- Taschenbuch: 576 Seiten
- Verlag: Viking (6. Oktober 2011)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0670920487
- ISBN-13: 978-0670920488
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 754.542 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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Charles Dickens: A Life
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Kurzbeschreibung
Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the English imagination: the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Lady Dedlock, and many more. At the age of twelve he was sent to work in a blacking factory by his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children. Claire Tomalin, author of "Whitbread Book of the Year Samuel Pepys", paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius. "Charles Dickens: A Life" is the examination of Dickens we deserve.
Über den Autor
Claire Tomalin was literary editor of the New Statesman then the Sunday Times before leaving to become a full-time writer. Her first book, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, won the Whitbread First Book Award, and she has since written a number of highly acclaimed and bestselling biographies. The Invisible Woman, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, won three major literary awards, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self was Whitbread Book of the Year in 2002. Claire Tomalin is married to the writer Michael Frayn.
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Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis | Rückseite
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Stichwortverzeichnis | Rückseite
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32 von 35 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
The master of English literature
19. November 2011
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Charles Dickens has created thousand of unforgettable characters, and he was also known as a hard-working journalist and as a writer of essays. He was buried-against his wishes-in Westminster Abbey.
His life was short. He died at the age of 58. But one can really doubt whether other writers who lived-or would live-longer-could achieve what Dickens had managed in such a short time. In 1862 the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, an ardent admirer of Dickens who read "The Pickpick Papers" and "David Copperfield" in prison, visited Dickens in London. Dickens told the Russian that there "were two people in him: one who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite. From the one who feels the opposite I make my evil characters, from the one who feels as a man ought to feel I try to live my life. Only two people, I asked?", added Dostoyevsky.
In fact, he was right: Dickens had many personalities in him and Claire Tomalin did a wonderful job in trying to describe the many faces of this titan of literature. She writes about his successes and failures. Dickens was extremely successful everywhere and his tour to the United States only proved this. But there were also those, among them his daughter Katey, who despised him and regarded him as an evil man.
Another Russian writer, Tolstoy, confessed that all of Dickens' characters were his friends, adding that he kept a portrait of the novelist in his room and considered Dickens to be the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century.
This book is splendid, with many new revelations about Dickens' family. The very qualities which made Dickens would eventually destroy him. A gem of a book and highly recommended!
His life was short. He died at the age of 58. But one can really doubt whether other writers who lived-or would live-longer-could achieve what Dickens had managed in such a short time. In 1862 the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, an ardent admirer of Dickens who read "The Pickpick Papers" and "David Copperfield" in prison, visited Dickens in London. Dickens told the Russian that there "were two people in him: one who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite. From the one who feels the opposite I make my evil characters, from the one who feels as a man ought to feel I try to live my life. Only two people, I asked?", added Dostoyevsky.
In fact, he was right: Dickens had many personalities in him and Claire Tomalin did a wonderful job in trying to describe the many faces of this titan of literature. She writes about his successes and failures. Dickens was extremely successful everywhere and his tour to the United States only proved this. But there were also those, among them his daughter Katey, who despised him and regarded him as an evil man.
Another Russian writer, Tolstoy, confessed that all of Dickens' characters were his friends, adding that he kept a portrait of the novelist in his room and considered Dickens to be the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century.
This book is splendid, with many new revelations about Dickens' family. The very qualities which made Dickens would eventually destroy him. A gem of a book and highly recommended!
41 von 47 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
not very good
12. Dezember 2011
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Like another reviewer, I came to this biography with high hopes, which were disappointed. I've read most of the biographies of Dickens, and this is just not very good. It is quite superficial in the real sense: it is all about the surface of Dickens' life -- the book is all about his movements from here to there, one damn thing after another, one contract after another, one publication after another. There's no depth to it. The books are hardly dealt with at all, we get a couple of paragraphs on each (one is reminded of the Woody Allen joke about how, after taking a speed reading course, he was able to read War and Peace in 15 minutes, and when asked what the book was about, replied, "Russia"). After a while, you just get bored with what, on any measure, was one of the most interesting lives ever. The book is also uneven: the beginning is quite expansive, with a couple of nicely written descriptive passages, and stage setting (e.g. Rochester and environs), but all of that then disappears. Probably Tomalin started to write a richer biography and then realized that it would be 1000 pages long, and started cutting, which (if true) was a mistake. Dickens is worth 1000 pages, if it is INTERESTING!
