – and far more enjoyable than the novel, which failed to live up to my expectations.

Set in the time of the Crimean War, it tells the story of Mariella Lingwood who leads a sheltered, comfortable, conventional life in her luxurious, middle class home, and spends her time doing needlework for her mother’s good works – the latest of which is a charitable venture to provide a home for needy, retired governesses. She is engaged to her cousin Henry, a rising young surgeon who lived with the family for a time following the death of his mother, but life becomes more complicated with the appearance of Mariella’s childhood friend, beautiful, high spirited, independent Rosa (another cousin).  Henry and Rosa both head for the Crimea to care for wounded soldiers, while Mariella stays at home and keeps a war scrapbook.

But her neat ordered life is turned upside down when Henry is sent to Italy to recover from ‘fever,’ and what appears to be a mental breakdown. Mariella sets off to nurse him back to health, but is shocked when her delirious fiancé thinks she is Rosa, with whom he has become obsessed. Later he begs her to find Rosa, who has disappeared. At this point I rather hoped Mariella would push him off his sick bed and kick him where it hurts. But no, after a little persuasion from her maid Nora (who previously served Rosa’s family), she does as he asks and sets off for the war-torn Crimea, accompanied by Nora.

I failed to warm to Mariella, but she is not nearly as wimpish as she appears at the outset, for she copes admirably with the vicissitudes of the journey, and with the hardships and dangers of life on the battlefield. Not only does she prove to be a capable and competent assistant in a hospital, but she also puts her expertise as a needlewoman to good use by washing and repairing soldiers’ uniforms, and even finds a love interest along the way.

I did wonder whether it was possible for a couple of women to turn up in the middle of the war and wander around the area as Mariella and Nora do, and I was curious about the presence of officers’ wives, and the social events that take place, like teas and riding. Somehow it all seemed very unlikely, but when I carried out my own research I found that was exactly what happened.  Indeed, the reality sounds even more far-fetched, and one military wife (Mrs Henry Duberley) kept a journal of the ‘Russian War’ in which she describes attending horse races, theatrical performances, musical events – and even trips to the front to watch the fighting!

In the same way, McMahon’s descriptions of conditions in the camps and hospitals, the dreadful injuries and widespread sickness (cholera was rife), are horrific but appear to fall well short of contemporary reports.  The novel raises questions about the right to fight, and touches on other topical issues, like paedophilia, sexual identity, medical advances, and women’s pace in society.

The Rose of Sebastopol sounded so interesting that I really wanted to like it, and was disappointed that I didn’t. The characters remained flat, the novel never really came to life, and I was irritated by the way the narrative jumped around in time and place in a way which didn’t always add to the story.