I was cleaning the kitchen and listening to Little Dorrit when this popped up. I stopped immediately to listen to you Tristan and thoroughly enjoyed this presentation. I have forwarded it to a son, and friend who just yesterday was talking with me about needing to reread Dickens. Your summary is so beautiful!
Your tribute to Charles Dickens is masterful. Every word and image is perfection. Thank you for this very satisfying way to enjoy my Saturday morning!! You are delightful company.❤❤❤
Wow, thank you! That's so lovely for you to share that. I hope that you students don't mind my ramblings! You have my deepest respect for being a teacher. A very noble profession. 😀❤️
It seems weird to me that people would criticize Dickens for being sentimental. Meanwhile, literary fiction today seems to be a competition on who can write the saddest, most depressing picture of life one can dream up.
Superb! Thank you 🙏🏻 for your expert presentation and deep insight into Dickens - I will be drawing on your perspective the next time I read/listen/watch Dickens.
Tristan I smiled all the way through this because your joy shone through. I've enjoyed reading Dickens for many years, but I learned some new insights from you today. Thank you.
Thank you So much for this video! I love Charles Dickens. I focused on Victorian Literature when studying for my Masters Degree. He is so iconic. You should read The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist by John Mullan! He is such a good scholar on Dickens :)
Dickens was awake to social injustice nearly two centuries ago. It's sad that we are still arguing over these issues in the 21st century. In some respects we've learned nothing from him and his writing.
Thank you for honouring Dickens who is, as you effectively demonstrate, much more than a writer; he is a hero, and advocate for the poor, the little and the children. He makes them beautiful and worthy of love. Your ending words and images are powerful, as Dickens deserve. My favorite of all your videos. Thank you.
I started reading Pickwick Papers and immediately started ordering all his writing. It is my quest to read everything he wrote in order of publication. I don't know if I'll be able to do that exactly, but I will try. I love him.
Thank you Mr. Tristan. That was beautiful. I love Dickens, but after hearing you speak of him with such awe, I want more of Dickens, and will read him mouth agape. Love the beard. ❤❤❤❤❤
I hate it when Dickens is accused of sentimentality. Like you point out in your video, it comes as a response to hardship and brutality and in my opinion is very appropriate. I was Just reading the first chapter of Little Dorrit which depicts the harsh reality of a prisoners life, when your video appeared. Great video. Thank you.
Outstanding explanation and an in depth explanation of why stories, particularly Dickens’ stories, were and are so valuable, even today. Well done Tristan!!!
This could not have come at a better time ! I purchased a beautiful edition of Great Expectations yesterday and I’m looking forward to getting to know it ❤
Thank you Tristan for such an excellent video on Charles Dickens. I must begin my rereading of his books with a new eye for understanding. Blessings to you.
My favorite Dickens is Great Expectations, though I prefer the original ending before Dickens was convinced to change it (unfortunately most publications print the changed ending). I think Great Expectations is also a great place to start if one has never read Dickens. It's relatively short for a Dickens novel, but it's also a great story. Finally, forgetting the religious nature of the website, there's a great guide to Great Expectations written by the literary scholar Leland Ryken on The Gospel Coalition website titled "Christian Guides to the Classics: Great Expectations".
