Charles Dickens
Don’t get me wrong, he wrote many books that are held up as classics, but what is so great about them? The stories seem like nothing more than highbrow soap operas for the 1800s. Please enlighten me and tell me your favourites.
I like Great Expectations, but miss Havisham is as camp as all get-out
I should note I’ve also seen most of the film adaptations and although the stories are different, there’s often a lot of sameness with the characters and the dark humour… I mean he seemed to have a formula he stuck to much like a Ryan Murphy or Aaron Spelling in modern entertainment…
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 16, 2024 8:38 PM
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He wrote characters that stick with you. So did Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and Louisa May Alcott.
Yes, they those authors all wrote soaps, basically. But well crafted soaps. Just like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 16, 2024 8:16 PM
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I’m not sure I’d call Dickens “highbrow” anything, I think a big part of the appeal is how accessible they are - it’s all “what happens next!” and with a lot of broad humour and even broader sentimentality
His novels, to me, are quintessentially Victorian - obviously in their form, but also in how they are so “about” the Victorian age and its preoccupations.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 16, 2024 8:38 PM
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