Me and Charles or Why I Dislike Dickens

I have been unreliably informed that literary theory is about going beyond the personal in literature. Theory and Criticism are not about whether you liked the book or not, but rather about what you can say critically about the book and how you can use the book in terms of literary theory.

My first, or rather second, problem with that statement is that I dislike the direction in which the statement about theory is moving. As far as I am concerned, the beginning and end of literary studies is found in literature. To the extent that theory is in any way useful, it must add to our understanding of literature. Using a text to make a theoretical point is only interesting insofar as how that point reflects back on the text. Or, to put it differently, a theory is only as good as its practical uses and over-reliance on any particular theory will effectively limit one's reading of the text. A reading of a text can be based on a theory, but to deny legitimacy to an interpretation due to the fact that it contradicts your personal theory is foolish. Biblical scholarship figured this out about fifteen hundred years ago, why can't academia wrap its head around the concept that Literature is about having a valid interpretation, not THE RIGHT interpretation.

Which means, for example, that "I liked this book" is a valid literary interpretation. It doesn't say very much, true, but it is valid. More to the point, "I was unimpressed by this great genius's for the following reasons" is equally valid, provided that the reasons you provide are present in the text you are criticizing. What do I mean by that?

Saying that you do not like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre because it "sucks" is not acceptable criticism. Saying you do not like it because it is the delusional fantasy of a pathetic woman who could not win the man she adored and so recreated herself in fiction in order to give herself a happy ending is justified. I might want to defend the novel, but you have stated your opinion and given a reason for it, I can only agree to disagree.

Which is why I can say that I hate Dickens. Not because he "sucks", but because his "realism" has no relationship to reality. He is a heavy-handed social critic who takes potshots at everything with which he disagrees, but without the subtlety, compassion or sense of proportion that his contemporaries are perfectly capable of mixing in with their writing. All the mothers and mother-figures in his novels are horrible, cartoonish figures that say more about his own misogyny than they do about the story he is trying to tell. In fact, most of his characters are caricatures rather than developed people. Thackeray uses his caricatures to neatly skewer those in whom he finds fault. Dickens bludgeons them. He has characters like Miss Havisham which read like caricatures with no discernable antecedent. In general, most of these people are unchanging puppets in his hand. No one but the main character ever grows and changes, they are garishly painted wooden cutouts that populate a world written for the purpose of complaining about conditions in society, but unlike Gaskell or others of his day, he does not try to engage with those problems and approach them in a way that might help to offer a solution; he stands up and shouts "This is bad! Stop doing it!" And that is that.

In short, I do not enjoy Dickens because, as a person who finds the most enjoyable conflict and the most exciting stories within the confines of the character driven novel, his prose offers me nothing to grab hold of and enjoy. What I look for is not there and I am dissatisfied with what he provides instead. And while this means I am, as I always tell others NOT to do, faulting an author for telling the story he wants to tell rather than the story I want him to tell, I beg leave to do so this one time, if only because of the reputation that Dickens has as a realist writer. Realism requires more than an accurate setting; it requires a storytelling style that portrays people as people, not as gross overstatements of what the author dislikes.

In essence, there are two problems here. One is that I feel the need to defend my stance as a Dickensian detractor. And I should not. One can dislike as one chooses, so long as one knows WHY one finds the book objectionable. The second problem is that I feel Dickens is misclassified as realism and is being held up as paradigmatic of a field into which he should not be placed. And that is inexcusable.

Thank you for listening; I feel better now.