Am I the only one that finds the prose of Charles Dickens to be erotic?

[blogslut]

I'm a simple high school graduate with about 16 hours of college under my belt. I'm on a mission to become more well-read and have been working my way through famous authors - also, most of those books are free, so, win/win. I've already read a fuckton of Shakespeare because I was once a theater major. I'll have to come back to Les Miserables because, while every single word is poetry, I'm almost 200 pages in and Hugo is still describing how supernaturally nice that damned priest is - exhausting!

I keep coming back to Dickens. I've read Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, The Old Curiosity Shop and am currently 3/4 of the way through Bleak House.

Here's the deal. Reading Dickens gets me a little "bothered" and I don't mean just the romantic parts. I mean all of it. I mean his style. I does things to me. It's not like like Oscar Wilde and The Portrait of Dorian Gray which was so homoerotic I almost fainted. Dickens doesn't appear to be hinting at anything. He just tells stories. He just tells wonderful, funny, tragic stories with a voice that melts me.

Am I the only one?

[PassingFair]

1. You are not alone.

Get back to me after you've read Domby and Son.

[blogslut]

5. I'll let you know

[Chan790]

2. "Dickens doesn't appear to be hinting at anything."

Actually the opposite, but that's part of what makes him awesome. He was above-all a propagandist, writing about what he viewed as the social evils of his day: child labor, poverty, class oppression--using his writing as a pulpit to push and shame those that profited from the misery of others. He did it well enough that he began to change British society and the way they viewed and approached these problems almost immediately. He was not only a great writer but a better social activist.

We could use a few Dickens today.

[blogslut]

7. Well, I meant, as in: sexually suggestive

But, absolutely. The telling of child labor, poverty and class oppression is evident in Dickens. Poor little Jo in Bleak House...I just want to scream.

[TorchTheWitch]

12. ever watch the miniseries of various Dickens stories on BBC?

I loved them all. Just watched Bleak House again for like the 10th time. I sobbed my eyes out over poor Joe in the film. I also watched Little Dorrit again a couple of weeks ago. BBC did an awesome job on all the Dickens tales.

I love how Dickens chose names for his characters that exactly fit their personalities.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Ah, back in the day when a writer could write narrative description without

getting pinged for it.

[femmocrat]

4. I don't know, but I sure give you credit!

A couple of years ago I got tired of non-fiction, so I thought I should devote my time to reading classic literature. That lasted two summers. I can't decide whether life is too short to plow through those books.... or life is too short to read junk.

[blogslut]

8. I've always been partial to non-fiction

And for decades, I deliberately avoided fiction because I hate emotionally investing in characters and prose that leave me cold. I would rather re-read authors that I know are good than take a chance on someone new to me.

For example. Fuck Poe. Whiny. Formulaic. Far too in love with the sound of his own blah, blah, blah.

On the other hand, a positively delightful surprise: Arthur Conan Doyle. What fun!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. love Dickens. n/t

[blogslut]

9. From the first page, he just grabs you.

It's magic. No tricks. No traps. Just very human storytelling.

[nomorenomore08]

10. Great prose stylist, yes, but what struck me was the contrast between his earlier and later work.

I took a college class where we read 'Oliver Twist' (1837) and 'Great Expectations' (1860) in fairly quick succession. Compared with the younger Dickens, the Dickens of 'GE' writes noticeably more nuanced, less cartoonish characters, and his prose is less "flowery." 'OT' is a classic for other reasons - great story, sympathetic hero, great villains - but it definitely seems as if Dickens got more naturalistic in his writing as he got older.

[Smickey]

11. Definately not alone.