@@ТатьянаГубина-и1и Two Endings One of the most curious aspects of Great Expectations is the existence of alternative endings, whose relative merits and implications have been passionately debated by critics, ever since the unused ending was published as a footnote in Forster’s 1870 biography of Dickens. (The most detailed study of the case is ‘Putting an End to Great Expectations’, an essay by Edgar Rosenberg, published in the Norton Critical Edition.) Many writers have revised or tweaked details of the text after publication - notably Henry James - but it’s hard to think of another major novel in English which presents this delicate problem. Dickens sent the last chapters of Great Expectations to the printer in the middle of June 1861. To relax after his efforts, he then went to stay with his wealthy aristocratic friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a hugely popular crime and historical novelist (no longer read today) whom he greatly admired and respected. Dickens decided - we don’t know precisely why - to show his host the last chapters of Great Expectations in proof. What Bulwer-Lytton read in the final paragraphs was this: Pip hears that the oafish Bentley Drummle has died and Estella has quietly remarried a country doctor. One day, two years after his return from the east, I was in England again - in London, and walking along Piccadilly with little Pip - when a servant came running after me to ask would I step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. It was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough on one another. “I am greatly changed, I know, but I thought you would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!” (She supposed the child, I think, to be my child.) I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be. Bulwer-Lytton advised Dickens against this downbeat ending - again, on what precise grounds we do not know for certain. ‘Bulwer was so very anxious that I should alter the end… and stated his reasons so well, that I have resumed the wheel, and taken another turn at it. Upon the whole I think it is for the better’ was his explanation for the change in a letter to Wilkie Collins, and one can only assume that Bulwer-Lytton had told Dickens, in the manner of a Hollywood producer, that the public would crave a more positive outcome to the novel. The substitution, almost always selected in modern editions, has Pip and the widowed Estella meeting in the grounds of Satis House. “I little thought”, said Estella, ‘that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.” “Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.” “But you said to me, “ returned Estella, very earnestly. “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now - now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.” We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the benChapter “And will continue friends apart, ” said Estella. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. Just to complicate the matter, the final line also exists in two other versions. ‘I saw no shadow of another parting from her’ has been the standard reading in editions since 1862, presumably authorised by Dickens, but the first editions read ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her’, while the manuscript reads ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her, but one.’ The Piccadilly ending has an exquisitely understated and offhand melancholy to it, matched to the tough message that life does not neatly deliver one’s dreams of perfect happiness - all Great Expectations are doomed, even when, like Pip, you have learnt lessons the hard way. Dickens knew this first-hand: in 1855, when his marriage was collapsing, he had been overwhelmed with excitement on receiving out of the blue a letter from Maria Beadnell, the great passion of his youth, whom he had not seen for over twenty years. Their subsequent reunion was a disillusioning disappointment, inasmuch as Maria proved to be a plump and garrulous married matron devoid of her former allure. Estella was Pip’s dream as Maria was Dickens’ - a dream from which he had to wake. The Satis House ending has usually been thought to imply that Pip and Estella walk off into the sunset together. But there is considerable and, I think, deliberate ambiguity to that last line. Although they leave holding hands, Estella has just stated that she wishes to remain alone (“and will continue friends apart”), while a couple of pages previously Pip has told Biddy that he intends to remain a bachelor. Of course, they may be protesting too much, as people do, and in truth mean the opposite. But the joining of hands could be amicable rather than romantic, and what Pip perhaps means in the final line is that their parting in the ruins of the past had been final, because any bitterness or misunderstanding had been emotionally resolved and they did not need to meet again - both can now go onwards into their own separate lives. Had Dickens wanted Pip and Estella to live together happily ever after, he could easily have done what he does at the ends of David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and Bleak House and told us as much. The second ending shows Dickens trying to have it both ways. He didn’t want to betray Pip and Estella with the merry sound of wedding bells followed by the patter of tiny feet which Bulwer-Lytton probably advised, but entertainer that he was, always with one eye on the market, he must also have realised that his sentimental readership wouldn’t have felt satisfied by the bittersweet inconsequentiality of the meeting in Piccadilly. The first edition’s awkwardly phrased ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her’ does indeed imply marriage, and the manuscript’s ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her, but one’ is even more emphatic, implying their union unto death. Yet Dickens scratched both of those versions out, and his last thought was to authorise something which allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusion. That said, I still feel the Piccadilly ending is truer to the book’s underlying mood (as does Edgar Rosenberg in the Norton Critical Edition essay). For those who demur, the case for the Satis House ending is forcefully made by Q D Leavis in Dickens the Novelist. exec.typepad.com/greatexpectations/the-two-endings.html
@@pattube Thank you very much for your kind explanation! Yes, the Piccadilly ending maybe truer to life, but I like the Satis House one better: it gives the reader some hope. Otherwise the novel would have been ABSOLUTELY gloomy!
I am old and read Dickens decades ago having little to no information about him except his name. Still, I loved the books. I wonder if you have read George Reynolds and his "Mysteries of London". He was inspired by Eugène Sue's "Les mystères de Paris". Sue is one of my favorite writers. Both Sue and Reynolds were the best selling writers of their time in their respective countries.
Thank you for a very especial video. About my most favourite writer. I like your videos very much. And your English is so well spoken, I understand every word. I am from Perú.
I think the matter of the intent of the author is important as you point out. The sentimental and two dimensional character criticisms are common trappings for novice writers but are of a different variety when done in service of the story as opposed to being done mistakenly.
