Our Parish, Sketches 5, 6 and 7

[Tristram]

And here is the last thread covering your comments on the Seven Sketches from Our Parish. As usual, feel free to post any thoughts that occurred to you during your perusal of Mr. Dickens's inimitable prose - e.g. favourite passages, similarities with regard to later novels and whatever else might come to your mind.

[Kim]

Sketch 5 "The Broker" reminded me of one or two other Dickens novels, not necessarily because of a broker in them, but because of the character or characters getting into financial distress.

In The Old Curiosity Shop, Little Dorrit, Dombey & Son, David Copperfield, and Bleak House I can think of characters who wind up in some sort of financial trouble loosing nearly everything they have.

The last section of the sketch was just sad:

'I was right, sir,' continued Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing his coat- sleeve over his face; 'the family grew more prosperous, and good fortune arrived. But it was too late. Those children are motherless now, and their father would give up all he has since gained - house, home, goods, money: all that he has, or ever can have, to restore the wife he has lost.'

[Kim]

Ah, Sketch 6 "Ladies Societies", it makes me cringe just reading it. Now don't get me wrong, I have a group of ladies around me (not at the moment) that are dear, sweet, good friends; who drive me crazy at times. They amaze me with the conversations they can have.

At one choir practice as I was passing out the music they were sitting discussing vacuum cleaners and which are the best. This conversation went on for quite some time baffling me with how long they could discuss it, and when I was asked which "sweeper" I preferred I responded "the cheapest one Wal-Mart has, and when it quits working I go get whatever one is cheapest next."

Another time it was the same conversation only about irons. When asked what type of iron I had I said "white".

I went one time, notice the one, to the ladies decorating committee meeting at church, and we spent about two hours deciding what color bow to put on the wreaths. They finally decided on white, then the discussion turned to what shade of white, bright white, off white, snow white, etc. When I got home I looked up every shade of white I could find and sent it to them but never showed up for another meeting.

white, antique white, snow white, winter white, eggshell white, ivory, seashell white, ghost white, lace, off white, beige, vanilla.

Ah, yes, ladies societies. :-}

[Kim]

Sketch 7 "Our Next Door Neighbor" it certainly did remind me of another Dickens book, "A Christmas Carol"!
In Sketches we have:

"Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man's brain by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to the full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man's disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance.

and in A Christmas Carol:

"Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including--which is a bold word--the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change--not a knocker, but Marley's face."

[Tristram]

The knocker philosophy also reminded me of A Christmas Carol a lot. Apart from that I found it a brilliant example of Dickens's whimsical sense of humour, the kind of digressions that make his novels so absolutely unique.

What I also liked very much about the Sketch "Our Next-Door Neighbour" is the mixture of comic and tragic scenes. One could argue that these two do not really go together very well, but then I would say that life itself is not much different and that by skilfully intertwining these two humours Dickens manages, in a relatively brief sketch, to present life in its fullest intensity. Once again I would liken him to one of the greatest directors ever, John Ford, whose films also very often succeeded in juxtaposing comedy, sometimes even slapstick, and seriousness.

Dickens also manages to do this in "The Broker's Man", and what is more: This time he does not choose the perspective of those who are haunted by the bailiff and his men, but he tells the story from the officials' point of view and he portrays these officials as men who are touched by what they witness and who do not really like their kind of business. - This reminds me of Bleak House, where we also see a debt-collector, who is not much better off than the people he haunts.

Another interesting detail is, to me at least, that Mr. Bung, who is the new Beadle, is not presented as a pompous and hard-hearted ass but as a man who sometimes loathes to represent authority. One can say that in the Sketches Dickens is far more aware of nuances and far less inclined to flat satire than in Oliver Twist.

[Elisa]

He's the first of several sympathetic portrayals of debt collectors in Bleak House, (Charley's father), and Little Dorrit, (Mr. Pancks.) It's a little surprising, considering that they'd be an obvious choice for a 'bad guy'.

And, since Mr. Bung was elected beadle--we're seeing someone very different from the beadle in the first sketch, or from Mr. Bumble, for that matter. So, I agree with the people who said that Dickens is already drifting away from 'types', and toward individuals.

I'm a little out of sequence here, but I can't help telling this. When I was a small child, my grandfather had a friendly and continuing relationship with the Gas & Electric bill collector. He'd always manage to scrape up the money to keep everything from being shut off, but the bill collector would come out for the last chance, Grandpa would have a long friendly chat with him and give him the check. My mother referred to him as 'Mr. Pancks.'

