Ale and Alienation: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte
‘I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham—but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life,—or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it;—I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe;—and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.’
Granted;—but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant—taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?’
‘Assuredly not.’
‘Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation;—and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation,—and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity,—whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed—’
‘Heaven forbid that I should think so!’ I interrupted her at last.
‘Well, then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished—his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself;—and as for my son—if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world—one that has “seen life,” and glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it as to sober down, at length, into a useful and respected member of society—I would rather that he died to-morrow!—rather a thousand times!’ she earnestly repeated, pressing her darling to her side and kissing his forehead with intense affection. He had already left his new companion, and been standing for some time beside his mother’s knee, looking up into her face, and listening in silent wonder to her incomprehensible discourse.
Anne Bronte was the third, and least known of the writing Bronte Sisters, and yet I was much more gripped by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall than by either WutheringHeights (see last month's Book post) or Jane Eyre (see the month before that). Heathcliff and Rochester are gripping characters, but hard to relate to, with weird personal histories and boxes in their closets that you don't want to see opened. Anne Bronte's protagonist "Mrs. Graham" is as real and relatable as they come.
Over the past few years, I have heard both on line and in my professional life, countless true accounts of women fleeing abusive relationships and terrified that their dangerous partner will find them. Wildfell Hall's mysterious new tenant could be any of them, with the distinction that she lives in a time when wives were chattels and husbands were allowed to rape them, abuse them, have them confined for "willfulness" and take custody of minor children without so much as a court order.
Further, the story is narrated by a well-meaning man who doesn't know Mrs. Graham or her backstory, wants to court her like a true gentleman, and is hurt and bewildered at her understandable reluctance to be involved with a man ever again. And so we get to see a mostly positive role model in a man who respects a woman's boundaries whether he understands them or not. It is too bad that the rest of the village is not the same.
Later chapters about the husband and his horrible friends blame alcoholism for his descent into abuse and the destruction of his marriage to someone he claims to love. Seems to me, if the toxic sense of entitlement wasn't there to begin with, alcohol would not bring it out. The tale gets a little bit preachy about temperance, but when it also preaches feminist ideas that we take for granted today, it makes up for it. Mrs. Graham is a badass, and someone I would have wanted to be friends with. Very high recommendations.
Cheerful Stuff: Fear and Trembling, and The Sickness Unto Death, by Soren Kierkegaard
Silently he laid the wood in order, he bound Isaac, in silence he drew the knife---then he saw the ram which God had prepared. Then he offered that and went home...From that time on, Abraham became old; he could not forget that God had required this of him. Isaac throve as before, but Abraham's eyes were darkened, and he knew joy no more.
--from Fear and Trembling
These are probably Kierkegaard's most popular works among English-speaking readers. They are stand-alone, brief, and easily understood. Fear and Trembling was included in the second edition of the Great Books set. What is hard to understand is how these books can be called an exhortation by a religious man to a religious life; they did a great deal to convince me that taking religion seriously would make anyone miserable. Far better to think of death as like going to sleep and never waking up, nor being conscious enough to agonize about eternal voids; or possibly reincarnation as a new life form due to the conservation of life-energy. Much better than being at the eternal mercy of a being so powerful that it has never once been unable to gratify its every whim, and that is capable of infinite cruelty to the helpless.
Fear and Trembling is an emo consideration of the biblical myth where Abraham, getting on in years, finally has the son he has longed for; God commands him to kill the child; Abraham prepares to do so with barely a murmur, and then God goes "Just kidding. I was testing your faith." The myth is horrible on many levels; it is hard to find a decent ethical lesson or role model anywhere in it, and Kierkegaard knows this. He tells us that it raises a philosophical question as to whether there is a "teleological suspension of the ethical" (fancy philosopher-speak for "What if God tells you to do something monstrous?"), and whether one has an absolute duty to "God". Kierkegaard rightly concludes that the answer is no, and that the legendary patriarch of the Jews was a monster at that moment, especially as he did not so much as talk it over with friends or family first.
The sickness Unto Death is even less cheerful, and I'm afraid I was completely unable to take the theological/emotional message seriously, as I read it in Sam the Eagle's voice: "Class, we are now going to discuss a very important topic at length, and that topic is DESPAIR." You are in the despair of weakness if you do not will to be who you are. You are in the despair of defiance if you do will to be who you are. You cannot win nor break even nor quit. (fortunately, the third way of being in despair, which is to reject the Bible-based dichotomy in the first place, which is my option, is dismissed in a few paragraphs as the most contemptible, least worthy option of all, comparable to a filthy peasant asserting that the King does not exist, and is not really mentioned otherwise, and so it was easy for me to just roll my eyes at the despairs that came after, because none of them seemed to apply to me, not at all.