This was one of the best videos you’ve ever presented. Charles Dickens is one of my favorite novelists. I have read many of his novels and have just finished Our Mutual Friend which I thoroughly enjoyed. I totally agree with all the ways you described how to enjoy his novels. I especially identified with the importance of thinking as a child. Forty years of teaching young students gave me an appreciation of how children think and perceive their world. Thanks for your wonderful tribute to a great novelist.😊
I think a good Dickensian novel in taking us into the streets, we are never sure whether someone is good or evil…they r somewhere in between: Abel Magwitch
Wonderful video. Puts Dickens in absolute context. I’ve recently read Dombey and Son and oh the superb example of a pantomime villain that is James Carker with his “two rows of perfect glistening teeth…it was impossible to escape observation of them, for he showed them whenever he spoke….” I’ve always found that reading Dickens aloud or even silently to yourself is a great help.
As cliché as it is, I read A Christmas Carol every year around the holiday season. I find that, even though I know the story very well at this point, the message is one that will never be irrelevant. We always need to hear it, and maybe that's why it's remained as popular and beloved as it has. You're absolutely right that Dickens saw what was wrong with the world and used the talent and skill available to him to correct it. But I just love his storytelling as well. I liken his writing to a Norman Rockwell painting- it's realistic, but it's stylised, there's character there, more than real life. It's vivid, and that makes it memorable. I will never stop loving his writing. Thank you for your perspective, I really enjoyed it.
Your videos are always excellent but this one is truly superb. I am a great lover of Dickens. In fact this month I plan to read Dombey and Son for the first time. Thanks for this informative and beautifully executed video. You're the best!😢
All of your videos are excellent, this one was absolutely outstanding! I shall read Great Expectations again with all this in mind. You have helped me so much to appreciate classic literature. ❤
As a blind American who's come across several recordings of his works via both Audible and RUclips, well done. Am considering buying a recording of Our Mutual Friend, and one of Little Dorrit in the future.
What a lovely video! I'm on a bit of a Dickens spree at the moment, and the more of his work I read, the more I love it. I've just finished 'Bleak House' and am now embarking on 'Our Mutual Friend'. His books are indeed colourful, entertaining and thought-provoking, and he is an absolute genius with language.
Thanks for this but may I ask: would it be possible for you to wear a brown roll neck jumper like the one John Cleese wears in the cheese shop sketch? Because that would go with your beard & glasses, it is autumn & you do want us to respect your intellect, don't you?
Remember reading Oliver Twist over night for a seminar when I studied literature at university (we had so much to read). I do not remember one word of it and have never read anything by him since...perhaps it is time to read something again!
What a wonderful gift you have given us! I am one of those who have struggled to find my love for Dickens' writing. I've always felt like I would love it if I could just "get it right." Now, I see that I have been approaching his books just as you said, expecting great, deep literature. As our family genealogist, I have never been one to seek a long lost claim to royalty. It is the stories of what life was like that have always drawn me in. For that reason alone, I know I will love Dickens. Thank you for helping me find my way!
I have read Great Expectations, The Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Which book would you recommend or anyone else in the comments section would recommend.
Thank you thank you thank you! A few decades ago my former father-in-law told me that Dickens was paid by the word blah blah blah. I don't know why I ever believed him! Never saw him read anything, not even a newspaper. Shows you how words can affect a young person's future. Fortunately my own father was a fan of Dickens so I have carted my copies around and thanks to you I will be reading all that I have THEN I shall head off to the library for the rest. You sir have opened my eyes to some great literature that was right under my nose.
I love this video! Thank you for the study on Dickens. I’ve only ever read A Christmas Carol, but I own others. I’ve wanted to read his works, but I’ve been intimidated. No longer. You have given me reason to believe that Dickens is my favorite author!!
For all these supposed faults they find, I'd like to challenge some of these critics to cause just one social change with nothing but a feather pen. I got a kick out of two common critiques of Barnaby Rudge. First, they scoffed at the notion that Barnaby's mental development was impacted by the terror his mother experienced while carrying him. "Old wives' tale!" We now know that generational trauma is a real phenomenon fueled by the adrenaline/cortisol cocktail that the unborn children of highly stressed mothers can onboard... it isn't nonsense at all. The other frequent criticism I've seen is of Barnaby's language patterns - "too flowery and too complex" for someone who is supposed to be addled. It's a very naive critique, that I can only think comes from never having had an actual conversation with someone with mental health problems. Dickens would have done, though. He was always out half the night, wandering the city watching, listening and interacting with people from all walks of life and all types of neighbourhoods, and his characters were drawn from these keen observations. Barnaby is as real a person as any Dickens character. I'm so grateful that I inherited my grandparents' set of Dickens when I was 12. He's been a lifelong companion.
