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Survival Books

Apr29

I just read two books, one old and one new, about a group of survivors trying to create a new life and society after a nuclear holocaust. The old book, new to me, was Alas Babylon by Pat Frank, published originally in 1959. In his foreward, Frank says that he wrote the book to answer a friend’s question: “What do you think would happen if the Russkies hit us when we weren’t looking–you know, like Pearl Harbor?”

I can see that this book, with its doomsday scenarios and talk of survival of the fittest, was and still is a sobering read. It must have scared some people silly when they read it back in the late 50’s/early 60’s at the beginning of the Nuclear Age. Now we’ve gotten used to the idea that a nuclear Armageddon is possible, but most of us still don’t believe it will ever happen. After all, it’s been fiftyplus years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we’re all still here —no nuclear war yet. Still, I guess I tend to think that Alas Babylon is optimistic since it tells the story of a small group of survivors in Central Florida after a massive nuclear strike by the Russians destroys most of the large to medium-sized cities in the United States, including Tampa, Miami, Tallahassee, and Orlando. I doubt very many, if any, people would survive such a strike.

The new book, published in 2008, is The Compound by S.A. Bodeen. In this story, survival takes place at the family level inside a nuclear fall-out shelter, built by the eccentric millionaire Rex Yanakakis to ensure the safety of his family in the event of a nuclear attack. The narrator, Eli, is one of Yanakakis’s twin sons, and as he tells about the six years the family has already spent inside The Compound, the reader can feel the claustrophobic price of the family’s survival.

Both books show the psychological as well as the physical necessities that make it possible to live in a world in which the old has passed away, and all things have become, not so much new, as completely foreign and reduced to the essentials. In both books the laws and social customs that make civilization possible have come into question or been completely destroyed, almost overnight, and the survivors must decide what they are willing to do in order to continue to survive.

As I read these two books, I tried to think of other books about survival when society as we know it has either broken down or been left behind.

Many children’s and young adult books are about survival when a character or group of characters have been stranded away from society, law, and modern technology. Maybe it all started with Peter Pan’s “lost boys” or even with Robinson Crusoe and went downhill from there. Usually, one or two people cut off from the world manage to survive rather well, although not without some harrowing escapes and near misses, but a group of losties tend to discover original sin and groupthink turns to anarchy and survival of the fittest.

Solo (or almost solo) survival:
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell.
Walkabout by James Vance Marshall.
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
Julie of the Wolves by Jean George.
My SIde of the Mountain by Jean George. Semicolon review here.
The Cay by Theodore Taylor

Group survival:
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Children of Men by P.D. James. Semicolon review here.
Hill’s End by Ivan Southall.
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Read it last month; review coming soon.
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
The Compound by S.A. Bodeen.
The Rule of Claw by John Brindley. I just read a review copy of this relatively new YA title, and I’ll be reviewing it soon. It’s a cautionary tale of evolution on steroids.

True Survival:
Alive by Piers Paul Read.
Adrift: Seventy-SIx Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan.
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong.
Into Thin Air by John Krakauer.
Dove by Robin L. Graham.

Nuclear holocaust survival:
On the Beach by Nevill Shute. Semicolon review here.
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank.
Z Is for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien.
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. Semicolon review here.
The Road by Carmac McCarthy.
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.
Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham.

Any additions to the list? As I think about it, I’m coming up with more and more books that could conceivably be classed as “survival stories”. Perhaps it’s an irresistible plot: put your protagonist in a really hard situation and see what he does to get out. What’s harder than a fight for survival? It makes for riveting fiction.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Apr28

TSNOTD is a comedy in contrast to the tragedy of Doomsday Book by the same author, which I wrote about last week. It’s a delightful romp in which the fate of the universe may or may not be at stake. However, the course of history and the universe is “self-correcting,” shades of LOST, so the universe is never really in danger of imploding or careening off-track. Probably.