Worth the read if you're at all interested in Kierkegaard; otherwise, if you're an atheo skeptic like me, it won't have much to offer.
The 19th Century Murders: Slaves of Obsession; Funeral in Blue; Death of a Stranger, by Anne Perry. Dead Water, by Barbara Hambly. The Twisted Wire, by Richard Falkirk. Whom the Gods Love, by Kate Ross
The tailor measured him for some sporting garments for the autumn and made yet another attempt to persuade him to pad his coats. "The very latesst fashions, Mr. Kestrel!" he pleaded.
"My dear man, if I followed the fashions, I should lose my power to lead them. And not for you nor anyone else will I consent to look like a pincushion with legs."
"Of course I didn't mean to imply you need it, sir. Not like that Mr. DeWitt." The tailor was not above disparaging one dandy to another. "He's the one that would benefit from some padding here and there."
"DeWitt's thinness suits him. He looks like an elongated sneer."
--from Whom the Gods Love
Her voice rose even more shrilly as her outrage drove her on. "Yes, it is! You are selling guns to people who keep slaves, and they are at war with their countrymen who want to prevent that and set the slaves free." She flung her arm out furiously. "Money! It's all about money, and it's pure evil! I don't know how you, my own father, can even try to justify it, let alone be part of it. You are selling death to people who will use it in the worst possible cause!"
--from Slaves of Obsession
"Perhaps," the customs official said, "you would be good enough to open your suitcase for me."
Bartlett said, "Very well." He found his keys in his trouser pocket and opened the suitcase that was even older than his briefcase. He looked at his shirts and underclothes, his papers and his geologists' tools. "I don't think you need examine them too closely," he said. "Someone already has."
--from The Twisted Wire
January watched Granville's eyes, counting the seconds of silence before the banker replied. An immediate "Of course, that goes without saying" would have been his signal to renege at once and to get Hubert Granville the hell out of his parlor as quickly as he could. A reply that unthinking meant that Granville had no intention of laying out as much as ten cents to purchase his freedom, much less the fourteen hundred dollars a prime cotton-hand, six feet three inches tall and massively built, would fetch on the open market.
--from Dead Water
Kate Ross, who I just discovered this year, is now my favorite regency mystery writer, and Whom the Gods Love hits it out of the park once again. In this one, Kestrel (who after two previous mysteries has a sleuthing reputation) is hired by the grieving father of a golden only son, whom everybody loved, who was tragically found bludgeoned to death in his study. The father begs Kestrel for answers and, unfortunately for the father, Kestrel finds them. Many mysteries lose the tragic, human element in favor of the puzzle. Ross's third novel has all of the puzzle but is heart-wrenchingly emotional as well. Very highest recommendations.
Anne Perry is emotional too, and comes with the usual warnings, since so many of her books involve torture or child sex abuse or something equally disturbing as a motive for murder. Also, I usually find myself clamoring for reform right along with Perry, but by God, when I don't, it's almost impossible to read. Slaves of Obsession, for example, is about American slavers vs. abolitionists, and the main characters we are to identify with take the position that the Civil War is an unfortunate business but that the Union is a bunch of hypocrites to talk about valuing freedom when they're not willing to let white slave-holders be "free" to do their own thing and keep people as things. (I mean, WTF?). The victim is an English arms dealer who of course will sell guns to the South so that they can "defend themselves" against the oppressive northerners who won't give them the freedom to own people, and the abolitionist who is the main suspect is of course portrayed as a wild-eyed fanatic and a coward at heart. Very disappointing. Funeral in Blue treats gambling addiction as a much more serious problem than the keeping of slaves, and Death of a Stranger requires content warnings about the abuse of sex workers in the seedy neighborhoods of Victorian London, as well as a gruesome railroad accident that uses the arc plot of Monk's lost memory as a plot device in the best way since the first book in the series. Well recommended for people who can handle stories with a lot of emotional pain.
I was told that Richard Falkirk wrote regency mysteries featuring a Bow Street Runner named Blackstone. However, the only novel by Falkirk available in either library in my area was The Twisted Wire, a poorly written impression of an Eric Ambler thriller set not long after the 1967 Israeli war, involving an inoffensive geologist who finds spies from four nations shooting at him because of some crossed wires during the President's phone call, and has no idea why. not 19th century, and not easy to take seriously.
