Lente 2006 no. 56
The Dt
This presence-of-a-jester is just as well
required, in another enterprise where there is
little room for subjectivity: in government.
Thus, we find a jester in a royal court, in
Hamlet, and we find him in a ducal court, in
Verdi's Rigoletto.
Presence of a clown is required in the circus and
at court, because, by commenting, the clown
adds: -nothing short of- "human soul in its
actuality". In its simplest form, such a comment
may consist in not more than a remark, a
gesture, or a sudden change in a projected
movement, or in a shift in the bodily attitude;
but already then it is: an expressive comment by
a complete soul.
So on the stage, and in Dickens's novels, from
the first pages of Pickwick onward, where
Pickwick is decried as "a humbug een
bromvlieg]", we see people constantly
commenting each other's person. In góód
drama it is the second, equally important,
thread with which the yarn, that runs from
begin to end, is twined. Actors do all sorts of
things, partly right, partly wrong, but it is the
souls who constantly say: "I hate you", or "I love
you", "I confront you", or "I fear you", that bring
life to the drama. What happens, then, is: that,
with great effect, one soul lights a special spot
light on the stage and sheds it on another
person, a powerful addition to the glare of the
lime-light.
In "slapstick"-Pickwick, Dickens starts off with
a load of gentle sarcasm as comment, but soon
he overcomes that one-sidedness and comes up
with an enormous array of comments including
much heartfelt positive comment, as
exemplified in the mass of Christmas-stories.
My impression is that Dickens's base rate is: a
positive/negative ratio of 50/50, and that only
"special circumstances" make him alter that
percentage. If true, this may have been part of
the liveliness of the dialogues and of the stories-
as-a-whole.
Next. In Pickwick he also introduces common
people, like the Weller's, "right as they are".
And every reader will like what they say, what
they think and what they do; every reader will
like their persons. Testimonies on Pickwick's
reception tell how much Sam Weller
contributed to its success. But the most striking
thing about Sam Weller to me, more striking
than that he was a common young man, and
that no reader could resist liking him, is that
Dickens treated the adventures of Pickwick and
of his man-servant Sam not only together, but
also apart. Dickens recognized that Sam had
also a life of his own -a sign that a new
historical period was arriving.
This attention for the individual human being
goes very far. In Oliver it concerns a poor
elementary-school-age child, in Barnabv even a
very retarded youngster having attained the
normal age for maturity. (If there is one
character, and if there is one book that
conquered me for Charles Dickens, it is
Barnaby). Destitute people are followed by
Dickens even unbearably long. And he also
admits to his tales many neurotics and many
people who are clearly, be-it sometimes
temporarily, insane.
(I cannot resist the temptation to mention that
more than one "salon"-critic calls this attention
of C.D. for what is not middle-of-the-road:
"perverse"!)
Next: in Oliver Twist: he introduces provocation
of overpowering strong sentiment for or against
characters. The appearance of Oliver happens to
coincide with Carlyle's rhetorical French
Revolution, also overflowing with strong
sentiment.
-Horror, as introduced earlier by some other
authors in gothic novels, psychologically, offers
a better chance of overpowering people, but -
technically- it is veiy hard to achieve-the-
necessary-credibility by means of writing.
Dickens must have been aware of this, because
it were the horror-scenes from Oliver that he
most liked to perform on his reading tours
(later-on), as if to save them from missing their
target. (In these reading-tours-as-such I like to
see a confirmation for the view that a Dickens-
text requires emphasis.)
In addition I would like to point at a last,
mediatic phenomenon that also brings his
characters very near to us:
Because Dickens's novels were written in
installments, plotted intrigues could not have
great importance, but, instead, the public is
increasingly beset by burning questions: "All
those things I know by now, and about which I
am so worried.... -will the good characters
finally reach safety, and will the evil ones be
eliminated in time?". This lends to the tale not a
sense of paralysing tension -as cliff-hanging
does-, but it does lend a strong sense of destiny,
one that made the public fètch the next
installment, each time again. They did so,
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