The Year of Charles Dickens

Did you know that 2012 is the year of Charles Dickens? 

Dickens was born February 7, 1812, so this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth, a pretty big deal in literary circles as he is generally acknowledged as the greatest English novelist of the Victorian period. 

There are many celebrations planned commemorating his bicentennial, especially in London, but my library book club is planning our own little tribute to Mr. Dickens.

Our book club will read Great Expectations in a few months.  Why did we choose that particular Dickens novel?  Great Expectations is my favorite Dickens novel (I usually select the books for the book club), and it pairs up very nicely with Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.  You see, once a year the book club reads a classic novel paired up with another novel that derives from the classic in some way.

Great Expectations is Dickens at his best. Pip, an orphan, encounters escaped convict Abel Magwitch on the marshes of Kent.  He is then summoned to the house of Miss Havisham, an embittered old woman, abandoned on her wedding day, who seeks revenge through her beautiful but cold ward, Estella.

How Pip realizes his “great expectations” of fame and fortune, what he does with his fortune, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are all factors in his fight for moral salvation.  Some of Dickens’ most memorable characters live in the pages of this novel.

 Mister Pip relates the story of Tom Watts, the lone white man on a war-torn Pacific island, who volunteers as schoolmaster and begins reading Great Expectations to his students. The novel helps thirteen-year-old Matilda escape from the horrors of reality, even when the violence reaches her village. 

The story of Mister Pip proves relevant to the lives of Mr. Watts’ students just as books and reading affect the lives of all who read. 

There are other possible pairings of novels by Dickens with contemporary novels. You could link The Mystery of Edwin Drood with Matthew Pearl’s The Last Dickens or Dan Simmons’ Drood.  A great December pair would be A Christmas Carol and Louis Bayard’s Mr. Timothy, featuring the character of Timothy Cratchit as an adult.

Celebrate Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday by reading one of his books.  If you haven’t read a Dickens novel yet, try one. You won’t regret it – Dickens is truly a literary master.