Recent Read: "The Complete Sherlock Holmes," Volume 1, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My brother bought both volumes for me for Christmas last year and I think it was one of my favorite book gifts ever. Reading the "Complete" has been so much fun. Doyle was not perfect; Holmes takes cocaine and heroin and has some serious misconceptions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I still love these stories. I thought that reading the complete would make them feel repetitive--that they would all feel like the same story. On the contrary, I am facinated and spellbounded by Doyle's ingenuity in coming up with different thoughts and especially different story moods in the backdrop. When he does repeat a similar plot--such as stories about sketchy new jobs and selfish stepfathers--it feels like he's really making a statement about something he sees wrong in the world because he addresses that problem more than once, which is really interesting. One volume down, one to go, and I still can't get enough!

Recent Read: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The first two chapters were pretty rough, but I know Dickens well enough to plough through and so far it's been worth it. The changes in narrators has been a little confusing, but  this book has also been full of fun Dickens characters, which has been really enjoyable. I have to say that Allan Woodcourt has to be my new favorite hero. The moment when Esther looks in the mirror for the first time has to be one of the most amazing passages that I've ever read. And I can't believe how Dickens tricked me with the framing of the murder!

Recent Read: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

First note: this book isn’t about the Civil War, as the title made me ignorantly think before I read it. It is by a British author set in England.

When I came across the proposal in the second chapter, I started wondering if this would be just another Victorian novel, some generic comedy of errors perhaps, but Gaskell sure got me interested as Margaret’s life is quickly uprooted and spun about in ways she, and we, couldn’t expect.

North and South has been a very enjoyable read. Gaskell’s masterful storytelling is akin to Jane Austen in its exposure of human relationships and Charles Dickens in its social commentary. Gaskell forces her characters to address big topics like social class, labor rights, environmental concerns head-on. I keep asking myself over and over again why I haven’t ever read this book before.

Poll Results: What Dickens Books Have You Read?

Here are the Dickens' novel rankings, from most read to least read:

1. A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations

2. Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times

3. Nicholas Nickleby, Our Mutual Friend, The Old Curiosity Shop

4. Bleak House

Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens

Yes, I am on a Dickens' roll!

This book has been amazing! Reading it has been one of the best things I've ever done, even though 916 pages is a significant literary investment. It is the very best of everything Dickens--love, adventure, creepy characters, and the most amazing and intense plot I've ever read. The surprise ending totally got me, and I couldn't believe that the whole story was about a different character than the one I originally picked as the main character. I want to read it over again so I can recognize Dickens' absolute mastery in plot, deception, perspective, and story.

One thing I can't stop thinking about is how grateful I am that I wasn't alive when Dickens was writing this book. Waiting for the next serial would have killed me in so many places in this book. I would have been camping out at the dock waiting for the next installment for weeks.

I'm going to be raving about this book forever!

From "In Memoriam" to “Crossing the Bar”: Celebrating the Life of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

August 6, 2008 marks the 199th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Tennyson. You’ve probably heard this name before, but who exactly was Tennyson and why does everyone know about him?

For starters, Tennyson is considered to be the great English poet of the Victorian era. He succeeded William Wordsworth (one of the great poets of the English Romantic period of literature) as poet laureate of England, a sort of poet-in-residence for the royal household and the entire nation. It was a great honor, but apart from being a royal favorite, Tennyson was widely popular with all classes of readers in his time and remains popular today.

Proof: the lines of the following poem, “Crossing the Bar,” have been often recited often by President Thomas S. Monson and are probably at least somewhat familiar to you. This poem was also sung by the Mormon Tabernacle choir at the funeral service for President Gordon B. Hinckley in the Conference Center on February 2, 2008. If you are new to poetry, try reading the poem aloud and slowly. Try to let the words paint pictures in your mind and sound music to your ears.

Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

What does the poem mean? The speaker in the poem is watching an ocean sunset. The ending of the day makes him think of the ending of a life. He hopes that that event in his life will not be tragic but a joyful reunion with his Creator. One interesting thing about this poem is that Tennyson wrote it just three years before he died. This work shows a very different view of death than an outlook Tennyson held earlier in his career, which we’ll talk more about later.
Tennyson has been oft-quoted in General Conference and articles by General Authorities in Church magazines. Here are a few examples:

· President Gordon B. Hinckley often quoted these two lines from Tennyson’s poem “Sir Galahad”: “My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure.” He quoted these lines in at least four significant addresses: “In Search of Peace and Freedom” in the August 1989 Ensign, “Be Ye Clean” in the April 1996 General Conference, “True to the Faith” in the June 1996 Ensign, and “You can be Forgiven” in the October 2001 New Era. President James E. Faust also quoted these lines in his April 2000 General Conference address.

· President Ezra Taft Benson quoted this line from “The Coming of Arthur” in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in an article entitled “Honor” printed in the July 1984 New Era: “Man’s word [of honor] is God in man.”

· Elder Jeffrey R. Holland references Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” his May 2006 General Conference address entitled “Broken Things to Mend.” The poem is about Ulysses (also known as Odysseus), the Greek warrior who fought against Troy and then spent twenty years getting back to his home island of Ithaca. Tennyson’s last lines read:

That which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Elder Holland paraphrases this last line in the middle of his talk: “Soon, with that kind of love[, the pure love of Christ], we realize our days hold scores of thoroughfares leading to the Master and that every time we reach out, however feebly, for Him, we discover He has been anxiously trying to reach us. So we step, we strive, we seek, and we never yield.” In referring to Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” Elder Holland conjures feelings of the noble heroism that is necessary for us to get through this life.

· Tennyson has also been quoted or alluded to in public addresses by President David O. McKay, President Harold B. Lee, President N. Eldon Tanner, President Boyd K. Packer, Elder Marion G. Romney, Elder Marvin J. Ashton, Elder Marion D. Hanks Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone, and Elder A. Theodore Tuttle.

You will also recognize one of Tennyson’s works in the lyrics of hymn #215:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

We often sing this hymn for New Year’s. “Ring Out, Wild Bells” is also a part of a greater work by Tennyson called In Memoriam A. H. H. Yes, the title of the work is rather odd. The A. H. H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s best friend who died young in 1833. Tennyson and Hallam became friends at Cambridge. Hallam’s death plunged Tennyson into a state of grieving and depression. He spent seven years writing hundreds of small poems to work out his grief. He later collected the poems and published them as In Memoriam. “Ring Out, Wild Bells” is about ringing in a New Year. Initially, in the first stanza, Tennyson is still stricken with grief over the death of his friend. He is striving to “let him die,” to let life move on even though his loved one is gone. He continues striving to get over the grief in the second stanza where he tells himself to “let him go.” In the final verse of our hymn, Tennyson finds peace, hope, and even triumph, in his feelings about death when he remembers Christ and the triumph of His resurrection.

In Memoriam is considered to be Tennyson’s great masterpiece and it is also what made him the most famous. In Memoriam was published in 1850, and in that year Tennyson was also appointed poet laureate of England. The work became even more acclaimed about a decade later. In December 1861 Prince Albert, the consort of the ruling Queen Victoria (hence why we call it the Victorian period), died suddenly of typhoid fever. Like Tennyson for Hallam, Queen Victoria was severely stricken with grief for her husband. Her anguish threw the entire royal household, and in a way the entire nation, into emotional turmoil. She refused to be consoled, but Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H. helped her through the grief. She even went so far to call it her bible during that time of bereavement. This must have been a significant reason why she appointed Tennyson to become a baron in 1865, a post he finally accepted in 1884. This baronetcy is why you often see his name as “Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

Although In Memoriam solidified Tennyson’s popularity with its true account of human grief over death, it is interesting to look at how Tennyson’s perception of death changed over his lifetime. Forty years after completing In Memoriam, Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar,” the first poem we examined. If you think back on that poem, his hopeful faith that death will not be a sorrowful event is very different from the man using all his energy to console his grief in “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” The answer to Tennyson’s change of attitude is in “the Christ that is to be.”
Nearly two centuries after his birth, readers around the world continue to celebrate Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s significant contribution to literature. His works take us on a journey through medieval legend, simple gifts and lessons of everyday things, the intricate emotions of the human heart, and an every-growing conviction of faith.

