Claire Tomalin. Charles Dickens: A Life.
New York: The Penguin Press. 2011.
As Reviewed by Ted Odenwald
Claire Tomalin has written an outstanding biography of Charles Dickens, published for the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Britain’s greatest 19th-century novelist. Her meticulously researched and documented study explores Dickens’ strengths and weaknesses, presenting opposing sides of controversial issues, and speculating on probable truths based upon extant evidence–both concrete and circumstantial.
Dickens would undoubtedly be pleased to know that he is still highly regarded for his novels, his journalism, his philanthropy, and his efforts at social reform. He would be much less pleased to know how much is known about the less flattering side of his character: his betrayal of his wife, his heartless dismissal of family and friends, his philandering, his unethical dealings with publishers, and his obsession with money.
Tomalin clearly recognizes that Dickens was a complex character—much too complex to label and “pigeon-hole.” “He left a trail like a meteor and everyone finds their own version of [him].” She details episodes revealing him to be “…a child-victim,” an “impressibly ambitious young man,” a “demonic worker,” a “tireless walker,” a “radical,” a philanthropist who cared for orphans and “lost women,” a bad husband and a secret lover. Most importantly for readers, he was a keen observer, who “…set nineteenth century London before our eyes and …noticed and celebrated the small people living on the margins of society.”
Tomalin examines what is known of Dickens’ childhood—a tumultuous, traumatic period in which his financially hapless father was thrown into debtor’s prison, his family was forced to live in squalor, and the future author was forced to abandon his education and earn insignificant wages in a bootblacking factory. The upside of these hardships was that he met all kinds of characters and observed all types of environments—all creating images which were implanted in his gifted young mind: “The landscapes and towns of Kent gave him settings for many of his books…the pattern, structure, and setting of human lives was the stuff of his books, and he saw the structure and pattern of his own life as closely related to place.” All of the financial issues and pressures that affected his family appeared repeatedly in his works. Young Dickens was appalled by his family’s willingness to remove him from school, putting him in a demeaning menial labor situation—while continuing to support his older, musically gifted sister. He felt “utterly neglected and helpless…My whole nature was penetrated with grief and humiliation.” These strong feelings worked their way into his characters’ situations and personalities; many key figures in his novels were vulnerable, suffering, and abused.
Dickens’ work ethic was almost superhuman. His primary occupation for years was journalistic writing, editing, and eventually, publishing. While writing and editing articles, he was also struggling to meet deadlines for the serialized novels which he was composing. In fact, at one point, he was writing two novels at the same time. In addition to these efforts, he felt a strong calling to perform on stage. Warm receptions of his performances led him to several ventures that added demands and pressures to his already imposing schedule. He eventually created a one-man performance in which he toured nationally and internationally, reading selections from his novels—energetic work that became a major source of revenue for him.
Dickens’ generosity was legendary. Working with a wealthy heiress, he established several charitable organizations, most notably, a home to help women who were in danger of disappearing into the seedy worlds of homelessness and prostitution. This “home” was designed to pull the women off of the streets and prepare them for immigration to England’s colonies, where they could begin new lives. Additionally, he often went to the aid of families who had suffered tragic losses—he would pay funeral expenses, and set up funds to provide sustenance for them. He frequently assisted friends and family members who had gotten themselves in financial difficulties.
Unfortunately, all of his endeavors were not so positive. Tomalin reports that he deserted his wife of more than 20 years—after she had borne him 10 children. The abandonment was bad enough, but he actually wrote articles libeling her character. He likewise turned savagely against his in-laws and any of his friends or family who would not condone his behavior. He even turned his wife’s sister against her; the sister clearly worshiped Dickens, and appears to have sought a romantic relationship with the author. Dickens took as a mistress a woman nearly 25 years his minor; his maneuvers to win her included providing acting roles for the girl, her sister, and her mother. He also had a reputation for reneging on contractual agreements when he felt that he could squeeze more money out of his publishers or make more profitable arrangements elsewhere. In this way, he betrayed publishers greatly responsible for his renown. Although he had a successful reading tour in America, he proved ungrateful, writing bitter critiques in one of his novels; he hated the “corrupt newspapers, violence, slavery, spitting, boastfulness and self-righteousness, obsession with business and money; greedy, graceless eating; hypocrisy about supposed equality, the crude lionizing of visitors.”
Dickens’ friend, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevski, made some astute observations about his British counterpart: “…the good, simple people in his novels…are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was (or rather, what he found in himself), his cruelty, his attacks of causeless enmity towards those who were helpless and looked to him for comfort, his shrinking from those he ought to love, being used up in what he wrote.” The lasting portrait that this book presents is a mixture of unbridled admiration for a great artist; but there is also a sense of tragedy in the story of a great man who had lost his moral compass.
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 40 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.