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "The knocker philosophy also reminded me of A Christmas Carol a lot. Apart from that I found it a brilliant example of Dickens's whimsical sense of humour, the kind of digressions that make his nove..."

One thing that occurred to me reading about the knocker is that I have never been to a house with a door knocker. Not once in my memory have I seen one on any door I knocked on. I wonder if it is a Pennsylvania thing, or an American thing, or if they just aren't used anymore. Maybe it's just a "valley" thing as we call the place we live. We're all from "the valley" here.

Come to think of it, there aren't even that many houses with doorbells, and the ones that have them either don't seem to work or no one uses them. :-}

And another thing, when I was a kid my dad would always make us go out a different door than we came in. So if we came into the house by the front door we left by the kitchen door. It was bad luck to go out the same door you came in. I wonder if that's a valley thing too.

[Elisa]

That's interesting. I've seen door-knockers, (California), but I always just used my knuckles, anyway.

And I've never heard about not going out the same door.

[Tristram]

Unless you have a knocker or a doorbell, how are you going to make people open their doors to you? In Germany door knockers are very rare - in fact they only seem to have ornamental functions - because the living room is normally one of the rooms farthest from the house door so that you would probably not hear anybody knocking.

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "And another thing, when I was a kid my dad would always make us go out a different door than we came in. So if we came into the house by the front door we left by the kitchen door. It was bad luck to go out the same door you came in. I wonder if that's a valley thing too. "

This superstition would not work for me, though, because I have this idea of feeling uncomfortable if I do not leave a place the same door as I entered it. It's like trailing an invisible thread behind you and not wanting it to become tangled somewhere ...

[Elisa]

Unless you have a knocker or a doorbell, how are you going to make people open their doors to you?

Knuckles. In my experience, unless I'm not understanding how a 'real knocker' works, knuckles are a lot louder.

In Germany door knockers are very rare - in fact they only seem to have ornamental functions - because the living room is normally one of the rooms farthest from the house door so that you would probably not hear anybody knocking.

That's interesting. In Germany, what rooms would be closest to the house door?

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "Unless you have a knocker or a doorbell, how are you going to make people open their doors to you? In Germany door knockers are very rare - in fact they only seem to have ornamental functions - bec..."

As Elisa said, you bang on the door with your fist. (well that's not exactly how she said it, but that's the idea). And if they don't answer you do it again, harder. Then, where I'm from anyway, you have three choices:

1. My personal favorite, you leave.

2. You open the door anyway and yell "Is anyone home?"

3. You call the person on your cell phone while still standing there to see if they are home, and if they are tell them to answer the door and let you in.

2 & 3 are annoying if I'm the one home and not answering the door. If I don't answer it's probably because I already know who it is and I'm ignoring you. :-}

Also, although we all seem to have "front" door and "back" doors, almost no one that I can think of uses the front door. We do, but everyone else uses the back, or side door that always goes into the kitchen. We did when I was a kid because we had to go out a different door than we came in, but most of my friends and family don't seem to care about this the way my dad did.

And why wouldn't you hear the knocking in the living room, aren't you ever in the living room?

[Tristram]

Elisa wrote: "In Germany, what rooms would be closest to the house door? "

Normally, there would be a hall, or a corridor, from which different doors open to the respective rooms.

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Unless you have a knocker or a doorbell, how are you going to make people open their doors to you? In Germany door knockers are very rare - in fact they only seem to have ornamenta..."

Oh, you could use your knuckles for a long time on a front door that does not lead into the living room but into a usually empty hall.

Are you serious that you can open somebody's front door and walk in if they are at home? Is it not locked? - When it comes to not answering door bells or the phone, I think that it is hard to beat me. My wife sometimes wonders that I am sitting next to the phone and do not answer it, and when she asks me why I'm ignoring it, I say things like, "I'm not ignoring it, I'm just busy: I'm reading something, or: I'm sitting here, relaxing."

There are back doors in German houses, too. In most cases they are glass doors leading from a terrace / patio into the living-room. In Germany, patios are mostly at the back of a house. Sitting in front of your house would give you the impression of being weird, or lonely, or nosey, i.e. front gardens are not to be sat in at all, like in the U.K.

I sometimes sit in front of our house, smoking a pipe and looking at people - and they look at me, with a flinching eye.