David Copperfield

                                                                  

Back in grade twelve, high school, I did a report on David Copperfield for British Literature class, taught by Dr. Eppert (Yes, this public school instructor had a Ph.d). I had already done a report the previous semester on Oliver Twist for Composition class, so Copperfield seemed fair game. I used the same flowery language in the report as I did for the one on Oliver. And not surprisingly, the parts of the novel that held the most interest for me were the ones in which the Murdstones cast their horrid shadow over young David's life, the horrors he later experiences at Creakle's boarding school, and the wretched shoe polish factory, plus his rescue and liberation by his Aunt Trotwood. Beyond that, his adult life with multiple love interest, his budding career, and the machinations of the slimy clerk Uriah Heep, were of relatively less interest, and I rather breezed though the last chapters. Mainly though, that was because time was running out for the actual writing of the report. 

    Copperfield was Dickens personal favorite novel. It was certainly the most autobiographical, its hero becoming a famous author of novels in serial form. I recall in another high school English class being able to answer the question of what the first three words (title of Chapter 1) were: I Am Born. 

    There have been innumerable adaptations of David Copperfield of course, the most famous perhaps being the one back in the 30s starring Freddie Barthlomew as David, and W. C. Fields as Wilkins Micawber. There's an actor with a Dickensian face for you! There was also one 90s version with Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe as the young David.  Around the time I first read it and did that report there was an adaptation on the BBC, possibly Masterpiece Theater. Like their previous Dickens adaptations, that production was long and drawn out, and very true to Dickens' text. Copperfield himself is portrayed by three actors, as a child, a pre-teen at boarding school, and a young adult. The most notable thing about to me at the time though was the fact it had Oliver Cotton as Mr. Murdstone. Cotton of course was then known for portraying another famous Dickens villain, Monks in Oliver Twist, so the role was appropriate. He depicted Copperfield's evil guardian to great effect. 

     A bit more jarring for me, though, was the fact that in the 2000 adaptation of Copperfield, Murdstone was portrayed by none other than Anthony Andrews, whom I was most familiar with as having played Sir Percy in the 1982 Scarlet Pimpernel. Now back then, Andrews seemed mostly cast in heroic roles, such as Ivanhoe that same year. I was very surprised one year when watching a previous version of Copperfield, to find Andrews, as a younger actor, cast as Steerforth, David's rescuer at boarding school! Again, an appropriate role. But some time later, Andrews seemed to get regularly cast as a baddie. This happened when he was cast as Professor Moriarity in the 1990 Sherlock Holmes movie Hands of a Murderer. It might have Andrews' talent for a lofty and arrogant personality that won him these roles. As Murdstone, he portrays the the villain's cold, cruel and vicious personality very accurately. 

    The 2000 adaptation of David Copperfield is my favorite of the bunch, even though, of necessity, it runs over some of the details of some parts, like David's experiences at Creakle's boarding school, rather quickly. The adaptation is split into two parts, fortunately, unlike 1982" Oliver. Even though it was filmed in 2000, it has more of the feel of one of the 1980's Dickens TVizations. This was just before adaptations of Dickens novels began to take a turn for the worse, especially, and a bit ironically, the BBC productions, previously known for being meticulously true to the source material. 

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

 

                                                      

 It was as year ago, the Christmas season before this last one, that I finally sat down to read Dickens' last and infamously unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was one of the few I hadn't read, but I knew about some of it, of course, how a character with an opium problem named John Jasper, was the suspected murderer, and that the alleged victim, one Edwin Drood, simply vanished one dreary Christmas eve. And I knew there had been many uncanonical conclusions to Edwin Drood, including one by Leon Garfield, writer of YA novels about the American Revolution, and one reputed to have been dictated by Dickens' ghost, though the writing styles didn't match up. I'd seen a few scenes of one movie adaptation on youtube, but that had been all. 

     Actually reading the book was a bit of a surprise. Neville Landless, one of the two rivals for Rosa Budd's affection, and his sister Helena are from British-ruled Ceylon (now called Sri lanka), and are presumably at least part native in origin. Now, seeing that clip years ago, I noticed the ethnicity of the brother and sister, and assumed to was a case of "race-swapping" (as was done with a recent adaptation of David Copperfield. It was not. Dickens has been criticized for his supposed lack of sympathy for colonized peoples, but this novel appears to take up the challenge of colonialism. The Landless siblings have experienced British colonialism first-hand, and the rivalry between Landless and Drood involves a spat between them wherein Drood, otherwise a sympathetic character, expresses racist attitudes (though that word was not used then, of course). Modern audiences might be less likely to forgive Edwin his colonialist attitudes then the audience in the time when Drood was written. As said, Edwin is otherwise pretty sympathetic, as he and Rosa are both orphans, are similar to the persecuted young couple often found in romances of this sort--in this case, the obvious villain being Edwin's uncle Jasper, with his obvious but unwanted designs on Rose. 