I have read a few of Dickens's novels long ago, but just last week decided to read all of them in publication order. I just started with The Pickwick Papers and I am enjoying every bit of it. I can't wait to read them all...some again with a different mindset, and some for the first time. Fantastic video! You are the best!!!❤
I've read some good classic writers but I still find Dickens standing at the pinnacle of all the good writers. He's that good and really hard to compare with other good writers.
His portrayal of women leaves something to be desired. Women in his books are portrayed as weak and pushovers and sentimentally. Except for Betsy in David Copperfield who I absolutely love.
"A Tale of Two Cites"? 🙂 I read "Great Expectations" not long ago. He is a bit wordy at times for my taste (regardless of how he was paid), but his books are well worth reading. Keep up the great work, Tristan! Fantastic explanations.... Sadly, my inner child is long gone. LOL
Thank you for this what a masterful discussion about dickens I love dickens my favourite is tale of two cities .all his works are amazing and they are such an insight to Victorian live and times .he was also friends with wilki Collins and I love his writing as well ( they collaborate together in certain perils of certain English prisoners.) Please could you do one of these talks about wilki Collins love this type of content you do a great job thank you .
Dicken's writing was vivid. Before writing a scene, he went to the large mirror in his room and spoke the words of his planned dialogue using those character's voices. He honed it to make it sound right, and be theatrical. In his public appearances, he had a large wooden frame that he stood inside. There were lights on the frame to illuminate him. He would read out scenes, imitating the character's voices, Even women and children characters. There are newspaper reviews of his performance that say that sometimes a woman in the audience would faint during an especially dramatic scene, such as Shylock shouting words and then falling off the rope hanging down from the rooftop near the end of Oliver Twist.
I like Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Christmas Carol, but I have been struggling with a Tale of Two Cities for about a month. this must be one of those books where he was paid by the word to serialize it because it is a snoozer
@@tristanandtheclassics6538I agree with you completely, Tristan. It has such pace, there are no longeurs or the heart rending characters he described so often - like the crippled dolls' dressmaker. Of course it has heart, but real accessibity.
I read Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield and they were quite different in their goal, it seems. O wonder if he were alive today what subject matter do you think he would write?
I started a blog to write while I was reading him. It's been difficult, there are so nany characters snd threads in every page it's a struggle to figure out focus. Maybe it would be easier to read it 2 x, the first to get the arc, and second to follow a thread.
In the past people just read, absorbing the wonders, fears, disappointments, and profile of the characters of a novel. This is how great writers grew up. Now you have to learn how to read a novel _ you end up loosing your own psychological capacity to grasp the story as a whole.
I've tried and tried again, but no how-to video is going to get me past the first paragraph of any of the several books I've attempted. I just don't like to be spoken to in that tone of voice😐
I don’t normally believe in book burnings, but after trying to read Dickens’ books multiple times I’m not so sure. Kind of long and wordy, just like some videos I’ve seen. (If you know what I mean.)
I was cleaning the kitchen and listening to Little Dorrit when this popped up. I stopped immediately to listen to you Tristan and thoroughly enjoyed this presentation. I have forwarded it to a son, and friend who just yesterday was talking with me about needing to reread Dickens. Your summary is so beautiful!
Your tribute to Charles Dickens is masterful. Every word and image is perfection. Thank you for this very satisfying way to enjoy my Saturday morning!! You are delightful company.❤❤❤
I teach English in school and we always listen to your videos. Your passion is infectious. ❤
Wow, thank you! That's so lovely for you to share that. I hope that you students don't mind my ramblings! You have my deepest respect for being a teacher. A very noble profession. 😀❤️
It seems weird to me that people would criticize Dickens for being sentimental. Meanwhile, literary fiction today seems to be a competition on who can write the saddest, most depressing picture of life one can dream up.
Superb! Thank you 🙏🏻 for your expert presentation and deep insight into Dickens - I will be drawing on your perspective the next time I read/listen/watch Dickens.
Magnificent! Tristan is a RUclips Jewel! A thorough education on literature…….Very well done!
Tristan I smiled all the way through this because your joy shone through. I've enjoyed reading Dickens for many years, but I learned some new insights from you today. Thank you.
Thank you So much for this video! I love Charles Dickens. I focused on Victorian Literature when studying for my Masters Degree. He is so iconic. You should read The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist by John Mullan! He is such a good scholar on Dickens :)
Dickens was awake to social injustice nearly two centuries ago. It's sad that we are still arguing over these issues in the 21st century. In some respects we've learned nothing from him and his writing.
👏
@Liofa73 Beautiful comment, & unfortunately, so true.
