"...I deliver it to the printers tomorrow, first thing. At last done with the tyranny of deadlines and pages and word counts, in short, the sufferings and torments of those who are bound to the life of the pen..."
Charles Dickens has writer's block, a state of being brought on by the fact that his last book, Martin Chuzzlewit was a complete flop. His agent is on his back wanting to know where the magic's gone and his publishers have demanded that he write a new book by Christmas - indeed, to be published in time for the lucrative Christmas market, which is something that publishers still love to tap into today.
But it's already November, his house is full of distractions with a new born baby, five other children, three dogs, a cat, a wife who likes to get 'spendy' and go on shopping sprees, not to mention his own blood relatives hanging off his coat tails. It seems that everyone is depending on him for their bread and butter, yet his genius has left him and debt dogs at his heels.
Such is the opening of Mr Dickens and his Carol, a fantastic novel based on the life of Charles Dickens during the time when he wrote his most famous tale of all, the novella A Christmas Carol. With the creative wound of Chuzzlewit still bleeding and his rival William Thackery rubbing his nose in his failure, both in print reviews and in person at the gentlemen's club favoured by the Victorian Literati, Dickens is depressed, tired of the obligation to pen an income for others to feed off and convinced that he'll never write anything worth reading again. And if he isn't the celebrated author, who is he?
This novel perfectly illustrates how writers' identify themselves with the their work, with the opportunity to publish their work, and with the success or failure of that work. It makes a point of highlighting how difficult it is to live by one's pen, how precarious, how mercurial a writer's life is due to the constant highs and lows. The buzz of publication day fades in light of the first envious review; the elation of having finished a book and submitted it to the publisher is mitigated by the editor excitedly asking "What's next? Have you started it yet?When do you expect to finish it?" the gleam of money in their eyes. They can afford to be excited, because they're the ones on a salary. But for the writer in such a low paid, and sometimes unpaid profession, the only way to survive is to keep churning out the words as quickly as possible and just hope that they sell. Yet, to this day, being an author remains one of the most coveted jobs in the world, and I have to admit that nothing beats it when the writing is going well. It's certainly the best job I've ever had and I love being a writer, above all other things.
Dickens wrestles with all of this. Feeling that his public has turned against him, he has an identity crisis which impacts on his motivation to write. He questions his own talent, his former plot lines and wonders if maybe he shouldn't have killed off Dorritt after all, as perhaps his readers have refused to embrace Chuzzlewit by way of punishment? All this and more swirls around in his head as he walks the streets of London, looking for inspiration, for a muse, for an opening line, for the Christmas book that will save him and his publishers from bankruptcy and debt.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. In some ways it reminded me of the film The Man Who Invented Christmas, but this is a different story altogether. It is thick with Victorian, Dickensian atmosphere and you do feel like you're right there in the wintry fog of a London street, wandering with Mr Dickens around the publishing district of Clarkenwell, which is where one of my own publishers hail from. It is like taking a peep into the past and seeing the world through the eyes of one of England's most famous and prolific authors.
Mr Dickens and his Carol is the perfect book to snuggle up with this Christmas Eve and it definitely needs to be read at Christmas-time, with a steaming cup of mulled wine and a few roasted chestnuts to nibble on.
Have a blessed Yuletide
BB Marie x
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