This month's Barbara Hambly/Benjamin January mystery involves Ben going undercover once again and facing the danger of being stolen and sold as property should the mission go "down the river". The main murder takes place on a passenger river boat where the map of the staterooms and who was in position to see what at crucial times is important.
A is for Awesome: The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded by an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
Like a lot of Americans, I was assigned to read in school Hawthorne's richly thematic morality tale about the unperturbed woman who wears her red badge of slut-shaming as a glorious honorific, and thrives, and of partner in "sin" who hides his equal and opposite mark out of sight, and shrivels. Like many, I had the bright rose blooming among the dead weeds by the jailhouse door, and dozens of other ham-fisted symbols, thrust to my attention, and didn't think highly of them at the time.
Seems to me, The Scarlet Letter is worth a second look as an adult, at which time it may have things to say that people missed when they were 16.
For one thing, Hester Prynne is not the protagonist. For all the author's clear sympathy for her over the puritan busybodies who try to ostracize her, she is clearly "the other", seen through other's eyes, never illuminated from within. Because she wears her letter proudly for all to see, she is reduced to a plot device to be experienced by others, as a thriving and unbroken challenge to others, who looks social and divine convention in the eye and takes it at face value, leaving the reader to detect the subtle sarcasm. Her fae child, Pearl, is similarly seen from without.
As is usual, the main men get the attention. Dimmesdale, pursued by the vengeful giant hedgehog of his conscience because he hasn't been man enough to stand up next to the woman he wronged, has palpable inner torment you can feel. Similarly, Chillingworth in the ambiguous role of judgmental angel who is also the devil, has a single-minded hatred one can feel as if his famously burning eyes are looking into you. But what of Hester? she may be closer to whatever higher power there may be than any of her pious countryfolk, but she isn't saying.
Sometimes it seems to me that America has been a sick society from the very first day, torn between the spirit of independence and the Calvinistic craving to thrust one's nose into other people's conduct and pass judgment. Almost all of Hawthorne's work, some of the first long fiction ever written in America, personifies that tendency.
Pink Freud: The White Hotel, by DM Thomas
There is a saying that "Love is a homesickness"; and whenever a man dreams of a place or a country and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: "This place is familiar to me, I've been here before", we may interpret the place as being his mothers genitals or her body. All who have hitherto, in a learning capacity, had the opportunity to read Frau Anna's journal have had that feeling. The "white hotel" is known to them, it is the body of their mother.
CN for sexual content and for graphic descriptions of holocaust horrors. Thomas apparently took an existing case history from Freud's files, and extrapolated a fictional life, complete with childhood trauma, of the patient.
The story is told in the form of the protagonist's journal and erotic poetry, Freud's real and fictional treatment notes, and third person narrative. The effect is sexually shocking, moving, and ultimately horrifying. The abrupt shattering of the characters' lives by Nazism shows up--as it likely did for most of the real victims--in a "rocks fall out of the sky and everyone dies" sort of way.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrel: Flashman, by George MacDonald Fraser
Let me say that when I talk of disasters I speak with authority. I have served at Balaclava, Cawnpore, and Little Big Horn. Name the biggest fools who wore uniform in the nineteenth century--Cardigan, Sale, Custer, Raglan, Lucan--I knew them all. Think of all the conceivable misfortunes that can arise from combinations of folly, cowardice, and sheer bad luck, and I'll give you chapter and verse. But I still state unhesitatingly that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment--in short, for the true talent for catastrophe--Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day. Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such a ruinous defeat. It was not easy; he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganised enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision and out of order wrought complete chaos.
This is why I read Tom Brown's School Days last month: Fraser took the school bully from a famous childrens' novel, and ran with it over the course of a dozen or so volumes to give the military history of the Victorian era as seen by a swaggering English bully, cheater, rapist and coward, who somehow manages to come through a thousand deadly situations, quaking and farting with terror the whole time, not only alive but covered with unearned praise and honors, the pride of all England.
This is not for everybody. He bullies lower classes and ranks, especially those with more merit than himself. He rapes. He is unrepentant and partly redeemed only by his honesty in writing his memoirs, and a few skills like languages and horsemanship. And you are meant to grudgingly admire him, in a Dallas/House of Cards sort of way. If that description makes you reach for your ass-kicking boots, then you will hate this series.
Me, I read and mostly enjoy it for the same reasons I read and mostly enjoy Game of Thrones, with the distinction that I am reading about real battles in real parts of the world, and while Flashman is a first-class rotter, he is not the only one, and is not shy about revealing what is likely true about real first-class rotters from history. Highly recommended for some, but not for all.