I didn't know that Dickens was accused of being too sentimental. I guess I'm not clued into the literature criticism world.
Thank you for honouring Dickens who is, as you effectively demonstrate, much more than a writer; he is a hero, and advocate for the poor, the little and the children. He makes them beautiful and worthy of love. Your ending words and images are powerful, as Dickens deserve. My favorite of all your videos. Thank you.
I started reading Pickwick Papers and immediately started ordering all his writing. It is my quest to read everything he wrote in order of publication. I don't know if I'll be able to do that exactly, but I will try. I love him.
Million thanks for this video Tristan!
This is a brilliant, brilliant video.
“Please Sir I want some more”
Love from Italy
I absolutely adore Dickens and would actually say that he is one of my top ten authors of all time. Thank you for doing this video.
Thank you Mr. Tristan. That was beautiful. I love Dickens, but after hearing you speak of him with such awe, I want more of Dickens, and will read him mouth agape. Love the beard. ❤❤❤❤❤
I hate it when Dickens is accused of sentimentality. Like you point out in your video, it comes as a response to hardship and brutality and in my opinion is very appropriate. I was Just reading the first chapter of Little Dorrit which depicts the harsh reality of a prisoners life, when your video appeared. Great video. Thank you.
And it helped change society.
Absolutely!
You are amazing. Please keep going. Love from India
Outstanding explanation and an in depth explanation of why stories, particularly Dickens’ stories, were and are so valuable, even today. Well done Tristan!!!
Great Job Tristan. I love and read Dickens because he is sentimental and wordy (lol).
This could not have come at a better time ! I purchased a beautiful edition of Great Expectations yesterday and I’m looking forward to getting to know it ❤
Thank you Tristan for such an excellent video on Charles Dickens. I must begin my rereading of his books with a new eye for understanding. Blessings to you.
My favorite Dickens is Great Expectations, though I prefer the original ending before Dickens was convinced to change it (unfortunately most publications print the changed ending). I think Great Expectations is also a great place to start if one has never read Dickens. It's relatively short for a Dickens novel, but it's also a great story. Finally, forgetting the religious nature of the website, there's a great guide to Great Expectations written by the literary scholar Leland Ryken on The Gospel Coalition website titled "Christian Guides to the Classics: Great Expectations".
And what was the original ending of " Great expectations"?
@@ТатьянаГубина-и1и Two Endings
One of the most curious aspects of Great Expectations is the existence of alternative endings, whose relative merits and implications have been passionately debated by critics, ever since the unused ending was published as a footnote in Forster’s 1870 biography of Dickens. (The most detailed study of the case is ‘Putting an End to Great Expectations’, an essay by Edgar Rosenberg, published in the Norton Critical Edition.) Many writers have revised or tweaked details of the text after publication - notably Henry James - but it’s hard to think of another major novel in English which presents this delicate problem.
Dickens sent the last chapters of Great Expectations to the printer in the middle of June 1861. To relax after his efforts, he then went to stay with his wealthy aristocratic friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a hugely popular crime and historical novelist (no longer read today) whom he greatly admired and respected. Dickens decided - we don’t know precisely why - to show his host the last chapters of Great Expectations in proof.
What Bulwer-Lytton read in the final paragraphs was this: Pip hears that the oafish Bentley Drummle has died and Estella has quietly remarried a country doctor. One day, two years after his return from the east,
I was in England again - in London, and walking along Piccadilly with little Pip - when a servant came running after me to ask would I step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. It was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough on one another.
“I am greatly changed, I know, but I thought you would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!” (She supposed the child, I think, to be my child.)
I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.
Bulwer-Lytton advised Dickens against this downbeat ending - again, on what precise grounds we do not know for certain. ‘Bulwer was so very anxious that I should alter the end… and stated his reasons so well, that I have resumed the wheel, and taken another turn at it. Upon the whole I think it is for the better’ was his explanation for the change in a letter to Wilkie Collins, and one can only assume that Bulwer-Lytton had told Dickens, in the manner of a Hollywood producer, that the public would crave a more positive outcome to the novel.
The substitution, almost always selected in modern editions, has Pip and the widowed Estella meeting in the grounds of Satis House.
“I little thought”, said Estella, ‘that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”
“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.”
“But you said to me, “ returned Estella, very earnestly. “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now - now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.”
We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the benChapter
“And will continue friends apart, ” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
Just to complicate the matter, the final line also exists in two other versions. ‘I saw no shadow of another parting from her’ has been the standard reading in editions since 1862, presumably authorised by Dickens, but the first editions read ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her’, while the manuscript reads ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her, but one.’
