Difficulties with Dickens
De Annual Conference 1999, die in York gehouden werd, werd besloten met een
"Celebrated Evening" (wat ik geneigd zou zijn te vertalen als "bonte avond", ware het niet
dat die vertaling niet hetzelfde niveau uitademt). Op die avond heb ik de aanwezigen verteld
over een aspect van het leven als Dickensians in Holland, een bijdrage die door de coördinator
van die avond werd getiteld "Difficulities with Dickens". Hieronder vindt u de tekst van die
bijdrage; de tekst staat niet in "the Queen's English", maar in mijn persoonlijke versie
("international English").
Paul Ferdinandusse.
Dear Dickensians,
My name is Paul Ferdinandusse, I belong to the Haarlem Branch in Holland. As I was afraid
that we would have too much light entertainment tonight, I have chosen a more serious
subject; I will tell you about a difficulty with Dickens which we have in Holland.
The Haarlem Branch exists for more than 40 years, and one of its long traditions is that our
summer meeting is not held at our usual place near Haarlem, but somewhere else in the
country, each year at a different place, and that has to be a place of Dickensian interest, or
as I shall say for short: a place of D.I.
Finding places of D.I. may be easy if you live in England, but it is very different if you live in
Holland, on account of the fact that Dickens never visited our country, as far as we know, at
the present moment. There is a lively debate about that in our Branch, but I will not go into
that now.
Finding a place of D.I. in our country is, well let's not say a difficidty, let's say a challenge.
Tonight I will tell you how we deal with that challenge.
In general there are two ways: either you can find a place of D.I.or you can make one
yourself. Let me give you an example of each.
First an example offinding a place of D.I.In the Dutch town Dordrecht we have a museum
with paintings by Ary Scheffer. Scheffer was a Dutch painter in the nineteenth century, who
livedfor a long time in Paris, where he made a portrait of Dickens. Unfortunately that
painting is not in our country. Nevertheless, we visit the museum and we look at a portrait by
Scheffer - for instance - a young girl. We stand there looking at a beautifull young girl and
we think of Dickens. We are happy to know that she was painted by the same hand that
painted Dickens.
Now an example of making a place of D.I.Many years ago our Branch received the Charter
of the Fellowship, you know the big yellow paper Charter. Our Charter was framed and it is
hanging at the wall of a pub, somewhere in the countryside near Haarlem. Now I don't know
if this was what the Fellowship had in mind when the Charter was given to us, but I hope that
now you understand andforgive us, as this pub has been a place of D.I. for many years.
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