In the meantime, we, the readers, get to travel around in time, mostly to late Victorian England and enjoy literary references to and actual meetings with notables such as Lewis Carroll, Jerome K. Jerome, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Charles Darwin, Trollope, Dickens, Wodehouse, and who-knows-who-else that I’ve forgotten or missed. This time travel comedy of errors is even better than Doomsday Book, mostly because I needed to smile and even laugh as I hope in the Lord (not the self-correcting properties of the universe) despite the seemingly insane and destructive recent antics of certain government officials and business tycoons and Hollywood exhibitionists.

“God is in the details,” as Lady Schrapnell would say. Or to put it in Professor Peddick’s words: “Rarum facit misturam cum sapiente forma.” (Wisdom and beauty form a very rare combination.)

Very highly recommended and my favorite of the three Connie WIllis books I’ve read so far.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Apr23

I have a new author to add to my list of favorites: Connie Willis. And I’m delighted because she’s written and published lots of books, and I’m planning to read all of them (except for the short story collections; I don’t like short stories.) I’ve already read three of her books, and although each of them was very different from the other two, I loved them all.

First I read Doomsday Book. It’s historical fiction and science fiction at the same and entertaining for fans of either or both genres. This book would make a wonderful movie; however Hollywood wouldn’t be able to resist tweaking it to add a bit of romance to a central relationship in the book that is a professor/student, father/daughter relationship and works quite well that way. So no movie. Even though a movie could be a great thing.

Kivrin, a history student at Oxford in 2048, travels through “the net” back in time to the fourteenth century. In the meantime, a virulent influenza virus puts Oxford and its environs under quarantine, and Badre, the tech who set up the program to send Kivrin back in time, is too ill to tell anyone exactly what’s gone wrong with the plan to send Kivrin back to medieval England and retrieve her in two weeks. But something has gone horribly wrong, and Kivrin’s professor, Dr. Dunworthy, is the only one who’s trying to get her back. The others involved in the study are either too sick or too busy trying to deal with the epidemic to help Dunworthy. Kivrin is stranded in an English village in the early 1300’s, and all of her vaccinations and preparations won’t keep her from experiencing the most harrowing and nightmarish time of her young life.

I would assign this book to a class studying the Middle Ages in a heartbeat. However, it’s long, maybe too long for a class assignment. I do think they’d get more information on medieval life and remember more of it by reading this book than by studying a history text. In fact, Doomsday Book made me want to do some research on certain aspects of medieval life. It’s not an exciting adventure novel, and as I said the romance quotient wouldn’t meet Hollywood standards. However, if you love history and good characterization, give it a try.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by the same author uses the same plot device of “the net” to enable the author to tell a much different, more comedic, time-traveling tale. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Suffice it to say I liked it even better than I did Doomsday Book.

Tender Grace by Jackina Stark

Apr22

Audrey Eaton is stuck. She’s quit reading, quit listening to music, lost interest in almost everything that once brought her joy. It’s been a year and three months since her husband, Tom, died peacefully in his recliner at the age of 58. Audrey can’t find a way to get over his death or a reason to resume living.

Tender Grace is Christian fiction. Unbelievers will find it unbelievably “religious,” not preachy or offensive or even poorly written, but bathed in Christianity and Biblical thought and prayer and possibly annoying. I, on the other hand enjoyed the book, maybe because the death of a loved one (not my husband, thank the Lord) has recently been a part of my own journey. And although I’ve not been stuck in grief and joylessness, I can identify with Audrey in some ways. I can imagine how difficult it would be if I did lose Engineer Husband and how without losing my faith, I might very well still be tempted to or led into acedia and depression.

As the book proceeds, Audrey Eaton goes on a journey, both metaphorical and actual. She summons up the courage and determination to take a road trip, and as she travels, she finds the grace of God in unexpected places and unusual ways.

Again, I think Christians, especially those dealing with grief and loss, will find this book to be encouraging and real at the same time. Others enter at your own risk. I do find it odd, and at the same time serendipitous, that the last two books I’ve read have both been about death and about what may or may not come after death, both for the deceased and for the survivors. I didn’t choose these books because I knew what they were about. Tender Grace was a review copy that someone at Bethany House very kindly shared with me. The other death book, Passage by Connie WIllis, I read because I’ve become a fan of Ms. WIllis’s writing. However, I had no idea what the book was about until I actually started reading. More about Ms. Willis and my delight in discovering her books tomorrow.

