The Old Curiosity Club discussion
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Our Mutual Friend
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OMF, Book 1, Chp. 11-13
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John wrote: "I will assume this is an error and Podsnap was only from OMF ."Exactly right, John. No Podsnap in Little Dorrit.
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"Frankly, I also consider it bad taste in Dickens to deal with one of his closest friends in such a way" I agree Tristram. Dickens was really getting too big for his boots I think ... but then I feel he may have had times throughout his life where he was completely insufferable, and others where he was the life and soul of the party. Perhaps we can excuse him on the grounds of his exhaustion and the start of the illness which led to his death.
Jean wrote: ""Frankly, I also consider it bad taste in Dickens to deal with one of his closest friends in such a way" I agree Tristram. Dickens was really getting too big for his boots I think ... but then I fe..."I agree. I hope that Podsnap was so very exaggerated that it was, as my Encyclopedia said, such a caricature that it was taken with a sense of humor. Of course, some people are comfortable with who they are, and wouldn't find an accurate description insulting, perhaps. All in all, I'd much rather be Podsnap than, say, Skimpole from Bleak House. Skimpole was based on a man named Leigh Hunt, who, apparently was quite bitter about the character he inspired.
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Oh, dear. I fear that when my novel comes out, with a major character modeled on your good self, you may consider it bad taste for me to have dealt with you in such a way.
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Oh, dear. I fear that when my novel comes out, with a major character mod..."
Am I the heroine?
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Uh, that depends on how you define heroine.
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I needn't excuse him, because after all, he did not use me as the Podsnap model. Even if he had, I'd probably feel flattered for having been immortalized in a Dickens novel :-)
But what you say about being the life and soul at some times, and hardly bearable at others, is very interesting: I read some biographies of the great American director John Ford, and it was apparently quite the same with him. Great men are probably always kind of difficult to get along with. The reverse conclusion, however, will probably not stand.
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Oh, dear. I fear that when my novel comes out, with a major character mod..."
As long as you give a faithful description of my character, I will not be offended and you will have created the world's most brilliant and modest super-hero in literature.
Tristram wrote: "Jean wrote: "Perhaps we can excuse him on the grounds of his exhaustion"I needn't excuse him, because after all, he did not use me as the Podsnap model. Even if he had, I'd probably feel flattere..."
This makes me think of John Lennon. As I understand it, he could be very warm and convivial. He could also be the world's biggest jerk. We can blame it on creative genius and the pressures of celebrity, but I don't think that should give people a pass for bad behavior or treating people like dirt.
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Uh, that depends on how you define heroine."
Florence Dombey, Amy Dorrit, Kate Nickleby, me, and of course, Little Nell.
I always think of Harold Skimpole of Bleak House and Mr. Dick of David Copperfield as being opposite sides of a coin. One is all pretence at naivety, and the other is a true naif. And it's interesting that both were based on real people -(Leigh Hunt and the painter Richard Dadd respectively). I guess Dickens was immortalising these people who were celebrities in their own time, yet less so now. And perhaps he felt that any sort of inclusion in his books was a sort of flattery ... ? Kim pointed out earlier that he'd tried to slide out of any blame by maintaining it was only his friend John Forster's mannerisms that he was using, and parodying, rather than his character.
But he'd done that before with a dwarf manicurist, Miss Mowcher, also in David Copperfield, and quickly had to turn the plot round as she was making a lot of trouble for him through lawyers. He didn't seem to learn, even though he had his head screwed on in business matters. Maybe in this context he was a bit of a fantasist!
Jean wrote: "I always think of Harold Skimpole of Bleak House and Mr. Dick of David Copperfield as being opposite sides of a coin. One is all pretence at naivety, and the other is a tr..."Were they actual celebrities, or just friends of Dickens? I ask, because I wonder if Dickens was doing his own version of the Alfred Hitchcock cameo -- writing about celebrities so that readers would try to figure out which character might be based on someone well-known. I've never heard that theory before, but it does make a person think. Literary Easter eggs.
"Were they actual celebrities, or just friends of Dickens?"Oh yes, I think they were already famous, or celebrities, Mary Lou. But that doesn't negate your theory (which I like), but adds more fuel to it surely? He loved his riddles!
Our wonderful researcher Kim found a lot about Leigh Hunt when we were reading Bleak House, and it was very clear that he was a celebrity. Richard Dadd too may not have been well known in the States, but in England he was very popular- and then became notorious! If you're interested, I've written a review about Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum - Link HERE for it.
Tristram, "the world's most brilliant and modest super-hero in literature" LOL! Now are you going to add that to your Goodreads name?
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No, because it's way too long :-) My nephew, however, who is nearly three years old, still addresses me as Super-King. When he started speaking, i.e. calling people by their names, I made him believe that this was my actual name, and to my sister's chagrin he is still of the opinion that Super-King is my name.
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About Hitchcock: I read somewhere that originally, Hitch appeared in his films because there were never enough extras on the set. This was true of his brilliant "The Lodger" where Hitch makes two cameos, one inside a furious crowd. Later he kept this up as some kind of trademark but was quite exasperated when he found out that people concentrated their attention on spotting him rather than on following the film. That's why he eventually tried to absolve his cameos within the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film, and in a rather conspicuous manner, e.g. in "North by North-West", where he misses the bus, or in "The Birds", where he leaves the Zoo shop with two poodles.
As to Dickens: Maybe a prolific writer like he was bound to draw from real-life. Just remember how he incorporated places and scenes, e.g. from his extensive London walks, into his novels. It was probably the same with people: His fertile mind used what he found around him as a starting point and as raw material for his characters, and he might not even have been aware of the implications this could have.
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As long as I focus on only 2% of your character and ignore the other 98%, I'm sure I could do that.
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He's a curious blend of realism and imagination. Much of his work is realistic, but then he goes off into these weird places and totally unrealistic characters (like Little Nell and the totally absurd abandonment of common sense by Scrooge).
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As long as I focus on only 2% of your character and ignore the other 98%, I'm sure I cou..."
Focusing on 2% of my character only is usually enough for anyone to be stuck by my brilliancy :-)
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Yes, but I think that in his later works, the more realistic characters prevailed. You won't get villains like Quilp or Squeers anymore - but people like Tulkinghorn or Mrs. Clennam. Or weak characters like Mr. Dorrit and undecided heroes such as Arthur Clennam or Pip.
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No, you won't. That's math, and you don't do math.
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The Old Curiosity Club
Books mentioned in this topic
David Copperfield (other topics)Bleak House (other topics)
Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Leigh Hunt (other topics)John Forster (other topics)
James A. Davies (other topics)
James A. Davies (other topics)
Michael Slater (other topics)
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Forster was a man of somewhat overbearing manner, which was merely the mask of a very tender and sympathetic character. This manner i..."
Interestingly enough, my Dickens A-Z says Forster was caricatured by Dickens as Podsnap, but lists it in Little Dorrit rather than OMF. Given I have never read Dorrit, I will assume this is an error and Podsnap was only from OMF.