Sources used in this article:

"Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson" (Wikipedia, 2008).

English Victorian Poetry, edited by Peter Negri (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999).

"Introduction" to Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, by Eugene Parsons (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1900).

"Tennyson's Poetry," (SparkNotes, 2006).

The Charm of Charles Dickens: Characters, Creativity, and Charity

What Makes Dickens So Great

What does the name “Charles Dickens” conjure in your brain? A sorrowful and neglected orphan? Three ghosts of Christmas? Lectures from a high school English teacher? Large leather-bound volumes that collect dust on your grandparents’ bookshelves? Perhaps you watch a version of A Christmas Carol every year, you tried to open a Dickens novel once but felt like you were drowning in words, or maybe you’re quite a fan and you’ve tried to read his entire works—wherever you are with Dickens, you have certainly heard the nearly two-hundred-year-old name. But why? Why is Dickens “the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era” and “one of the English language’s greatest writers”? The charm with which Dickens has captivated readers for nearly two centuries comes from his ingenious characters, creativity, and charity.

It’s not difficult to bring a Dickens character to mind—think of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Little Nell, Pip, or Lady Havisham to name a few. Apart from distinct and honorable heroes—such as Nicholas Nickleby or David Copperfield—Dickens’ novels are peppered with interesting characters of all sorts—the horrid Uncle Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Squeers, the generous Cheeryble brothers or Aunt Betsy, and the comical Mr. Micawber or Mr. Dick. The numbers of characters that Dickens juggles in his novels is an astonishing feat. Many of these characters are given life histories and great consideration even if they don’t play a major role in the overall novel. I can’t help but think that in the variety of characters, all of which play unique roles in their respective novels, is very alike to real life. We meet so many interesting people every day. Some are villainous; some are friendly. Some we only pass on the street and some are an intricate part of our lives for years. Like Dickens’ protagonists, our life experiences are constantly shaped by the people we meet along the way.

In addition to his broad spectrum of characters, Dickens novels are teemed with his creativity with language and visual imagination. His descriptions of a walk through nineteenth century London, teatime with a country family, or following a mysterious figure through the slums that skirt the river are vivid and captivating. While it is true that Dickens was usually paid by word count, a fact that has caused some cynical criticism that his writing is too wordy, his descriptions are detailed and so interesting. Open A Christmas Carol to any page for a good example of Dickens’ creative language and descriptions. As we travel with Scrooge to numerous and diverse scenes, we see absolutely everything in vivid detail, thanks to Dickens’ narrative genius. Through this literary creativity, reading Dickens is like reading a real-life history of his times in setting and visual descriptions. But apart from Dickens’ interesting characters and detailed creativity, it is his charity that is, what I believe, has made his works so timeless. Dickens’ are infused with social commentary, and this powerful effect was engineered on purpose. For example, when some friends asked Dickens to pen a political pamphlet about the oppressed poor of his day, he responded by writing A Christmas Carol. He called the work “a sludge-hammer” for social change. Even today, no reader of this work is immune to the story’s vivid power. Some critics laugh that most of Dickens’ main characters are poor, friendless orphans, but Dickens was, thankfully, one of the first literary voices to the plight of the children that were and are still in need. His lobby for social change, through his literary works, not only affected the people of his time, but continue to remind modern readers of the importance of helping those in need.
Charles Dickens’ characters, creativity, and charity set him apart as “one of history’s greatest novelists.” If you’ve never had the chance to read Dickens before, consider starting; there’s a reason why he’s still so famous, and I promise that you will enjoy the adventure into the Dickens library.

Getting Started with Dickens

I readily admit that the length of most Dickens novels—usually about a good eight hundred pages—is very daunting. The key is to start out slow. The following list of five novels to get you started will help you ease into the full Dickens library.

1. A Christmas Carol
If you’ve never read the original short story of A Christmas Carol, I guarantee that you already know several lines of it by heart. There are countless adaptations—movies, plays, and musicals—of this classic Christmas story. It’s well worth reading in its original form both in and out of the Christmas season. A Christmas Carol is especially a good starter Dickens work because it’s short but still contains the interesting characters, creative descriptions, and charitable purpose that drive the charm of all his works.