One could almost believe that there was some sort of plan to the universe . . . or something.

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

Apr20

“For Lillian’s mother, every part of a book was magic, but what she delighted in most were the words themselves. Lillian’s mother collected exquisite phrases and complicated rhythms, descriptions that undulated across a page like cake batter pouring into a pan, read aloud to put the words into the air, where she could hear as well as see them.”
~from chapter 1 of The School of Essential Ingredients

Lillian, in reaction to her mother’s pet obsession, develops an aversion to books, even cookbooks, but she loves to cook. She reaches out to her avoidant mother, and later to others, through cooking for them. Lillian owns a restaurant where she creates a community and gives herself to people through the food she cooks for them.

Once a month on Monday evenings, the restaurant is closed to customers and open only for Lillian’s cooking class. The School of Essential Ingredients weaves together the stories of a particular set of students in the cooking class, the aromas and tastes of the foods they cook, and the developing relationships of the characters and ingredients in the book.

An extended exercise in using food and cooking as a metaphor and catalyst for life, The School is a beautifully written book. It reminds me of Alexander McCall Smith with his vignette snapshots of people and situations, with less emphasis on plot and more on language and description. It also reminds me of a couple of movies, Mostly Martha and Babette’s Feast in which food and feasting are a gift and a sacrament communicating love and grace. (Oddly enogh, both of those movies are European, non-English films. Are there any English language movies that celebrate in gift of food particularly?)

I enjoyed The School of Essential Ingredients so much that I sent my copy, purchased serendipitously at Half-Price Books, to Eldest Daughter in Tennessee. I’m hoping that she will enjoy it, too, since she’s a lover of good food and cooking and of sharing her gift of cooking with others.

Sir Thomas Becket: A Book and a Movie

Apr14

“Thomas Becket (1118 – 29 December 1170) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to his death. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He engaged in conflict with Henry II of England over the rights and privileges of the Church and was assassinated by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral.” ~Wikipedia

Book: Time and Chance by Sharon Kay Penman.
Movie: Becket, starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.


Reading the book and watching the movie made me want to re-read T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral, but I haven’t gotten around to doing so.

In the movie Richard Burton’s Becket plays the hero to Peter O’Toole’s rather weak and whiny Henry II. Becket is the wiser, more compassionate, morally conflicted, but eventually winning through his weaknesses into sainthood.

In Penman’s book, Becket is more sanctimonious and unpredictable, nearly fanatical; Penman, through one of her characters, calls Becket a “chameleon” who takes on the coloring of his surroundings. Becket is not a hero in Time and Chance, but rather a man made nearly mad by power and responsibility.

I rather think that neither playwright Jean Anouilh, who wrote the play that was the source for the movie’s screenplay, nor Sharon Kay Penman, who based her portrayal on historical incidents of Becket’s inconsistencies and seeming contradictions, got Becket quite right. Anouilh makes hm out to be modern existential hero. Says Becket in the movie: “Honor is a private matter within; it’s an idea and every man has his own version of it.”

Penman makes him into a power-hungry religious fanatic who drives the worldly and pragmatic Henry near the brink of insanity. Penman’s Becket is practically suicidal, knowing that his words and actions will bring the wrath of the king to bear upon him and perhaps get him killed. But this Becket is more interested in besting Henry in their petty feud than in the health of the Church or even his own health and long life.

I prefer to think that Becket was converted at some point from worldliness and politics to the love of Christ and His Church. Maybe he just did what he thought was right and suffered the consequences.

I’d like to read Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, which according to Wikipedia again ends with Becket’s death at the hands of Henry’s henchmen. I’ve heard good things about the 900 page tome, but it’s 900 pages and an Oprah pick. I’ll probably try it anyway. The Penman book is long, too, but worth it.

