The Artful Dickens
The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist
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- 10,99 €
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'This is a marvellous, endlessly illuminating book ... It doesn't go on the shelf alongside other critics; it goes on the shelf alongside Dickens' Howard Jacobson
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Discover the tricks of a literary master in this essential guide to the fictional world of Charles Dickens.
From Pickwick to Scrooge, Copperfield to Twist, how did Dickens find the perfect names for his characters?
What was Dickens's favourite way of killing his characters?
When is a Dickens character most likely to see a ghost?
Why is Dickens's trickery only fully realised when his novels are read aloud?
In thirteen entertaining and wonderfully insightful essays, John Mullan explores the literary machinations of Dickens's eccentric genius, from his delight in clichés to his rendering of smells and his outrageous use of coincidences. A treat for all lovers of Dickens, this essential companion puts his audacity, originality and brilliance on full display.
'Brilliantly sharp ... Mullan makes us see that Charles Dickens was one of the most artful, which is to say skilled, writers the world has ever seen' Mail on Sunday
'Put it on your Christmas list and spend the post-goose collapse reading the good bits aloud' Laura Freeman
'Even if you know a lot about Dickens you will find revelations in this book, and if you know nothing about him it will be the perfect appetiser' The Times, The best paperbacks of 2021
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mullan (What Matters in Jane Austen?) deconstructs Charles Dickens in this incisive essay collection. Astute observations abound in 13 pieces that attempt to "do justice to Dickens's inventiveness, ingenuity, and experimentalism. The essay "Fantasising" examines the number of times "as if" appears as an idiomatic tic that "unlocks the novelist's fantastic vision of the sheer strangeness of reality." "Smelling" describes the grim "whiff" of London sewage and horse dung in Dickens's work, as well as the odors of his characters. "Changing Tenses" provides a chance to "share the sharpness of childhood memory," while "Naming" proves that Dickens's characters got their names from lists of advisers to the royal family. "Speaking" digs into Dickens's use of dialogue, and "Breaking the Rules" shows that the novelist's use of repetition was the "simplest and the best of his tricks." Mullan convincingly suggests that writers including Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and Muriel Sparks draw from the best of Dickens's techniques—in fact, he writes, Dickens anticipated the "narrative experiments" of modern novelists. This superlative, fresh collection will please stalwart fans and bring new readers to the Dickens canon.
