Extollager
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 9,261
I've begun a rereading, and perhaps some Chronsfolk would like to comment on this novel too.
I think everyone agrees about the magic of the opening chapters with the young boy's experiences. People who haven't read the book or haven't read it in a while may suppose these pages are "sentimental." They are indeed about feelings and the imagination, but then those are much of what the young child's experience of the world and of himself is mediated by. Dickens does provide some detachment via the adult's point of view. I think that when people today objects to Dickens's "sentimentality," sometimes they are revealing their own lack of sympathy with a warm and lively responsiveness to the natural feelings, more than they are legitimately objecting to Dicken's artistry. An allusion to the death of Little Nell (in the Old Curiosity Shop) suffices for them. Myself, I suspect that future generations may be puzzled by the appetite of so many in our time for torrents of CGI carnage and worse forms of our coldness....
I think everyone agrees about the magic of the opening chapters with the young boy's experiences. People who haven't read the book or haven't read it in a while may suppose these pages are "sentimental." They are indeed about feelings and the imagination, but then those are much of what the young child's experience of the world and of himself is mediated by. Dickens does provide some detachment via the adult's point of view. I think that when people today objects to Dickens's "sentimentality," sometimes they are revealing their own lack of sympathy with a warm and lively responsiveness to the natural feelings, more than they are legitimately objecting to Dicken's artistry. An allusion to the death of Little Nell (in the Old Curiosity Shop) suffices for them. Myself, I suspect that future generations may be puzzled by the appetite of so many in our time for torrents of CGI carnage and worse forms of our coldness....