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

Apr13

I’ve never read a Regency romance novel before, but I did indulge in an orgy of Harlequins and Barbara Cartlands once when trapped in a country house for a week with no other reading material available. I must say that Ms. Heyer’s version of the romance novel is without doubt a cut above Cartlands and Harlequins even though Heyer used much the same formula here: tall, dark, and mysterious meets independent, spunky, and beautiful. The two spar and eventually fall into one another’s arms in passionate embrace. The language, the setting, and the characterization distinguish Heyer’s romance novel from others of the genre. Here’s an example of the Austen-esque nature of the book’s characters:

“She thought it would perhaps be as well if she didn’t discuss his character with her sister-in-law, for she had made the disconcerting discovery that however much she herself criticized his faults, an almost overmastering impulse to defend them arose in her whenever anyone else did so.”

And another:

“He was ruthlessly blunt, too often brusque to the point of incivility, paid her no extravagant compliments, and showed no disposition to go out of his way to please her. A very odd courtship–if courtship it was–and why he should have seriously disturbed her tranquility, which, since she was too honest to deceive herself, she owned that he had done, was a problem to which she could discover no answer.”

Lady of Quality is a book all about “the bubble reputation” and how easily it can be burst. And it’s about the attractiveness of a man who’s “rag-mannered”. The Mr. Darcys and the WIlloughbys of the world are somewhat fascinating, especially if they’re rich and intelligent and self-assured. Why are “good girls” attracted to “bad boys”? Why are the perfect gentlemen sometimes rather boring? Why do we sometimes enjoy playing with fire?

“The only fit place for any female crazy enough to consider becoming his wife for as much as a second was Bedlam.”

Nevertheless, you know how it ends, and as a reader I was somewhat captivated despite my better judgement. I may even find myself in the mood again someday.

Oh, by the way, one of the more intriguing aspects of the book was all the Regency slang I picked up.

Several words were used to describe a talkative person or a gossip: prattle-bag, forty-jawed, gabble-grinder, rattle, regular jaw-me-dead, gabster.

Someone who was depressed was blue-deviled or downpin. If a female indulged in silly crying she was a watering pot or a wet goose. If she were ill, she might be out of curl or in queer stirrups. If she was in bad skin or cantankersome, she was feeling grouchy. But if she was feeling fine and dandy, she was in plump currant.

To cut line was to shut up; to bullock was to bully. To rake down or set down was to put someone in their place with some well chosen words. If you were moped, you were bored, but if you were milky, you were wimpy. A man who was foxed or bosky was drunk. Incognitas were paramours or mistresses. A here-and thereian who was racketting about was a man about town who spent his time in somewhat disreputable pursuits.

A hubble-bubble female was silly, and a shuttlehead was an idiot. I deduced all of these definitions from the context, so I may be a shuttlehead myself. However, I never did figure out the meanings of the following slang terms from the book: muftiness, ames-ace, on the jaunter, fustian, and mawkish. If you know what any of those words meant in Regency England (early 1800’s), please do tell. But don’t attempt a hum (lie), or else you’ll be in the suds (in trouble).

I wonder what it would take to bring one or two of those words or phrases back into vogue?

P.S. Ah, thanks to Deb who left a link in the comments, here’s a webpage of Heyer slang terms with translations to modern English.

The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle

Feb24

The Love Letters may be my favorite of Ms. L’Engle’s books. I just re-read it for my Semicolon Book Club, and it did not disappoint. I did notice a few new things this time. (I hadn’t read the book in several years.)

The story takes place in two time periods: a 1960’s present and 17th century Portugal. In the present, Charlotte is in Portugal on an unannounced visit to her mother-in-law, the great cellist, Violet Napier. Charlotte has run away from New York and from her marriage to Patrick, Violet’s son, for reasons that are not clear in the beginning of the novel but that unfold as Charlotte comes to identify with Mariana Alcoforado, a Portuguese nun (b.1640, d.1743) who is the purported author of a book called Letters of a Portuguese Nun.

I realized that in the book, in Charlotte’s story at least, not much happens. The story is mostly about Charlotte’s internal struggles as she comes to terms with the death of her marriage. Mariana’s story has more of a plot, but part of the interest of the novel is in finding out what happened to Mariana. So stop here if you want no spoilers.

