Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby - notes

Names, as always in Dickens, are often invented for comical or other effect, starting with Dotheboys Hall (apparently in one audiobook version it was pronounced to rhyme more or less with Sotheby’s – completely obscuring Dickens’ intention).

Reading Dickens takes commitment these days. He published his books as serials, and the result is what we might be tempted to see as a colossal “waste of space” (e.g. the storytelling about the Five Sisters of York and Baron Grogzwig; all the business with the Kenwigs and Mr Lillyvick; and, of course, Mrs Nickleby). Several bookclubbers listened to audiobook versions, which were really excellent as far as expression and characterisation were concerned. However, his elaborate descriptions are hugely enjoyable, e.g. of the Infant Phenomenon, who is used to show what a complete sham the theatrical world is.

Another thing that strikes the modern reader is the number of married couples: husbands and wives who, with all their faults or even wickedness, still loved each other in their way – the Squeers, the Mantalinis, the Crummles.

The Cheeryble brothers, extreme philanthropists, balance the extreme evil of Ralph Nickleby and Squeers.

Dickens’ work is modern writing in that his humour stands the test of time, and still makes readers laugh aloud; it is not staid or dated. There was a recent West End show of Nicholas Nickleby – British humour is a cultural thing, often consisting of laughing at ourselves.

Kindness and mercy are completely absent in Squeers (and Mrs Squeers). Dickens plays with horrible effect on their affection for each other in combination of their cruelty towards the boys, as when Mr Squeers is about to beat Smike for running away:

'Have you anything to say?' demanded Squeers again: giving his right arm two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness. 'Stand a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear; I've hardly got room enough.'

'Spare me, sir!' cried Smike.

'Oh! that's all, is it?' said Squeers. 'Yes, I'll flog you within an inch of your life, and spare you that.'

Mercy is also absent from Ralph Nickleby. He does soften slightly at the sight of Kate’s beauty and gentleness, though not much, often, or for long. The theme of mercy is brought home very tellingly by Charles Cheeryble at the end of the book: he offers mercy to Ralph, who contemptuously rejects it, only to fall prey to bitter remorse without repentance.

Connected with mercy is solidarity and brotherhood, notable especially in Nicholas’ behaviour towards Smike throughout the book.

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, 2009

This book has already been discussed and reviewed very extensively. It is a good read, convincingly written so that you can, or imagine you can, hear the Tanzanians and Rwandans speaking. It invites comparisons with Alexander McCall Smith’s Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency books, but is in a way much more serious, being set in post-genocide Kigali, with the multiple problems of “truth and justice”, Aids, malaria, orphaned street-children, and more.

A very telling aspect is how the various characters work together to rebuild Rwanda, at a very local and personal level.

Angel, the central figure, makes cakes to order. Each chapter is broadly built around a different cake, and the Cake Order Form, is one of the devices that unite the narrative into a whole. Angel also has a habit of polishing her glasses when she needs time to think; and making hot steaming mugs of sweet, spicy tea.

Parkin clearly draws very extensively on her own experience as an HIV-Aids counsellor in Kigali. What is conspicuous by its absence is any coherent notion of marriage or of the value of morality, continence, chastity or faithfulness. In the many incidents and discussions in the book which touch on weddings, marriage, and couples, there is no understanding of marriage and love as self-giving.

Certainly, Angel and Pius are faithfully married, and Angel refers with deep disapproval to the way a young woman called Linda dresses: “she had never seen a man look at Linda’s face; there were always other parts of her body that were asking more urgently to be observed.” Angel has good values, but does not reflect on them. She and Pius are Catholics, but they know that some Catholics, even nuns and priests, took part in the killing in 1994. “In Rwanda we’re simply Christians. I’m nervous of attending just one church here, of listening to just one priest. Because how can we know what is truly in that priest’s heart after so many showed that love and peace were only words in their mouths? So we attend a different church every second week; in between, we still attend our local Catholic church” (p.85).

At the very start of the book, Angel explains that when she and her husband got married (they are now grandparents), they were “pioneers” of contraception, and were careful to have only two children “so that we could afford to educate them well.” In the event, their children, having had children of their own, both lost their respective spouses and died before the start of the book, and Angel and her husband Pius are now starting all over again, bringing up their five grandchildren as their own children. The book does not point the moral, but it is actually a clear instance of how wrong-headed it is to contracept in order to have fewer children and hence more money.