The Ethics of Physics: Force and Matter, by Ludwig Buchner
The oldest human bones and human skulls, dug out of the very bowels of the earth, exhibit for the most part rough and undeveloped forms, far exceeding, in their resemblance to the brute, the most brute-like of existing races of men, and yet it must be remembered that these fossils belong to periods much further removed from the real genesis of man than the time in which they were deposited or buried is from the age we live in.
I was glad to see a major work of philosophy by a natural scientist who does not concentrate on weird metaphysical theories, but who begins with a scientific hypothesis--"There is no matter with out force, and no force without matter", and springs that into an attempt to disprove the existence of a God (by denying that there could have been an initial creation); many examples of biology around the world (including CN for racist assumptions about the biological superiority of white European people), a denial of differences between organic and inorganic matter, and a denial of the existence of innate ideas.
Meanwhile, in Java: Max Havelaar, by "Multatuli"
The Resident of Bantam introduced the Regent and the Controleur to the new Assistant Resident. Havelaar greeted both officials courteously. With a few cordial words he put the Controleur at his ease--there is always something painful in meeting a new chief--as though he wanted at once to establish a kind of intimacy which would make subsequent relations between them easier, His meeting with the Regent wassuch as was befitting in the case of one entitled to the golden payong, but who was at the same time his 'younger brother.'
Uncle tom's Cabin and The Jungle are famous American novels that changed public policy by their depiction via fictionalization of conditions that needed changing (slavery, labor abuse in the meat packing industry), did their job, and are less well-read today. Max Havelaar is a novel in that category, except that it is 19th Century, Dutch, and set in Colonial Java. If it rings familiar, it is because 19th century Colonial India under the British was presented similarly. Java was more isolated, and suffered more under such conditions as when Colonial overlords displaced staple cropland to set up coffee and sugar plantations such that the native peoples starved. The main narrator is satirically styled and frequently digresses into such things as satiric poetry or a wildly varied table of contents for a fictional series of essays similar to those written in the era. Primarily recommended for historical reasons.
The Climax of Aubrey/Maturin: The Thirteen Gun Salute; The Nutmeg of Consolation; The Truelove, by Patrick O'Brian
"Jack, I cannot tell you how i long to see a platypus."
"I remember you spoke of it last time we were there."
"A damnable, hellish time it was too, upon my soul. frowned upon by the soldiers, scarcely allowed to set a foot on land, hurried away with almost no stores and nothing but a well-known and commonplace little parakeet--oh, it was shameful. New Holland is gravely in my debt."
"Never mind. It will be much better this time. You shall watch great flights of platypuses at your leisure."
"My dear, they are mammals, furry animals."
"I thought you said they laid eggs."
"So they do. That is what is so delightful. They also have bills like a duck."
"No wonder you long to see one."
--from The Nutmeg of Consolation
Patrick O'Brian's series continues to get better as the main arc plot begins to curve towards the end, with the issues of Jack's reinstatement and the fates of the major villains decided, as well as the usual naval battles, exotic locations, delightful blending of erudite conversation and coarse sailor language, and other culture shock. I've been gushing about this wonderful, wonderful series for months now, and there are arc plot spoilers this late in the series, so I'm brief now. Just read it. If you have yet to have a first reading, you're as lucky as Jack Aubrey.
Words' worth: The Story of English, by Robert McCrumb, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil
A decline in American power might encourage a country like Singapore, whose children are bilingual in Mandarin and English, to switch its support to Mandarin as the medium of Far East Asian business. And then there is the "x factor" of technological change. Will computerized translation machines finally overthrow the myth of Babel? When we look into the dark crystal of predictions about language, we find the words of TS Eliot: "For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice."
This little gem, that looks and reads like a school textbook, complete with maps and a large number of photos and illustrations, is apparently a book version of a TV series from the 1980s, about the development of the English language and its spread from a once insignificant island northwest of Europe to cover the world. It deals with many parts of the world and many portions of history, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to the dialects of the British Isles, class differences, the American frontier, the Australian frontier, India, south Africa, and contributions from indigenous cultures around the world, culminating in questions as to what may happen when various peoples adopt new and different languages out of English.
Since the theme of the book is the fluid way in which English constantly changes, I found it amusing that the book takes us from early Anglo-Norman all the way to the "present" of the mid 1980s, when Valley Girl speak and Bob Marley's "Island English" were considered the cutting edge. A good, easy and thought provoking read; high recommendations. And yes, that's the same Robert MacNeil who hosted the News hour on PBS at the time.