The Love Letters is a book about vows and about keeping vows, and about that all-consuming philosophical question of the sixties that has continued to preoccupy people into the twenty-first century: “You think, then, that values change? That there are no absolutes?” And if there are moral absolutes, how do we as imperfect people relate to those laws of conduct and morality?

I think in some ways The Love Letters gives an inadequate answer to those very important questions. Both Charlotte and Mariana come to the somewhat reluctant conclusion that their marriage vows are irrevocable and inextricably bound to their personhood. However, Charlotte’s story, especially, is incomplete. How does one keep one’s vows to, keep loving, a person who is not keeping covenant with you? Mariana at least has God, from whom she has run away, but who has never, even in her darkest hours, deserted her. Charlotte is not even sure she believes in God, but in the end she turns back to Patrick, to her marriage, hoping that God will help her to restore what has died.

“Supposing,” she said, slowly, “you are sitting in a train standing still in a great railroad station. And supposing the train on the track next to yours began to move. It would seem to you that it was your train that was moving, and in the opposite direction. The only way you could tell about yourself, which way you were going, or even if you were going anywhere at all, would be to find a point of reference, something standing still, perhaps a person on the next platform; and in relation to this person you could judge your own direction and motion. The person standing still on the platform wouldn’t be telling you where you were going or what was happening, but without him you wouldn’t know. You don’t need to yell out the train window and ask directions. All you need to do is see your point of reference.”

Charlotte keeps saying throughout the book that she is looking for a “point of reference”. Of course, the only fixed point of reference for human beings is God Himself. Charlotte goes back to Patrick with God as her witness and strength, or else she can’t really go back at all. Am I saying that non-Christians can’t have strong marriages, can’t keep their promises, can’t love? In a way, yes. None of us can bear the pain of loving truly and deeply and vulnerably and sacrificially because our own brokenness and sin get in the way. Only God can enable that kind of love; only He is stable enough to be a point of reference. Maybe He does the enabling in some non-Christian marriages and relationships as a sort of common grace, but I am convinced that it is only He that holds this world together.

The monthly tea for the Semicolon Book Club will be held this Saturday at 3:00 P.M. at my home. We will further discuss The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle. Email me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom for more information. The book selection for the Semicolon Book Club for March is John Adams by David McCullough.

Other books that may be of interest to readers of The Love Letters:

Mariana by Katherine Vaz. In this novel, a Portuguese-American author gives her version of the story of Mariana Alcoforado.

Certain Women by Madeleine L’Engle. Another book about marriage and keeping vows and in which another historical person, this time King David of the Bible, becomes a point of reference and identification for a modern-day man.

Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Uncovering the Mystery Behind a 17th Century Forbidden Love by Miriam Cyr.

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Not because of the Portuguese connection, although that may be what made me think of them, but Ms. Browning’s poems of love are much more controlled and formed than Sister Mariana’s passionate outpourings and because of that, in my opinion, more profoundly passionate.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Feb15

Wow! This book was not what I expected at all. I don’t remember who recommended it, and I didn’t make note of the recommendation in my TBR list along with the title of the book. I had some vague idea that that title had something to do with Matthew 10:29-30, where Jesus said:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

I was right about the source of the title, but The Sparrow ain’t your typical, everyday, run-of the mill Christian fiction title. First of all, it’s science fiction, published by Ballantine Books, mainstream publisher, not an intentionally “Christian” book. A group of adventurers, scientists and Jesuits travel to Alpha Centauri in search of the source of a SETI radio signal picked up in the year 2019 at a small astronomical station in Puerto Rico. The action takes place in two time periods: 2019 and following as the explorers set off for an unknown planet somewhere in the relatively nearby galaxy and the year 2059 when only one of the members of the team returns to earth, the sole survivor of a highly controversial mission.

The book, Christian or not, is distinctly theological in its themes, discussions, and undertones. And the book discusses sex, celibacy, and deviancy in practically all its many permutations, managing to be both provocative and thoughtful at the same time.

The ending is shocking and somewhat abrupt, even if I could almost see it coming. The discussions of God and the universe are, at the very least, good food for discussion and even argument, and nothing seems forced or preachy. In fact, at the end of the book and even after I read an interview with the author in which the interviewer asked some of the questions I had been asking myself, I still wasn’t sure what the author herself believed or what she was trying to say about the beliefs and actions of her characters. I have some ideas, but this book isn’t about certainty.