A fairly important figure in the book is Jeanne d’Arc, who, having been orphaned and gang-raped during the genocide at the age of eleven, has been a prostitute for the past seven years in order to support herself, her two sisters, and a small boy they found abandoned. Angel is able to help Jeanne d’Arc in many different ways, finally putting her in touch with someone who can teach her to sew to be able to earn her living in a “safer” way. But, at the same time, she jokes with someone else about Jeanne d’Arc and her “business”. Perhaps she develops more compassion for Jeanne d’Arc in the course of the book.

Angel is able to help people in many ways in the course of her business. One often has the impression that the author had a list of themes she wanted to bring in, and worked through them – FGM, the mayibobo (street children), truthfulness to oneself and to others, Catholicism in Rwanda – chapter by chapter, through the book.

Overall it is a good read, ideal for provoking enjoyable discussions, which need to take each theme a lot deeper, with a lot more informed input, than the book itself is able to do.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

     The book is a “journey” book – Harold discovers more and more about himself as he walks from Devon to Berwick-on-Tweed, and the reader gradually finds out about the secrets in his life. It is certainly formulaic, but still very fresh. A good read, absorbing and lively: people who would not have chosen to read it themselves were surprised to find how they enjoyed it. One, in her 20s, was surprised to find herself relating to someone more than forty years older than herself. Some found Harold painfully awkward, and annoyingly so – he could not even take the step of buying proper walking-shoes. Some readers asked if this was realistic or unbelievably exaggerated, but one said she knows someone who is in fact exactly like that. As for buying walking-shoes, it underlines the fact that people have familiar, comfortable things that they will always refuse to change for something new even if it would be much better.

     Harold and Maureen both lacked the capacity for self-reflection. They actually loved each other but had no idea how to express their love, let alone develop it, and as a result each felt unloved by the other. Their love was embryonic. Interestingly enough, at the very end of the book they revert to, and replay, their first meeting; their love appears to be adolescent again, unmatured, almost reduced to the mere “chemistry” of their first attraction. But before this they have gone through the explanations and confessions that they needed to make to each other.

     Obviously, Harold’s disastrous non-relationship with his appalling parents was the reason why he could not manage his relationship with Maureen – or David. After his mother had left, his father had introduced a succession of “aunts” into the house. Then “his father had presented him with an overcoat on his sixteenth birthday and shown him the door.” (p. 158), which was why he had never even had a proper education.

**SPOILER ALERT**     David’s suicide was his attempt to destroy not only himself, but both his parents too. He was manipulative, playing each parent off against the other; he was more intelligent than either of them, but this only made him despise them. This left him deeply unhappy and led him to ruin himself with drink and drugs. Yet Harold loved David just as much as Maureen did and, twenty years on, still agonises over his loss.

      Harold blames himself for David’s suicide, and for the apparent failure of his marriage with Maureen, and for Queenie’s departure from the brewery. He is tormented by these things but, perhaps surprisingly, his self-blame does not produce bitterness in him.

     Harold’s and Maureen’s lives are extremely small, extremely narrow, but also extraordinary. “... a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had done so for a long time” (p.180).

The amount of detail is satisfying and not over-done. Especially, of course, the descriptions of the sky, the plants, that Harold gets more and more involved in as he walks.

     Then comes the existential question: if Maureen has lived Harold’s life for him for most of their marriage, “Then who am I?” By getting away from her, he found out. He had not had any early relationships in order to be able to work out his own self.

     It is through some of the different people Harold meets and talks to that Harold – and the reader – discover more and more about Queenie’s cancer. **SPOILER ALERT** This prepares to some extent for Harold’s actual arrival and seeing Queenie, but it is still a shock, and the reader has to ask why it has to be such a horrible one – her tongue cut out, half her throat gone, and her face ballooned with a tumour?

     Harold is non-judgemental throughout: he helped the people who confided in him by being honest and not opinionated. He has an unexpressed well of compassion within, and suffers with people’s sufferings. “... he knew that in meeting her, and listening, he was carrying another weight in his heart and he wasn’t sure how much more of that he could take” (p. 148).

     His compassion grows as he walks on: “He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other” (p. 180).
     The journey is a pilgrimage in many senses, and Harold learns the meaning of freedom of spirit, firstly in his need to be in the open, and then in his realisation that he has to get rid of all the things he is carrying with him, all the props that he has been relying on. In the end, significantly, he loses his precious compass.

     The question of religious faith runs through the book, and is never resolved, although the nuns praying for Queenie do point to the affirmative at the end of the book. “If we can’t be open, Maureen thought, if we can’t accept what we don’t know, then there really is no hope.”

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer

A Civil Contract

 by Georgette Heyer, first published 1961

All of Heyer’s Regency novels are simple escapism; this one is certainly that, but at the same time it gives readers a lot to think about. The theme could be stated quite simply as “Romantic love versus matrimonial love”.

