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Dickens: A Memoir of Middle Age by Peter Ackroyd (view source)
Revision as of 12:20, 8 January 2012
, 12:20, 8 January 2012no edit summary
He does nevertheless give full attention to Dickens’ writings, as well as the invincible power which drove a prematurely aged man on to work to the very end, partly as a means of earning a living and ensure he did not fall into the debts which often overpowered his father, perhaps partly as a distraction from the unhappiness of his marriage. A particularly illuminating moment comes in 1860, about the time Dickens began to write Great Expectations. He had more or less separated from his wife, sold one house to move into another, and with the aid of some members of his family, proceeded to make a huge bonfire of his past correspondence, including letters from fellow writers Carlyle, Thackeray, and George Eliot. Posterity, alas, is much the poorer. It was, says Ackroyd, as if in his new life there was ''almost some kind of hatred of the past''.
By this time he was beginning to suffer from the aches and pains, the ill-health which would culminate in a stroke and his lingering illness and death in 1870. The contrast in the energetic, eagerly crusading, mercurial and good-humoured if sometimes angry young man of the 1840s and the equally radical but world-weary soul of twenty years later is acute. A railway accident in which he was injured and several other passengers killed in 1865 accelerated his physical decline, but he continued to work just as hard before, writing and giving public readings of his work. “He ''He could no more stop himself than he could stop breathing,” '' we read. There is a growing sense of foreboding towards the end, as he predicted morosely that he would tear himself to pieces. Fame and success had not brought him to a contented old age, but to the very limits of human endurance until he was more or less resolved to die in harness.
Even this abridgement is a formidable work. Ackroyd brings us detail after detail, and for the reader who wishes to know almost everything about Dickens, this book will suffice very well. It does however suffer from the same factor as some of his other titles – this seemingly insatiable urge to present as many facts as possible. While he does stand back and present us with some analysis of the man, it is a largely uncritical treatment. This is a rich tapestry – in fact, perhaps a little too rich if anything. Other recent authors, notably Tomalin, have been just as ready to show his failings as well as to praise, and in the end produce a rather more objective work, but here it is as if Ackroyd is so beguiled by his hero that he can say little if anything against him. This is therefore a very thorough read but perhaps not so well-rounded.