Competition No. 2526: Mixed messages
You are invited to submit a newspaper article from the health pages which reveals that something previously thought to be bad for you has been found to boost longevity. Maximum 150 words. Entries to ‘Competition 2526’ by 2 January or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
In Competition No. 2523 you were invited to submit a review of one of Charles Dickens’s novels written by a character from another Dickens novel. The most frequently occurring bylines by far were those of Ebenezer Scrooge, Gradgrind, Wilkins Micawber and Alfred Jingle. I couldn’t read the Jingle entries without hearing the voices of Ken and Kenneth, the ‘Suits you, Sir’ tailors from The Fast Show, and I wondered whether their creator Paul Whitehouse was inspired by Dickens’s wandering rascal.
There was some impressively relentless punning in John O’Byrne entry, which saw Mme Defarge let loose on Oliver Twist. Here’s a taste: ‘I have read this yarn, combed through it. It seams a loose knit. The characters I have seen before threading the streets of Paris…’. I also liked Bill Greenwell’s Rogue Riderhood on Great Expectations. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. The bonus fiver goes to Noel Petty.
My first impressions of this book were favourable. Mr Dickens has disburdened himself of the foolish pseudonym B*z (I can scarcely write it) and has certainly applied himself, as evidenced by his producing 360,746 words (counting hyphenated word-pairs as one) within a year of that former frivolous effort. Moreover, I was encouraged by the first page, indicating that the book concerned the proceedings of a learned society, beginning with a paper containing ‘Some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats.’ Alas, what a falling-off thereafter! Neither that paper nor any other receives further mention. What follows is a tissue of nonsense, such feeble thread of narrative as there is being largely based on misunderstandings. Something I found particularly disagreeable was a character, one Weller, speaking exclusively in grammatical solecisms, the intention apparently being humorous. It is not. I am resolved to avoid first impressions in future.
Noel Petty/Gradgrind on The Pickwick Papers
Ah, had great expectations, titular in fact, but disappointed, sir. Very. Hard times more apt, ha! ha! Fine setting wasted — marshes, not the Kent which everyone knows, sir — apples, cherries, hops and women — but these women, eh — shocking, shocking — Mrs Joe Gargery, ticklish — Estella, cruel charmer, calls the knaves Jacks, indeed. And woman in white — Havisham — rum old girl — strange story — jilted on wedding day — bitter. Very.
Ignore biographical fallacy — links to author’s life indubitable — late novel, sir — author sadder and wiser – wife chucked — nine children achieving nothing — haughty young mistress — name like Estella — lets own sad middle age affect story — no fun — unwholesome. Very.
Ambiguous ending — won’t do — un-Dickensian — stick to Pickwick, sir — Dingley Dell and spirit of Christmas past — pre-Railway Age — coaching Inns – villains, comic villains — no-one hurt — all’s well that ends well — spinsters rescued — elopements foiled.
Simon Machin/Mr Jingle on Great Expectations
Mr Dickens is venerated as an author of boundless eloquence and imagination, and incomparable orotundity. As but an humble architect, I till only the lowliest slopes of Parnassus. When I pause from my toil and raise my eyes to the heights, I hope to be dazzled by the radiance of genius glorifying human morality. It is to be lamented, therefore, that in The Pickwick Papers Mr Dickens illuminates mankind with no more than the light of a guttering candle. This is no novel, it is a ragbag of unseemly incidents. The protagonist — I will not say hero — trifles with the virtue of not one but two ladies. His servant, an unregenerate reprobate, has as little grasp of moral propriety as he has of pronunciation of the Queen’s English. In short, I should never let this book sully the chaste hands of my daughters. I say no more.
W.J. Webster/Mr Pecksniff on The Pickwick Papers
I venture to say, please Heaven, that I have had more acquaintance with this disputacious subject than many a reviewer more qualified by virtue of education, and so my modest contribution in disseminating it to a wide and generous audience will not come amiss. That the bringing up of the young Gradgrinds is an expensive business I can vouch for; that statistics and accounts are the sorry foundation for the ricketty habitation that is human happiness, I own; that Bounderby is a scoundrel and Harthouse an unprincipled rogue — alas, these are facts, and I am sorry for it; that Louisa’s poor heart should be wrenched is a difficulty so pressing I can barely hold my pen, and can only pray that something will turn up. But that young Tom should rob a bank — that is dreadful. Annual income honestly come by, result happiness; annual income dishonestly come by, result misery.
D.A. Prince/Wilkins Micawber on Hard Times
It is as well that Mr Dickens’ gifts include the facility to make the reader experience that sweetness and light which we understand to be the most uplifting and humanising quality of true literature, for in A Tale of Two Cities he has perforce touched upon some of the most hideous and brutal episodes of the past century. We might say that the tumultuous events in France occurred under duress of provocation, yet no provocation can excuse the departure from Christian standards, indeed the wanton blood-lust, that marred the period of the Terror. Fortunately, in telling his story the author has both observed a decent decorum and strengthened our belief that in time the sun will emerge from behind even the darkest clouds. In Mr Carton’s regeneration and noble sacrifice we witness an exemplar who embodies the hope that we must eternally nurture as a cherished possession.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Esther Summerson on A Tale of Two Cities
Let the reader call the present reviewer squeezing, wrenching, grasping and scraping if he will, but let no one deny that a tale of two cities for the price of one is a bargain in anyone’s counting-house. Furthermore, once the author, after a confusing first paragraph, makes up his mind what is going on, the book is entirely improving, making clear that there are, in France at least, still prisons enough, and that there they have a way to decrease the surplus population even without the poor-house. I commend especially the portrait of the delightful Mme Defarge. Almost as good a read as my banker’s book, with a nice cut-off at the end. I might have made this a Christmas recommendation, were it not for the fact that Christmas is humbug and reading anything other than a ledger is a waste of time and candles.
Brian Murdoch/Ebenezer Scrooge on A Tale of Two Cities
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