The Piccadilly ending has an exquisitely understated and offhand melancholy to it, matched to the tough message that life does not neatly deliver one’s dreams of perfect happiness - all Great Expectations are doomed, even when, like Pip, you have learnt lessons the hard way. Dickens knew this first-hand: in 1855, when his marriage was collapsing, he had been overwhelmed with excitement on receiving out of the blue a letter from Maria Beadnell, the great passion of his youth, whom he had not seen for over twenty years. Their subsequent reunion was a disillusioning disappointment, inasmuch as Maria proved to be a plump and garrulous married matron devoid of her former allure. Estella was Pip’s dream as Maria was Dickens’ - a dream from which he had to wake.
The Satis House ending has usually been thought to imply that Pip and Estella walk off into the sunset together. But there is considerable and, I think, deliberate ambiguity to that last line. Although they leave holding hands, Estella has just stated that she wishes to remain alone (“and will continue friends apart”), while a couple of pages previously Pip has told Biddy that he intends to remain a bachelor. Of course, they may be protesting too much, as people do, and in truth mean the opposite. But the joining of hands could be amicable rather than romantic, and what Pip perhaps means in the final line is that their parting in the ruins of the past had been final, because any bitterness or misunderstanding had been emotionally resolved and they did not need to meet again - both can now go onwards into their own separate lives. Had Dickens wanted Pip and Estella to live together happily ever after, he could easily have done what he does at the ends of David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and Bleak House and told us as much.
The second ending shows Dickens trying to have it both ways. He didn’t want to betray Pip and Estella with the merry sound of wedding bells followed by the patter of tiny feet which Bulwer-Lytton probably advised, but entertainer that he was, always with one eye on the market, he must also have realised that his sentimental readership wouldn’t have felt satisfied by the bittersweet inconsequentiality of the meeting in Piccadilly. The first edition’s awkwardly phrased ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her’ does indeed imply marriage, and the manuscript’s ‘I saw the shadow of no parting from her, but one’ is even more emphatic, implying their union unto death. Yet Dickens scratched both of those versions out, and his last thought was to authorise something which allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusion.
That said, I still feel the Piccadilly ending is truer to the book’s underlying mood (as does Edgar Rosenberg in the Norton Critical Edition essay). For those who demur, the case for the Satis House ending is forcefully made by Q D Leavis in Dickens the Novelist.
exec.typepad.com/greatexpectations/the-two-endings.html
@@pattube Thank you very much for your kind explanation! Yes, the Piccadilly ending maybe truer to life, but I like the Satis House one better: it gives the reader some hope. Otherwise the novel would have been ABSOLUTELY gloomy!
I am old and read Dickens decades ago having little to no information about him except his name. Still, I loved the books.
I wonder if you have read George Reynolds and his "Mysteries of London". He was inspired by Eugène Sue's "Les mystères de Paris". Sue is one of my favorite writers. Both Sue and Reynolds were the best selling writers of their time in their respective countries.
Wonderful, thank you so much.
Thank you for a very especial video. About my most favourite writer. I like your videos very much. And your English is so well spoken, I understand every word. I am from Perú.
I think the matter of the intent of the author is important as you point out. The sentimental and two dimensional character criticisms are common trappings for novice writers but are of a different variety when done in service of the story as opposed to being done mistakenly.
This was one of the best videos you’ve ever presented. Charles Dickens is one of my favorite novelists. I have read many of his novels and have just finished Our Mutual Friend which I thoroughly enjoyed. I totally agree with all the ways you described how to enjoy his novels. I especially identified with the importance of thinking as a child. Forty years of teaching young students gave me an appreciation of how children think and perceive their world. Thanks for your wonderful tribute to a great novelist.😊
I think a good Dickensian novel in taking us into the streets, we are never sure whether someone is good or evil…they r somewhere in between: Abel Magwitch
Wonderful video. Puts Dickens in absolute context. I’ve recently read Dombey and Son and oh the superb example of a pantomime villain that is James Carker with his “two rows of perfect glistening teeth…it was impossible to escape observation of them, for he showed them whenever he spoke….” I’ve always found that reading Dickens aloud or even silently to yourself is a great help.
This is exactly what I needed! Just bought three of his books and I felt lost. Thank you!!
