After reading Michael Slater's marvellous biography a couple of years ago I did wonder if there was anything more to say about Charles Dickens, but Claire Tomalin is such a wonderful biographer I just knew that I had to read her take on Charles and will say right now that I read it over a weekend and loved every moment of it. So captivating was it that I had to ration my reading else all other things that were to be done would have gone hang. As it is, despite my closing up the book and determinately putting it to one side, precious little got done as I kept being drawn back to it.
Michael Slater concentrated on Dickens the Writer whereas Claire Tomalin gives us a more rounded portrait of Dickens as the family man, a good friend and mentor. And once again, I am totally overcome and in awe at the sheer energy of Charles; if he wasn't in the throes of a book/books, he was writing plays and theatricals and staging them with himself in a starring role, he founded and edited newspapers, he supported and founded charities as well as taking care of his vast and ever growing family, most of whom depended upon him financially all their lives.
We all know that Dickens abandoned and divorced his wife in very distasteful and cruel circumstances and I do not think that history and critics have been kind to Catherine Hogarth. Dickens takes centre stage throughout their entire married life, we learn very little of her character and when she is mentioned in Dicken's letters, it is his slant on her that we receive. No wonder she has been dismissed as a boring, dull, dutiful wife not worthy of Mr D. I think this is totally unfair. Being married to a mercurial genius such as he must have been incredibly difficult and she also seemed to spend most of her time being pregnant, giving birth, recovering and then being pregnant again. Her sister Georgina Hogarth came to live with them and took over the running of the household and totally overshadowed the role of the wife. She adored her brother-in-law and as she did not have the problem of permanent pregnancy and was bright and interesting, she probably spent more time with him than poor Catherine.
They married young 'Catherine was slim, shapely and pleasant looking with a gentle manner'. Dickens decision to marry her was quickly made and he never afterwards gave any account of why he did so though he declared later it was the worst mistake of his life. My feeling is that he yearned for a stable family life and a home of his own, something he had never enjoyed with the improvident John Dickens as a father who after moving from house to house, each more dreary than the last, ended up in Marshalsea prison where he was thrown after being unable to pay off his creditors. Dickens had a dreadful childhood - each time I read the part of David Copperfield where he was put to work in a blacking factory and how he felt miserable, unloved and neglected, it wrings the heart and it is because Dickens is writing about his own experiences and it is true and real. It shaped his entire life as he was always searching for the perfect family, the stories and games around the fire surrounded by his offspring, the world seeing him as the owner of all the familial virtues.
Despite the implosion of his marriage in later years and his despicable repudiation of her, after 12 years of marriage he was still writing to his 'Dearest Kate' and saying he was impatient for a letter from her and he continued to write to her and address her in this vein throughout their marriage until he met Nelly Ternan. He then wrote to his close friend, John Forster:
"Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and happy, but that I maker her so too - and much more so'
At least here Dickens can see that he is at fault too but later when his infatuation for Nelly Ternan was at its height, he unleashed an appalling attack on her character and her attributes as a mother. He wrote to Angela Burdett-Coutts:
"....she has caused me unspeakable agony of mind. She does not, and never did, care for the children and the children do not, and never did, care for her. The little play that is acted in your Drawing Room is not the truth, and the less the children play it, the better for themselves ...they has always disconcerted her and she is glad to be rid of them and they are glad to be rid of her"
Much as I love Dickens this is really pretty unforgivable. He made his feelings about Catherine public and the charge that the children did not love her is ludicrous and cruel. The world now split into two camps, those who supported him throughout the separation, or at least said nothing, and his enemies who he thought were those who failed him. But on reading these words and looking at his actions, it is not difficult to realise that deep down Dickens knew he was behaving badly and his actions made him very unhappy, but by then the die was cast and there was nothing he could do. It was important to him to keep his good reputation in the eyes of the public and if Catherine had to be sacrificed then so be it "you can feel sorry for him as he struggles, but it is impossible to like what he did, or on occasion to believe what he said"
Georgina, Catherine's sister sided with Dickens in his separation from his wife which must have been deeply hurtful, but Georgina, who is not somebody I particularly admire, knew that if she didn't stick with Dickens she would have to return home to live with her parents and her life, as an unmarried daughter of the house, would have been boring and drab. She knew which side her bread was buttered on but it certainly did not help Catherine's reputation to have her own sister leave her as well as her husband.
Because of this obsession with appearing as the good, noble man he had always presented himself to be, it was essential that his relationship with Nelly Ternan be kept secret. I will say no more about this at all but recommend that you read Tomalin's biography of her for a more detailed life. I am not sure that this affair made Dickens or Nelly happy at all, he seemed to spend most of his time worrying about it and forcing her to skulk in the background and live in the shadows.
Despite his truly awful behaviour, I forgive Dickens and I am trying to work out why when I have been less generous with other writers and their peccadilloes. I think it is because deep down I feel he was never happy. He always seems to be running and running, desperately hoping that true happiness would be just around the next corner but then when he turned it, nothing was there. His genius drove him to the heights of joy and the depths of despair (a friend of mine has said that she has always thought he was bi-polar which is certainly food for thought), but there seemed to be very little calm or tranquility in his life. He drove himself relentlessly until he wore himself out.
On the day of his final collapse 'Katey and Mamie were leaving for town the next morning......as they sat in the porch waiting for the carriage to take them to the station, Katey felt she wanted to see him (Dickens) again....when he saw her he pushed his chair away from the writing table and took her into his arms to kiss her, holding her in an embrace she would never forget' Later they were summoned back to Gads HIll and arrived around midnight 'directly we entered the house I could hear my father's deep breathing. All through the night we watched him'. Soon after six in the morning Dickens gave a sigh, a tear appeared in his right eye and ran down his cheek and he stopped breathing.
I am not ashamed to say I was in tears when I read the account of Dicken's death. Not yet sixty and yet worn out body and soul, weary and sad. His burial in Westminster Abbey was a small private affair 'the great bell was tolled and the Dean and Canons met the mourners and the coffin, carried through the cloisters ito the nave. The doors were closed. There was no singing and no eulogy, just quiet organ music as a background to the reading of the burial service'
Forster wrote afterwards: 'Nothing so grand or touching could have accompanied it, as the stillness and silence of the vast Cathedral'
This biography by Claire Tomalin is my Book of the Year. I cannot think that I will read another between now and 31 December that will make me change my mind. I was totally engrossed in it, was unable to put it down, found myself living and breathing with Dickens and his family and friends, overtaken with excitement at the reports of his readings and the audience reaction, angry with him because of his selfish behaviour, and also filled with sadness at his constant striving for the happiness that eluded him.
My review will not make one iota of difference to Claire Tomalin's sales or to her stellar reputation as a great writer and biographer, and this makes the generosity of the publishers who sent me a copy when I sent them a begging email, even more so. I am deeply indebted to them for their kindness.
If you read no other biography this year, next year or the year after, please make it this one. Quite, quite wonderful.
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Other Random posts on Charles Dickens
http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2007/10/mrs-lirriper.html
http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2009/10/unread-dickens.html
http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2007/03/bleak_house.html
http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2008/12/little-dorrit.html