There's a nice discussion of Dickens' work with Angela Burdett Coutts to assist prostitutes in London (a deliberate counterpoint to his mistressing). And the late domestic situation is told quite deftly (which one would expect from Tomalin). But overall, disappointing.
So at the moment, we are left with no "go to" up-to-date balanced, well-rounded biography of Dickens. Slater is about the writer, mostly, and is a slog to get through (he's sort of the "fill in the writer" gap of Tomalin). Ackroyd gets some of the feel of the wildness of Dickens' world, but is kind of crazy (sometimes crazy good, and sometimes just self-indulgent). Kaplan's bio is ok but not inspiring. I haven't read "Becoming Dickens" which could be good, about the first part of his life. We'll see. Maybe all these writers should be put together in a room and tasked with writing a team bio. That may be what Dickens requires.
There's a nice discussion of Dickens' work with Angela Burdett Coutts to assist prostitutes in London (a deliberate counterpoint to his mistressing). And the late domestic situation is told quite deftly (which one would expect from Tomalin). But overall, disappointing.
So at the moment, we are left with no "go to" up-to-date balanced, well-rounded biography of Dickens. Slater is about the writer, mostly, and is a slog to get through (he's sort of the "fill in the writer" gap of Tomalin). Ackroyd gets some of the feel of the wildness of Dickens' world, but is kind of crazy (sometimes crazy good, and sometimes just self-indulgent). Kaplan's bio is ok but not inspiring. I haven't read "Becoming Dickens" which could be good, about the first part of his life. We'll see. Maybe all these writers should be put together in a room and tasked with writing a team bio. That may be what Dickens requires.
20 von 22 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
A Great Book by a Great Writer
18. November 2011
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Von Amazon bestätigter Kauf
Claire Tomalin is an unfailingly wonderful writer. She has told familiar stories very well (Hardy, Shelley, Jane Austen); has brought unknown stories to life (Mrs. Jordan's Profession; An Unknown Woman) and re-introduced us to the amazing Samuel Pepys.
Her Charles Dickens is a fantastic book on a great subject. There are other lives of Dickens (many of them much longer). In Tomalin's, Dickens seems to leap off the pages. He is boundlessly energetic; he is inconceivably brilliant; he binds friends to him for life. But he treats his children horribly, and not them alone.
It is a well-known story, enriched by Tomalin's unique understanding of the life of Nelly Ternan, Dickens' late-in-life mistress. Nelly is a complicated story herself, but the reader comes to share the author's admiration for her character and for the difficult choices she made (all but one, perhaps).
This book is a splendid introduction to two great writers: Charles Dickens and Claire Tomalin. Read it, and go on to any of her other books (I particularly recommend Pepys and Mrs. Jordan)
Her Charles Dickens is a fantastic book on a great subject. There are other lives of Dickens (many of them much longer). In Tomalin's, Dickens seems to leap off the pages. He is boundlessly energetic; he is inconceivably brilliant; he binds friends to him for life. But he treats his children horribly, and not them alone.
It is a well-known story, enriched by Tomalin's unique understanding of the life of Nelly Ternan, Dickens' late-in-life mistress. Nelly is a complicated story herself, but the reader comes to share the author's admiration for her character and for the difficult choices she made (all but one, perhaps).
This book is a splendid introduction to two great writers: Charles Dickens and Claire Tomalin. Read it, and go on to any of her other books (I particularly recommend Pepys and Mrs. Jordan)
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