Also, the beard fits you incredibly well, looks fantastic 🔥
As cliché as it is, I read A Christmas Carol every year around the holiday season. I find that, even though I know the story very well at this point, the message is one that will never be irrelevant. We always need to hear it, and maybe that's why it's remained as popular and beloved as it has. You're absolutely right that Dickens saw what was wrong with the world and used the talent and skill available to him to correct it. But I just love his storytelling as well. I liken his writing to a Norman Rockwell painting- it's realistic, but it's stylised, there's character there, more than real life. It's vivid, and that makes it memorable. I will never stop loving his writing. Thank you for your perspective, I really enjoyed it.
This was beautiful! I’m dropping everything to read some dickens today
Absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much Tristan
Your videos are always excellent but this one is truly superb. I am a great lover of Dickens. In fact this month I plan to read Dombey and Son for the first time. Thanks for this informative and beautifully executed video. You're the best!😢
Tristan, I loved thee nice ending to this video. Very nicely done. I am currently 150 pages into David Copperfield.
suffice to say i recently read Bleak House thinking it would be a chore but sailed through it and was sorry to leave the world of Esther Summerson.
All of your videos are excellent, this one was absolutely outstanding! I shall read Great Expectations again with all this in mind. You have helped me so much to appreciate classic literature. ❤
As a blind American who's come across several recordings of his works via both Audible and RUclips, well done. Am considering buying a recording of Our Mutual Friend, and one of Little Dorrit in the future.
Your commentary is a real eye opener on Dickens. And your delivery kept my interest up to the very end. Thank you.
What a lovely video! I'm on a bit of a Dickens spree at the moment, and the more of his work I read, the more I love it. I've just finished 'Bleak House' and am now embarking on 'Our Mutual Friend'. His books are indeed colourful, entertaining and thought-provoking, and he is an absolute genius with language.
I just finished David Copperfield yesterday. I am interested in hearing what you have to say about Dickens.
Thanks for this but may I ask: would it be possible for you to wear a brown roll neck jumper like the one John Cleese wears in the cheese shop sketch? Because that would go with your beard & glasses, it is autumn & you do want us to respect your intellect, don't you?
John Cleese in the cheese shop sketch: ruclips.net/video/Hz1JWzyvv8A/видео.html
Thanks for this video. Loved Dickens' writing before. Love it even more now. ❤
Remember reading Oliver Twist over night for a seminar when I studied literature at university (we had so much to read). I do not remember one word of it and have never read anything by him since...perhaps it is time to read something again!
What a wonderful gift you have given us! I am one of those who have struggled to find my love for Dickens' writing. I've always felt like I would love it if I could just "get it right." Now, I see that I have been approaching his books just as you said, expecting great, deep literature. As our family genealogist, I have never been one to seek a long lost claim to royalty. It is the stories of what life was like that have always drawn me in. For that reason alone, I know I will love Dickens. Thank you for helping me find my way!
Thank you for this!!
Time to shave.
I have no inner child. This explains everything! The larger than life, 2D characters are exactly why I struggle with Dickens. Wonderful video! Thanks.
I struggle with the inner child thing, too, and also struggle with Dickens. But this video makes me want to give it another try.
I have read Great Expectations, The Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Which book would you recommend or anyone else in the comments section would recommend.
I recommend David Copperfield. I reread it very often. Also Bleak House is excellent.
🎉🎉❤❤🎉🎉
This was excellent! Thank you Tristan!
Perfect! Dickens's bizarre characters, "wordiness" and sentimentality are the best things about about his books.
Thank you thank you thank you! A few decades ago my former father-in-law told me that Dickens was paid by the word blah blah blah. I don't know why I ever believed him! Never saw him read anything, not even a newspaper. Shows you how words can affect a young person's future. Fortunately my own father was a fan of Dickens so I have carted my copies around and thanks to you I will be reading all that I have THEN I shall head off to the library for the rest. You sir have opened my eyes to some great literature that was right under my nose.
Charles Dickens has been my favorite author since I was 16 and read Great Expectations in school. I’m rereading The Old Curiosity Shop now. ❤
You have a superb way of explaining things. Your video is the highlight of my day. Thank you😊 Tristan.
Have you ever reviewed or explained any of DH Lawrence’s books?
I love this video! Thank you for the study on Dickens. I’ve only ever read A Christmas Carol, but I own others. I’ve wanted to read his works, but I’ve been intimidated. No longer. You have given me reason to believe that Dickens is my favorite author!!
For all these supposed faults they find, I'd like to challenge some of these critics to cause just one social change with nothing but a feather pen.