     Well, Jasper goes missing that Christmas eve, and the descriptions of the night of his disappearance are very rich here, as one might expect from Dickens. Neville, of course, is accosted almost immediately the next morning, having been the last person seen with Drood--and of course, the fact of his being a foreigner, and (presumably) a Southeast Asian. Not that suspicion doesn't also hover about Uncle Jasper, and Dickens' gives a few clues that point to his guilt, especially his reaction to the news from Mr. Grewgious (who had saved Landless for lack of evidence) that Rosa had decided not to wed Jasper's nephew after all.  Edwin Drood's  pocket watch is discovered in the river, pointing to his possible drowning, but no body turns up. Was Dickens indeed hinting at Jasper's guilt, or was he using him as red herring? If not Jasper, who else? Durdles, the local cryptkeeper, who knows secret of disposing of unwanted corpses? Bazzard, Gregrious's clerk, who is a very odd man by his employer's admission? Well, it's just that name sounds a bit odious ( too similar to 'buzzard'), and Dickens like to play with names. 

     Only the two rivels had any clear motivation though, and the 'red herring' character is likely a more or less modern invention. Some of Dickens' works bears similarity to the detective genre, but it didn't really exist as such back then, which means the author was likely not trying to mislead the audience. Then there is (also fairly modern) cliche that the supposed victim would turn up alive, though this, too, seems unlikely.

    Dickens' son Charles is reported as saying as much (that Jasper was indeed the guilty), so perhaps the mystery of Edwin Drood, wasn't all that mysteriously. And yet, being unfinished, we'll never quite no for sure. So there's plenty of fodder here for what could have happened to Drood, no matter what Dickens intended. Again, the challenge to colonialism was quite unexpected. 

Anthony Walters as Tim Crachit

 I just happened upon this picture of Anthony Walters as "Tiny Tim" Crachit from George Scott's Carol today. As the picture shows he was suitably pathetic for the role. 

Kim Downer in George Scott's Carol

                                               

Here is a post I found about an actor named Kim Downer who was in George Scott's Christmas Carol, I hadn't heard of him, but it looks like he could of played Fred or even Bob Crachit. Those roles were played by Roger Rees and David Warner respectively. This guy was an extra, who fondly recalled having met George C. Scott.

https://www.shropshirestar.com/entertainment/shrewsbury-entertainment/2021/12/15/fake-snow-and-film-stars-when-a-christmas-carol-came-to-shrewsbury/

The Stephen King Connection?

 

    Nell Trent                                     Theodore Trenton

Stephen King has often claimed that he intended for Theodore "Tad" Trenton to survive in the novel Cujo, but when he came to the end, he "discovered" that the child did die after all. 

Now back as a teen not long, after I read the book, I just supposed that to be rot. I mean, perhaps he met that metaphorically, or he thought it was the ending that "worked." But in fiction the author is tottally in control. he is what ultimately determines the fate the characters. SK wasn't always consistent when he  said "I had to kill him off" or "I did it. I'm not totally glad I did it but..", versus "He died on his own."

The author is in control in fiction.

Or is he?

But if King didn't ultimately determine the Tadder's fate, then who or what did?

If you take it literally that it wasn't King who did, then we're talking in the realm of God or Fate. Something like that.

And God of Fate, in other words mysterious forces that control what happens, and are at least sometimes beyond human control is something I've grown to believe in. How much control do we really have? The same certainly would apply to authors, what books get written, or finished, and what fictional characters survive and which do not. 

Another perhaps equally infamous child death was that of "Little Nell" Trent of Dickens' The Old Curiousity Shop. Readers on both sides of the Atlantic were on the edge of the seats waiting to see if thirteen-year-old Nell would survive. Dickens disappointed the majority of them, of course. Was it for the best, artistically speaking? Dickens, had his reasons, of course just as King did. In this case, its said that he didn't want his child characters to grow up and be corrupted. But of course, many of them did survive, while others did not. He very nearly kills off Oliver's aunt seventeen-year-old Rose as well. I'm not sure what made him decide to spare her life in the end, but he seemed to be disturbed by the deaths of fragile young girls and women, yet was impelled to include it in fiction, something like his friend and contemporary, Edgar Allen Poe, influenced by the death of his young mother, and one of his girlfriends. 

The fact Nell is a girl-child undoubtedly had something to do with it. Purity and innocence was and is even today, valued more highly in the "fairer sex." Then again today that might be considered a bit sexist, which wouldn't make Dickens motivations for killing her very reputable. But just how much control did Dickens(or King) have anyway, even though they personal motives? 

The fact that both Little Nell and Theodore have almost the same last name is strikingly odd. King is today's nearest analogue to Dickens, in terms of popularity, output, depth of character and intricacy of plot. Dickens confined his weird elements almost entirely to his ghost tales (there's more of those than just Scrooge, in case you didn't know), and King does not, but in sheer scope, the two authors clearly rival each other. the descions such influential authors make concerning the lives and deaths of their characters is enough to influence popular culture, and culture as a whole. 

The authors had their own personal demons. But why did they have those personal demons in the first place?

The deaths of Nell and Tad seem to parallel on another. Does this in fact mean they were also predetermined? 

Perhaps King little less control in killing off the Tadder than he even guessed.

Dan Simmons' Drood

 I can't believe I've never made a post on Dan Simmons' Drood!