Here’s what it is about:

“And a lot of the time, even now, I think I must be a lunatic and this whole thing is crazy. But, sometimes—Anne, there are times when I can let myself believe, and when I do . . . it’s amazing. Inside me everything makes sense, everything I’ve done, everything that ever happened to me—it was all leading up to this, to where we are right now. But, Anne, it’s frightening, and I don’t know why . . . ”

She waited to see if he had more but when he fell silent, she decided to take a shot in the dark. “You know what’s the most terrifying thing about admitting you’re in love?” she asked him. “You are just naked. You put yourself in harm’s way, and you lay down all your defenses. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide. Completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe that the other person loves you back and that you can trust him not to hurt you.”

He looked at her, astounded. “Yes. Exactly. That’s how it feels, when I let myself believe. Like I am falling in love and like I am naked before God. And it is terrifying, as you say. But it has started to feel like I am being rude and ungrateful, do you understand? To keep on doubting. That God loves me. Personally.”

But I must say that’s not the ending. That’s only the middle. What if you began to trust in God, and then you did get hurt. A lot. What if your choice is between believing in no God at all or believing that God is vicious, vindictive, and deceptive? It’s a question that people ask all the time. Maybe not in those words. But we do ask.

I highly recommend this book IF you like your theology in sci-fi form and IF you can tolerate some language and some sexual content, as they say in the movies. For mature audiences. But well worth the price of admission.

On a related note, I found the link to this Christianity Today article about science fiction and its influence on spiritual beliefs and worldview in our culture at Brandywine Books. I think the score is more even than Professor Herrick indicates in his article: a lot of contemporary and classic sci-fi embodies a faith in evolution and in Space exploration-as-saviour, but a lot of it is dsytopian and cautionary, pointing toward a Christian worldview. I would put The Sparrow in the latter category.

Oh, there’s a sequel to The Sparrow called Children of God. I’m almost afraid to read it since it could be disappointing in several ways and only good in one way that I’m not sure the author can manage to pull off. However, that said, I’ll probably give it a try since The Sparrow was so very good.

Dickensian Birthday Celebration

Feb7

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens!

Born on this date in 1812, Mr. Dickens has been delighting readers for over 150 years.

Dickens Novels I’ve Read: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend

DIckens Novels I Have Yet to Enjoy: Hard Times, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Favorite Dickens Hero: Pip, Great Expectations

Favorite Dickens Villain(ess): Madame Defarge, Tale of Two Cities

Favorite Tragic Scene: Mr. Peggotty searching for Littel Em’ly (Is that a scene or an episode?)

Favorite Comic Character: Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield

Favorite Comic Scene: Miss Betsy Trotter chasing the donkeys out of her yard, David Copperfield

Strangest Dickens Christmas Story We’ve Read: “The Poor Relation’s Story”

Best Dickens Novel I’ve Read: A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield is a close second.

Dickens-related posts at Semicolon:

LOST Reading Project: Our Mutual Friend by Charles DIckens.

Scrooge Goes to Church

Dickens Pro and Con on his Birthday.

Quotes and Links

Born February 7th

Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley

A Little More Dickens

Other DIckens-related links:
Mere Comments on Dickens’ Christianity.

A DIckens Filmography at Internet Film Database.

George Orwell: Essay on Charles DIckens.

Edgar Allan Poe Meets Charles Dickens.

An entire blog devoted to Mr. DIckens and his work: DIckensblog by Gina Dalfonzo.

And finally, here’s a re-post of my own Dickens Quiz. Can you match the quotation with the Dickens novel that it comes from?

1. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

2. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

3. “I would rather, I declare, have been a pig-faced lady, than be exposed to such a life as this!”

4. “It’s over and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man’s head off.”

5. “If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass–a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience–by experience.”

6. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

7. “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.”

8. “It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,” said he, “to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel.”

(HINT: these come from the eight DIckens novels that I have read. Which is from which?)