I got a kick out of two common critiques of Barnaby Rudge. First, they scoffed at the notion that Barnaby's mental development was impacted by the terror his mother experienced while carrying him. "Old wives' tale!" We now know that generational trauma is a real phenomenon fueled by the adrenaline/cortisol cocktail that the unborn children of highly stressed mothers can onboard... it isn't nonsense at all. The other frequent criticism I've seen is of Barnaby's language patterns - "too flowery and too complex" for someone who is supposed to be addled. It's a very naive critique, that I can only think comes from never having had an actual conversation with someone with mental health problems. Dickens would have done, though. He was always out half the night, wandering the city watching, listening and interacting with people from all walks of life and all types of neighbourhoods, and his characters were drawn from these keen observations. Barnaby is as real a person as any Dickens character. I'm so grateful that I inherited my grandparents' set of Dickens when I was 12. He's been a lifelong companion.
A simple and humble thank you for this lovely presentation on Mr. Dickens.
I have read a few of Dickens's novels long ago, but just last week decided to read all of them in publication order. I just started with The Pickwick Papers and I am enjoying every bit of it. I can't wait to read them all...some again with a different mindset, and some for the first time. Fantastic video! You are the best!!!❤
Estou preparado para ler Dickens agora sem preconceitos. Obrigado!
I've read some good classic writers but I still find Dickens standing at the pinnacle of all the good writers. He's that good and really hard to compare with other good writers.
His portrayal of women leaves something to be desired. Women in his books are portrayed as weak and pushovers and sentimentally. Except for Betsy in David Copperfield who I absolutely love.
"A Tale of Two Cites"? 🙂 I read "Great Expectations" not long ago. He is a bit wordy at times for my taste (regardless of how he was paid), but his books are well worth reading. Keep up the great work, Tristan! Fantastic explanations.... Sadly, my inner child is long gone. LOL
Thank you for this what a masterful discussion about dickens I love dickens my favourite is tale of two cities .all his works are amazing and they are such an insight to Victorian live and times .he was also friends with wilki Collins and I love his writing as well ( they collaborate together in certain perils of certain English prisoners.) Please could you do one of these talks about wilki Collins love this type of content you do a great job thank you .
Dicken's writing was vivid. Before writing a scene, he went to the large mirror in his room and spoke the words of his planned dialogue using those character's voices. He honed it to make it sound right, and be theatrical.
In his public appearances, he had a large wooden frame that he stood inside. There were lights on the frame to illuminate him. He would read out scenes, imitating the character's voices, Even women and children characters.
There are newspaper reviews of his performance that say that sometimes a woman in the audience would faint during an especially dramatic scene, such as Shylock shouting words and then falling off the rope hanging down from the rooftop near the end of Oliver Twist.
I' ve always been SO SORRY that Dickens hadn't finished "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"
I like Great Expectations, David Copperfield and Christmas Carol, but I have been struggling with a Tale of Two Cities for about a month. this must be one of those books where he was paid by the word to serialize it because it is a snoozer
Funny you should say that. I consider TOTC to be the least Dickensian of Dickens works.
LUV the illustrations! Brings Victorian London words to life! I want to frame them for decor! 🤗
@@tristanandtheclassics6538I agree with you completely, Tristan. It has such pace, there are no longeurs or the heart rending characters he described so often - like the crippled dolls' dressmaker. Of course it has heart, but real accessibity.
I read Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield and they were quite different in their goal, it seems. O wonder if he were alive today what subject matter do you think he would write?
Well done!!!!!!!! I will read Dickens next!
Thanks Tristan! ‘Nuther great video with a treasure trove of insight for us to consider. Do you happen to know who painted the picture at 5:35?
Dickens’s descriptions are brilliant! As solitary as an oyster, as dead as a door nail!
I started a blog to write while I was reading him. It's been difficult, there are so nany characters snd threads in every page it's a struggle to figure out focus. Maybe it would be easier to read it 2 x, the first to get the arc, and second to follow a thread.
In the past people just read, absorbing the wonders, fears, disappointments, and profile of the characters of a novel. This is how great writers grew up.
Now you have to learn how to read a novel _ you end up loosing your own psychological capacity to grasp the story as a whole.
I've tried and tried again, but no how-to video is going to get me past the first paragraph of any of the several books I've attempted. I just don't like to be spoken to in that tone of voice😐
I’ve just finished reading David Copperfield 🤍
I don’t normally believe in book burnings, but after trying to read Dickens’ books multiple times I’m not so sure. Kind of long and wordy, just like some videos I’ve seen. (If you know what I mean.)
...rude! To each their own, you know? If you don't like something, walk away, no need to inflame anything...