[JohnPattillo]

Dickensian, the BBC production, is a thoroughly secondhand creation. It takes Dickens’ characters from at least twelve different novels and “connects” them in one story. This kind of thing is utterly illegitimate as a work of art.

A novelist creates a novel by integrating a theme, a plot, the characters, their motivations, and their actions. All is the product of his imagination. Each of the elements and the totality express his sense of life. Everything in the novel flows from his sense of life and his conscious decisions. In this way a novel has truth. It is true to its author. It is sincere with its readers. It has integrity.

By all of this it says: “This is the world of my creation that might be or ought to be. It is a reflection of my soul.” For better or worse a novel is always honest in its revelation of the author.

This thing, concocted by Messrs. Jordan, Cohen and Stephenson, purports to be a murder mystery – who killed Marley (from A Christmas Carol). But is it Mr. Jordan’s soul that we see? It is not. The characters are all Dickens’. Fagin has Fagin’s character as created by Dickens. Scrooge has his character – the one Dickens gave him. And so on for each of the myriad of characters. And the personal world of each is stolen precisely from each’s own novel. Only this murder mystery is new. The felons, Jordan, Cohen, and Stephenson, no doubt think, “Oh, what does it matter? This is all in good fun, to entertain our audience.”

It matters because a character exists for a reason (else he has no business being in the novel). And that character has his traits for a reason identified by the author (else he will not move the plot forward as guided by the author). And the character with his traits reveals himself to us through his actions. And all of these reflect the theme – which is the embodiment of the author’s sense of life. It all ties together.

Dickensian is only a particularly egregious example of a commonplace today – an impoverished soul stealing an author’s or film-maker’s characters, stories, themes to put before the public as a new work of art.

It is dishonest. Its façade – the “work” – is not a reflection of the shabby soul that created it. But the fact that he did such a tawdry thing – that does reveal his soul.

/sb

[Byron]

Re: John Pattillo’s post 100118 of 4/2/17

I think it is rather clever to populate a show with known characters and create a murder mystery.

Dickens probably created the characters of his novels from people he knew, from situations he was familiar with.  Authors do research on what they write about, I don’t see a problem.

Art imitates life and life imitates art.  How many writers have copied themes?  Have you read We?  I’ll bet Ayn Rand used elements of that novel for Anthem, and Mona Vanna was inspiration for the dynamic between Dominique, Gail Wynand and Peter Keating.

/sb

[CynthiaGillis]

Re: John Pattillo’s post 100118 of 4/2/17

Just want to thank you for this excellent analysis of what is wrong with the kind of tongue-in-cheek program you describe in “Dickensian.”  I won’t be watching the show so I can’t confirm your analysis. I appreciate the warning. 

But I do know this: One can do all the observation of human psychology you like, all the learning from others’ writing. That is not the same as doing a mash-up of characters created by someone else.  

/sb

[AdamReed]

Re: Cynthia Gillis’ post 118351 of 4/3/17

I second all that. This is also the reason I avoid, on the Web and on social media, people who plagiarize their handles from the names of characters invented by writers.

/sb

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