Dickens: the dreamer's stance

by Taylor Stoehr

The Dreamer's Stance, by Stoehr, Taylor

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one in a line of works from the mid-20th century that examines the commonality between the fiction of Charles Dickens and 20th century film. Building on works by Sergei Eisenstein and Martin Meisel, Stoehr focuses on the dreamlike qualities of Dickens' narration, noting that "the apparent absence of control entails a vision of the world as fragmented, mysterious, magically and grotesquely alive in every detail..."

Stoehr suggests that the narrator in a typical Dickens novel functions as a "camera eye," a trait that has made his work imminently adaptable.

Thick stuff, but very much worth the time for anyone interested in how the world Dickens depicted could live on as the picture of Victorian London in the modern imagination.