Baw-awl-zac: The Country Doctor; Albert Savarus; A Passion in the Desert, by Honore de Balzac
Childhood in its simplicity knows nothing of the perils of life; youth sees both its vastness and its difficulties, and at the prospect the courage of youth sometimes flags. We are still serving our apprenticeship to life; we are new to the business, a kind of faint-heartedness overpowers us, and leaves us in an almost dazed condition of mind. We feel that we are helpless aliens in a strange country. At all ages we shrink back involuntarily from the unknown. And a young man is very much like the soldier who will walk up to the cannon's mouth, and is put to flight by a ghost. He hesitates among the maxims of the world. The rules of attack and self-defense are unknown to him; he can neither give nor take; he is attracted by women and stands in awe of them; his very good qualities tell against him, he is generosity and modesty and completely innocent of mercenary designs. Pleasure and not interest is his object when he tells a lie; and among many dubious courses, the conscience, with which he as yet has not juggled, points out to him the right way, which he is slow to take.
--from The Country Doctor
Sure, Chaucer and Rabelais are occasionally bawdy, but deep into the major works of Balzac, I have yet to find anything of comparable prurience with the wife of Bath or Panurge. Seems to me, Balzac was given a raw deal by the ladies of River City.
"The Country Doctor", for example, is almost pastoral in its rustic goodness, in which a forgotten hero from the Napoleonic wars spends much time making rounds and hearing stories and philosophy from a doctor who is the most loved person in the provinces for his care to the less fortunate. "Albert Saverus" is a similar story about a good lawyer who is caught up in politics and refuses to do the unethical thing to get elected.
"A Passion in the Desert", however, I can see how uptight people might find problems with its sensual (not bestial) tale of the odd understanding and companionship that develop between a man lost in the desert and the desert panther that saves his live. She is wild. She is a "man eater." She could tear his heart to pieces if she wanted to, and yet she chooses to purr and to let him scritch her belly. A small masterpiece, and very highly recommended.
Very 'Umble Persons: David Coperfield, by Charles Dikkens
I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor(in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise.
"Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?" said my aunt.
Ah, Dickens! A man on everybody's top ten list of greatest British 19th century authors, number one on a lot of lists, and frequently listed among the top ten authors of all time. And David Copperfield is on all the top ten lists of Dickens novels, often vying with Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities for the number one spot, and therefore guaranteeing that the three together are the most likely Dickens books to be thrust on American school children too young to appreciate them and therefore making them despised by people who grow up to love Lawyers Suck (Bleak House). Business Sucks (Hard Times) The Royal Shakespeare Company is an International Treasure (Nicholas Nickleby) and Wait--You Mean Fagin ISN'T A Lovable Old Buffoon After All? (Oliver Twist). I hated the Dickens "Big Three" in my youth too, and then went back later to give them a second look and found they were better than I remembered.
The genius of Dickens novels is the supporting cast. All of the plots meander into and out of strange places; most or all of the protagonists are colorless everymen who are used mainly as devices to connect the secondary characters (and Copperfield is no exception, even though he in particular is supposed to be a stand-in for the youthful Dickens himself), and the themes and morals are about as controversial these days as those of the average Disney movie, despite the existence of Republican assholes who will insist on calling Dickens "controversial" and argue that, for example, Ebeneezer Scrooge is a good guy until the rotten old Socialist ghosts turn him into a woolly liberal.
But oh, those supporting characters! In David Copperfield, we get such household names as the odious Murdstones, the formidable Aunt Betsy, the willing Barkis, the delightful Tommy Traddles, the insipid Dora, and the practical, awesome Agnes Wickfield. But even they pale beside three characters who utterly, utterly dominate the novel: Steerforth, Micawber and Uriah Heep.
Steerforth is Copperfield's morally ambiguous childhood friend. He is very witty and charming, but turns out to have feet of clay, thoughtlessly causing harm to others. Micawber is also witty and charming while obliviously unworldly and optimistic, letting his dependents become endangered by his mounting debts as he hopes that "something will turn up", and yet is portrayed as unambiguously a good man.
And then there's Uriah Heep, whose first appearance I chose for my representative quote. Heep is a prime example of Dickens's talent for creating epic characters. Look closely at his actions for most of the book, and there's not much to find fault with. He simply does what modern Americans who read Horatio Alger are taught to do. He comes from humble origins, knows his place, and strives to better himself by becoming indispensible to his employer. And yet, everything about him is creepy, from his intense stares to his oily handshake to the cringing servility and contemptible smallness under which he hides his ambition. The ability to make something larger than life out of one so small is what makes Dickens deservedly one of the great authors of western civilization. Highly recommended.