Adam Deveril, an officer in Wellington’s army, in love with the beautiful and aristocratic Julia Oversley, has just succeeded to his father’s title of Viscount Lynton, and finds himself overwhelmed by his late father’s massive debts. In order to provide for his family and save Fontley, the family home, he marries the plebeian Jenny Chawleigh, daughter of a very wealthy banker. The book follows their first year of married life, up until the Battle of Waterloo (18th June 1815).

As in all Heyer’s books, the research is impeccable. From Adam’s colonel in the 52nd Regiment, to the exact day and time when the news of Waterloo reached London, from the behaviour of the Prince Regent to the fashions of the day in hats and dresses, the details are reliable and accurate.

The other very enjoyable feature that this book shares with other Heyer novels is the excellent writing. Not a single sentence jars; plenty of them are memorable. In A Civil Contract, perhaps more than in any of her other books, Heyer sets herself to give a very complete picture of the main characters in the book.

Adam is a gentleman through and through: his character traits are loyalty, chivalry, honesty, a sense of humour, and strength of character (he holds out in support of Wellington against surrounding friends who are Whigs). Fastidious, even finicky, reserved, he retires behind “an impenetrable barrier” when displeased or upset. He is deeply attached to Fontley; he loved soldiering, but turns out to be a farmer at heart. He loathes accepting gifts – either from Lord Oversley or from Mr Chawleigh.

He feels a romantic love for Julia; over the course of the book he develops a solid matrimonial love for Jenny. Having taken the decision to marry her, he commits himself fully to his marriage. Right from the start, as soon as they were married, “He did pity her, and forgot his own aching heart in the need to reassure her.” Later on, Julia suggests that since they both still love each other, they could have an affair: he rejects the suggestion out of a sense of honour, and loyalty and compassion for Jenny. We witness his feelings develop from his reply to Julia’s question “ ‘Can you be happy?’ A tiny headshake answered her”, through “he had grown to be fond of (Jenny) — so fond, he realized, that if, by the wave of a wand he could cause her to disappear he would not wave it”, to “ ‘I do love you, Jenny,’ he said gently. ‘Very much indeed — and I couldn’t do without you’.” By the end of the book he has recognised what Julia’s father, and Adam’s friend Brough, had seen clearly from the start: that Julia and he would have been very badly suited.

Jenny’s character includes common sense, generosity, and strength of character. She is well-educated and intelligent; loving, forthright, blunt, understanding, and perceptive. We discover that she has been secretly in love with Adam ever since she first met him the year before. She is “unromantic”; “a round, rosy face remarkable only for its determination”. “The trend of her mind was practical; she entered into married life in a business-like way; and almost immediately presented the appearance of a wife of several years’ standing. She quickly discovered, and never forgot, his particular fads”. She sets herself to make Adam comfortable by creating a welcoming, well-cared-for home and being constantly even-tempered and undemanding – though being pregnant, and unwell, causes a considerable change in her behaviour!

The other really remarkable character is Jenny’s father, Mr Chawleigh. He is rough, generous, vulgar, too old to learn, sharp, decent, honest, and bullying. He is ambitious for Jenny to enter high society, but not for himself: he recognises that he would only appear ridiculous among “the nobs”. Adam says to Jenny at one stage, “I think there can be no more generous persons alive than you and your father.” Adam and Mr Chawleigh have several clashes, but in the end, recognising how totally different they are, they each learn to respect and even admire the other. Adam reflects about Chawleigh that “He did not know that the things he said were unpardonable, or that self-control in moments of stress was incumbent on him. He had fought his way up in the world with no other weapons than his hard head and his ruthless will. He was brutal but generous, overbearing yet curiously humble, and he gave way to his emotions with the ease of a child.”

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Those who had read this book before found that it was more interesting on second reading, and in a way they got more out of it. Especially about the “second story”, Levin and Kitty, since the first time round one naturally focused more on Anna Karenina herself.

Tolstoy wrote the book as a serial. One of the reasons he wrote it was to send a new message to readers, about the relationship between work and education. It is a family story – all the main characters are connected. But between them they represent the whole range of levels of Russian nineteenth-century society. The Shterbatskys – the peasants – Nicholas Levin and Marya Nikolaevna.

Bookclubbers were surprised to find how easy the book was to read, compared with nineteenth-century literature in English. We had read different translations, but no-one had any difficulty in reading it and everyone had found it a compelling read. The chapters are very short, and the language and sentences are clear. The ideas are not necessarily so straightforward or easy to catch. In practically every chapter, there are phrases, sentences and episodes that are loaded with significance – anyone who had a copy of their own and who was in the habit of highlighting meaningful passages, would soon have virtually the whole book covered in yellow stripes.

