FURTHER THOUGHTS ON DICKENS

In the construction by Dickens of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barbary Rudge, as in Nicholas Nickelby, the spaciousness of the times made available for details that are today passed over as 'mere description' and skipped over by students eagerly seeking some underlying theory or psychological insight. Those details, in the age of print, were the Reader's senses: his sight, his smell, his absolute peculiarity. Dickens could and did invent characters by the hundreds. They delighted in and of themselves. Contained in a half-dozen sub-plots, they were no driving force to the plot. But when he needed them, there they were, ready to provide a vital refuge, a new twist. Literature was not then fast food. It was an expansive culture and believed firmly in reality. But also in humor and pathos. Dickens' Society for the Improvement of Everything we live in now.