2. Oliver Twist
I suggest this as the second Dickens volume to tackle because most people are already familiar with at least the basic plot and setting of Oliver Twist. As with A Christmas Carol, I promise that you will be amazed, and charmed, with how good Dickens’ original work is. You will fall in love with sweet Oliver Twist and become an advocate for his plight yourself.

3. Hard Times
Hard Times is one of Dickens’ lesser-known works. I suggest trying it out next because it’s shorter and you probably won’t know anything about it, which will give you good practice in following his style before you try to tackle one of the longer novels. In my personal opinion, Hard Times is Dickens most powerful commentary. He touches on the injustice of class differences, the horrors of industrialization, the terrible exploitation of the working class, and even the complicated problems of unhappy marriages.

4. A Tale of Two Cities
You already know the first line of this book: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” If you are like I was several years ago, you’ve heard this line so much that it sounds like the most boring book in the world. It’s a shame that Dickens’ ingenious opening has become so overused, but the story and plot of this book is far more captivating than you could imagine. Reading A Tale of Two Cities next will begin to introduce you to a longer novel and there’s no way you’ll be disappointed in its plot and tantalizing action.

5. David Copperfield
After reading this fifth book you’ll be ready to take off the training wheels and fully wander throughout the Dickens library on your own. Unlike the gripping style of A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield reads like an autobiography, although it is still very fictional. The autobiographical feel, however, creates a narrative style that is very easy to follow, even though it’s still over eight hundred pages. I like how Dickens lets you get to know David for the first fourth of the book as a child so you care deeply about him throughout the rest of the story as he tries to find his place in the world as a young man.

As you read these five books to get started with Dickens, remember to take time to enjoy the verbal pictures of Dickens’ own world that he paints with words in his works. Enjoy the overall charm of Charles Dickens—the variety of characters, the creative descriptions of places, and evident charity and meaning in his subject matter—as you learn for yourself why he popular even among modern readers of today.

Dickens Trivia

· Dickens originally wrote under the penname “Boz.”
· His full name was Charles John Huffam Dickens.
· Dickens’ novels were published in a serial format, a chapter at a time in a periodical, first and then released as a complete volume.
· Many publications of Dickens’ novels have been printed with the original illustrations. In these illustrations, notice how the villains faces are always large and ominous and the hero’s face is much more refined.
· In Dickens’ time William Shakespeare’s name was spelled “Shakspeare.”
· The four March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women were intense Dickens fans. They created their own “Pickwick Society,” modeled after the characters in The Pickwick Papers, Dickens’ first successful novel. The sisters even took on the names of Dickens’ characters in their own society.
· Dickens loved holding concert readings of his works where he would read them aloud. Every year from the time it was published until his death Dickens held a public Christmastime reading of A Christmas Carol.
· David Copperfield is a very popular Dickens novel that is actually semi-autobiographical in that he fashioned David’s character after his own. In the classic film Gone With the Wind, Melanie begins reading David Copperfield aloud to Scarlet and the other women while their husbands are on a dangerous mission to clear out the black shanty town in Atlanta.
· In over a hundred and fifty years, not one of Dickens’ novels and short stories has ever gone out of print.
· Dickens’ signature is terrible—nearly illegible!
· In his later years, Dickens wrote a volume entitled The Life of Our Lord for his children. The book recounts the New Testament and life of Christ as the very best story. Although this book was not distributed publicly during Dickens’ lifetime, you can find it in print today.

Recent Read: Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens

I love going back to the classics, and there's never a better time to sit down and soak in Dickens than the very beginning of summer when I have plenty of time to enjoy every word!

Nicholas Nickleby was a great read! Although there are many tragedies in the book, the fact that in the end Nicholas and his family are able to live a wonderful life makes everything worth it.

The most interesting part of this book was how in Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas' uncle, we learn what might have happened to A Christmas Carol's Ebenezer Scrooge had the three spirits of Christmas not helped him to change his ways.