This was a novel I read some years ago. Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, was of course his final (and infamously unfinished) novel. Though I do remember reading somewhere that one of Dickens notes or letters strongly suggests that Edwin Drood, who had mysteriously vanished during the Christmas season, had been murdered by John Jasper. Many have tried to wrap up the story, including Leon Garfield, I beleive, but the canonical end will foreer remain a mystery. 

The "Drood" character of Simmons' novel, however, is unrelated to young Edwin Drrod, the character Dickens created, save possibily it's hinted that that's where Dickens got the name. It centers around the infamous train ride, on which Dickens was returing to London with his mistriss. After the famed accident occurs, Dickens does his best to help the injured passanngers. According to Simmons' novel, it is then that the author meets the title character, a bizarre vampire-ish fellow with white dead white skin and a gaping aperature for a nose, who introduces himself merely as Drood. This strange personage, helps Dickens help the injured, though he seems somehow to hover through the air from person to person. 

The tale is narrated by Dickens' friendly rival Wilkie Collins, author of The MoonStone and other works of mystery and wierd fiction. It's clear from the start that Collins harbers a strong resentment of his friend for being far more famous, and partiularly hates how Dickens has become known as "the inimatable." Still, he sticks by Dickens through the final faze of his relatively short life, when his travels and readings (particularly "Sikes and Nancy"--and I still have no idea why Dickens took it on himself to act out this particularly horrid scene repeatedly on stage) were taking a toll on the author's health. 

Dickens has a few more encounters with the mysterious Drood, once seeing him floating outside his window! It is never fully explained whether Drood is actually real, or a figment of the author's overwrought imagination. Who or what is he? If a hallucination (or perhaps even if not) is Drood a manifestation of

Dickens's failing health or anxiety? Or perhaps his guilt over having an affair? Has the apparition come into being as the result of the strain of writing? Simmons does not tell us, which makes it one of those stories where it's ultimately up to the reader to decide.

Drood provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an aging literary genius, but no concrete explanations for its elements of the surreal.

Great Expectations (1980)

 

By the ninth grade junior high, I was now becoming fairly well versed in Dickens, or at least knowledgable about his works. This was mostly thanks to the TV adaptations of the time. Those were ones I grew up with and remain favorites of today. There was A Tale of Two Cities in 1981,followed by Oliver Twist, in 1982 both sponsored by the CBS reading program. Then in Ninth grade, our English teacher had us read the entireity of Dickens' Great Expectations. Already primed to Dickens by Oliver, I embraced this new tale of another poor orphan horribly treated by his disturbed sister and her pompous friends, even at Christmas (which was not so Jolly in this Dickens yarn). The story opens with the orphan being horribly and graphically threatened an escaped convict. I think I got somehow that this convict really wasn't a villain, in spite of his manner and appearance. And that there really was no psychotic child-murderer hiding out with him. One thing I definitely saw coming was it was Magwitch who had been Pip's unseen benefactor all along. However, rather embarrassingly, I didn't get until after the fact that Pip had been as sure as anything that Miss Havishham was his true benefactor, and was doing so with the prospect his marrying Estella. I thought of it as another story of a poor boy making it rich, and I didn't really get the downside of the story, nor Dickens strong critique of class snobbery, which he himself was guilty of in his younger days. Later of course, I came to appreciate all of this, starting when a college professor stated the irony that Great Expectations was the one Dickens novel where there were no true great expectations.

    It was around the same time that I read the book for class (ninth grade), that I came upon this edition of the novel in a Waldons or B. Dalton Bookseller. The actors from the BBC production, which had aired a couple years earlier, looked exactly as I'd pictured them. Especially Pip with his British cap. I didn't get to see this version until years later, though I did see BBC adaptations of A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield.  I managed to order a copy from a video store and (Oh! this is embarassing!) I thought it was the wrong movie because on the cover, Pip wasn't wearing his cap, and I had it sent back! I later discovered my error, and either reordered it, or found it at Suncoast, which at time carried classic British productions. 

   Like every other BBC Dickens adaptation of the time, it is very meticulous, almost going too far in the other direction from adaptations that whittled Dickens thick novels down to two hours. Unlike some more recent adaptations, it is indeed very faithful to the tale. At least one recent version got rid of Orlick, a major antagonist, and the source of Pip's sister's madness. Worse, some other adaptations have gotten rid of Compeyson, which leaves a major part of the story unexplained, since Compeyson is basically the root source of all the trouble in the story. My one beef with the 1981 version, is that even though Compeyson still has a major role, it's never established that he's the same one who deserted Miss Havishham on her wedding night. 

    The BBC Dickens movies of the 2000s somehow took a dark, edgy turn, and the atmosphere of the Great Expectations one is one the darkest. The atmosphere is intentionally made gothic, nearly suggestive of a horror movie. And despite the darker moments in of Dickens, I still wouldn't call it that. 

    One a side note, the 1981 version sports what I consider the bet (meaning the most truly hateable) portrayals of Bentley Drummle, Pip's rival, played by Iian Ormsby-Knox. Much later, Mr. Omrsby-Knox and I became friends on facebook. When I asked if he was one who played Drummle, he acknowledged that, "I did, indeed!"