One of the most fascinating things about the book is the picture it provides of the Russian world of the nineteenth century. It was a world in which money meant everything (as indeed it does in today’s world), whether at the peasants’ level or at that of the upper classes. What was noticeable was the sheer unreality of the lives lived by the nobility. There is a very strongly-marked contrast between the society men who went from soirée to theatre to club (yes, the men’s purposelessness is what strikes one most; I suppose we find it easier to accept the idea of upper-class women leading such a meaningless existence?) and the peasants, with their simple happiness and their farniente, the ability to persevere in hard, gruelling work while taking every opportunity that came along of doing nothing. The peasants are shown as leading happy, even carefree lives. They live on the land and have strong families, companionship, and folk traditions. However, they have neither education nor culture, so their level of happiness is limited and narrow.

The question of religious faith runs through the whole book – it is a question, a problem. It is evident in Karenin, a cold fish who has never really thought about how he ought to treat his wife, or whether their relationship could be different. He has been living an artificial life made up of official duties and official responsibilities, but with no real human relationships and no actual friends at all. He undergoes a religious experience when Anna seems to be dying after giving birth, while still in his house, to Vronsky’s daughter. Karenin finds that he can humble himself, and forgive her and even Vronsky, totally, in a Christ-like way. However, this conversion, real though it is, does not last. Karenin ends up being fascinated by the Christian-Scientist-type teachings of Countess Lydia Ivanovna, even though he realises, deep down, that this new version of Christianity is false and shallow.

Levin himself, who seems to be an autobiographical character for Tolstoy, wrestles much more deeply with his faith, as he does with everything in the intellectual realm. To begin with he tries to make sense of the Russian social set-up as it is at that time, and to rationalise and improve the agricultural work done by the peasants – recently liberated from serfdom. He is foiled by the peasants themselves, who are one and all convinced that any change or innovation must necessarily be bad, and, if proposed by a landowner, must be a trick to get something out of them. Levin is a man of integrity and natural humility, and continues questioning, reading, and arguing about the purpose of life and human nature. However, it is noticeable that again and again, he tries to engage people in discussion about these things unsuccessfully, even when he is sure they have very interesting viewpoints to contribute; and when he argues, he never manages to convince anyone of his point of view.

Levin goes to confession to a Russian Orthodox priest before his wedding, as Church rules require. And, with characteristic honesty (unlike Oblonsky), he says frankly that he doubts the existence of God. The priest is not scandalized, but really does help him to look towards faith instead of away from it. When Kitty has a difficult labour, Levin finds himself praying with real faith, but experiences it more as a feeling that doesn’t last (there is an obvious parallel here with Karenin). However, he keeps on trying to find his way to faith in order to make sense of his life, and human existence. In the end he realises that in all his philosophising, reading and arguing, he has been “seeking food in toy shops and tool shops” – determinedly looking for spiritual sustenance in all the wrong places – and that he really does have a faith on which he can construct his life.

Vronsky and Anna are the main characters of the “first story” in the book, as Levin and Kitty are of the “second story”. Vronsky’s philosophy of life, which seems to be characteristic of his class and generation, was merely a set of hard and fast rules for getting on in society. Practically every time he is mentioned, his “even white teeth” also feature. The most extensive and detailed episode involving him is the horse race where he literally rides his horse to death in an unsuccessful attempt to win; he destroys Anna as he had destroyed the horse. There is an astonishing passage when he and Anna first become lovers, where Tolstoy describes Vronsky’s attitude towards Anna in terms of the attitude of a murderer towards his dead victim. The last time Vronsky comes into the book, on his way to find death at the battlefront, he is suffering from a severe ache in all his teeth.

Anna is, of course, a much more interesting character, and we come much closer to her than we ever do to Vronsky. What ruins her life is firstly her inability to love her husband, and secondly, her pathological jealousy. Neither of these is entirely her fault, but she never had any help in tackling these problems. Nowadays she is generally seen as a tragic heroine. It is easy to see how this view can do a lot of harm: a woman who is not entirely happy in her marriage for some reason, reads Anna Karenina and thinks, “Ohh how romantic – just like me – I’m just like her…” and looks for a way of escape, instead of looking to see where the problem lies (including in her own behaviour) and trying to solve it and put her marriage on a better footing.

There are masses of other characters in the book, all of whom are compellingly realistic even though they are relatively “minor parts”.

It is a fascinating book to read from all sorts of different angles. At the level of sociology, it is worth comparing with books about other societies – most obviously, of course, Dickens, Gaskell, and other nineteenth-century English writers who describe the whole range of society; and writers of similar scope in other countries.