{"title":"罗伯特·l·帕滕《狄更斯、死亡与圣诞节》(书评)","authors":"Natalie J. McKnight","doi":"10.1353/dqt.2023.a913287","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\n<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em> by Robert L. Patten <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Natalie J. McKnight (bio) </li> </ul> Robert L. Patten. <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em>. Oxford UP, 2023. Pp. xx + 344. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2 (hb). <p>In this beautifully illustrated, richly contextualized study, Robert Patten traces the often surprising and deeply-rooted connections between death and Christmas festivities in Dickens's Christmas books and in his own experiences of the winter solstice holidays. Patten begins with a vivid description of the Paris morgue and its theatrical display of corpses, a site Dickens frequently visited, often around the winter holidays. It's a striking Prologue with its gruesome details of dead bodies on display, sometimes as if in conversation with each other, and it effectively establishes the key intertwining themes of the book: death and rebirth, remembering and forgetting, ghoulishness and festivity. It also highlights that Patten is writing not just for scholars but for a broader audience of Dickens enthusiasts. The lively writing of the Prologue, which immerses the reader in the sensory details of the scene in a manner few scholarly works ever do, continues throughout the book, and makes <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em> not only extremely informative but also a pleasure to read.</p> <p>Patten divides the book into 12 chapters, one on each of Dickens's five Christmas books, plus ones on Dickens's visits to the morgue, his early experiences with Christmas, Yuletide as seen in <em>The Pickwick Papers</em>, the social evils that motivated Dickens to strike \"sledge hammer blows\" in his holiday narratives, Christmas celebrations in the 1840s (including celebrations of his oldest son's birthday on Twelfth Night), the Christmas numbers Dickens penned and performed after the publication of the Christmas books, and finally a closing chapter on endings and their implications in life and fiction. In every chapter, Patten's vast knowledge of Dickens's life and works, the social fabric of the times, the extensive theatrical adaptations of his fiction, and the varied critical reception of his publications provide illuminating contexts that will probably surprise even seasoned Dickens scholars.</p> <p>Of course, no one should be surprised by such erudition from such a renowned scholar. Still, having written on <em>A Christmas Carol</em> myself, I foolishly thought there wouldn't be much new for me in the chapter devoted to that book. I of course was wrong. Patten's interpretation of the <em>Carol</em> as an epillion, or small epic, provides a helpful framework for Scrooge's journey <strong>[End Page 488]</strong> and \"makes the voices channeled in the fourth Stave [and elsewhere] more resonant\" (103). Patten's analyses of the illustrations – for the <em>Carol</em> and for the other Christmas books – are particularly revelatory, and the reproduction of the images is astonishingly good. He points out details and discrepancies in the illustrations I had not noticed before (such as the final image in the <em>Carol</em> being set in Scrooge's home, not the office, as the text originally indicated and as the scene is often portrayed in theatrical and film versions). In terms of biographical context Patten's depiction of the legal suit Dickens pursued against a piracy of the <em>Carol</em> painfully underscores how costly that legal action was for him both emotionally and monetarily and how it shaped Dickens's perspective on the law for the rest of his life.</p> <p>In every chapter Patten provides enough colorful description of plot and character for readers to follow his line of thought whether or not they have recently read the works. His telling of the <em>Cricket on the Hearth</em> is so atmospheric and engaging that he has reconciled me to that tale, which had never been one of my favorites. Frankly, I like Patten's telling of the <em>Cricket</em> story better than Dickens's. And while even Patten cannot make <em>The Battle of Life</em> appealing (at least to me), he offers an intriguing speculation on the tale's two sisters, Marion and Grace, suggesting they might have been informed by Dickens's relationship with his wife's sisters Mary and Georgina Hogarth, possibly thinking \"that some combination of the three Hogarth sisters' lives would have worked better for him\" than his marriage to Catherine (231).</p> <p>There are a...</p> </p>","PeriodicalId":41747,"journal":{"name":"DICKENS QUARTERLY","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Dickens, Death, and Christmas by Robert L. Patten (review)\",\"authors\":\"Natalie J. McKnight\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/dqt.2023.a913287\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\\n<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em> by Robert L. Patten <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Natalie J. McKnight (bio) </li> </ul> Robert L. Patten. <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em>. Oxford UP, 2023. Pp. xx + 344. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2 (hb). <p>In this beautifully illustrated, richly contextualized study, Robert Patten traces the often surprising and deeply-rooted connections between death and Christmas festivities in Dickens's Christmas books and in his own experiences of the winter solstice holidays. Patten begins with a vivid description of the Paris morgue and its theatrical display of corpses, a site Dickens frequently visited, often around the winter holidays. It's a striking Prologue with its gruesome details of dead bodies on display, sometimes as if in conversation with each other, and it effectively establishes the key intertwining themes of the book: death and rebirth, remembering and forgetting, ghoulishness and festivity. It also highlights that Patten is writing not just for scholars but for a broader audience of Dickens enthusiasts. The lively writing of the Prologue, which immerses the reader in the sensory details of the scene in a manner few scholarly works ever do, continues throughout the book, and makes <em>Dickens, Death, and Christmas</em> not only extremely informative but also a pleasure to read.</p> <p>Patten divides the book into 12 chapters, one on each of Dickens's five Christmas books, plus ones on Dickens's visits to the morgue, his early experiences with Christmas, Yuletide as seen in <em>The Pickwick Papers</em>, the social evils that motivated Dickens to strike \\\"sledge hammer blows\\\" in his holiday narratives, Christmas celebrations in the 1840s (including celebrations of his oldest son's birthday on Twelfth Night), the Christmas numbers Dickens penned and performed after the publication of the Christmas books, and finally a closing chapter on endings and their implications in life and fiction. In every chapter, Patten's vast knowledge of Dickens's life and works, the social fabric of the times, the extensive theatrical adaptations of his fiction, and the varied critical reception of his publications provide illuminating contexts that will probably surprise even seasoned Dickens scholars.</p> <p>Of course, no one should be surprised by such erudition from such a renowned scholar. Still, having written on <em>A Christmas Carol</em> myself, I foolishly thought there wouldn't be much new for me in the chapter devoted to that book. I of course was wrong. Patten's interpretation of the <em>Carol</em> as an epillion, or small epic, provides a helpful framework for Scrooge's journey <strong>[End Page 488]</strong> and \\\"makes the voices channeled in the fourth Stave [and elsewhere] more resonant\\\" (103). Patten's analyses of the illustrations – for the <em>Carol</em> and for the other Christmas books – are particularly revelatory, and the reproduction of the images is astonishingly good. He points out details and discrepancies in the illustrations I had not noticed before (such as the final image in the <em>Carol</em> being set in Scrooge's home, not the office, as the text originally indicated and as the scene is often portrayed in theatrical and film versions). In terms of biographical context Patten's depiction of the legal suit Dickens pursued against a piracy of the <em>Carol</em> painfully underscores how costly that legal action was for him both emotionally and monetarily and how it shaped Dickens's perspective on the law for the rest of his life.</p> <p>In every chapter Patten provides enough colorful description of plot and character for readers to follow his line of thought whether or not they have recently read the works. His telling of the <em>Cricket on the Hearth</em> is so atmospheric and engaging that he has reconciled me to that tale, which had never been one of my favorites. Frankly, I like Patten's telling of the <em>Cricket</em> story better than Dickens's. And while even Patten cannot make <em>The Battle of Life</em> appealing (at least to me), he offers an intriguing speculation on the tale's two sisters, Marion and Grace, suggesting they might have been informed by Dickens's relationship with his wife's sisters Mary and Georgina Hogarth, possibly thinking \\\"that some combination of the three Hogarth sisters' lives would have worked better for him\\\" than his marriage to Catherine (231).</p> <p>There are a...</p> </p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":41747,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"DICKENS QUARTERLY\",\"volume\":\"11 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.7000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-11-29\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"DICKENS QUARTERLY\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1353/dqt.2023.a913287\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"DICKENS QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dqt.2023.a913287","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
摘要
作为摘要,这里有一个简短的内容摘录:书评:狄更斯,死亡,和圣诞节作者:罗伯特·l·彭定康娜塔莉·j·麦克奈特(传记)罗伯特·l·彭定康。狄更斯,死亡和圣诞节。牛津大学,2023年。Pp. xx + 344。130.00美元。ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2 (hb)。在这本插图精美、背景丰富的研究中,罗伯特·帕滕追溯了狄更斯的圣诞小说和他自己的冬至假期经历中死亡与圣诞节庆祝活动之间令人惊讶而根深蒂固的联系。彭定康首先生动地描述了巴黎的停尸房和尸体的戏剧性展示,狄更斯经常去那里,通常在寒假前后。这是一个引人注目的序言,展示了令人毛骨悚然的尸体细节,有时像是在彼此交谈,它有效地确立了这本书的关键交织主题:死亡与重生,记忆与遗忘,残忍与欢庆。这也突显出,彭定康不仅是为学者写作,也是为更广泛的狄更斯爱好者写作。序言的生动写作,使读者沉浸在场景的感官细节中,这是很少有学术作品能做到的,贯穿全书,使狄更斯,死亡和圣诞节不仅信息量极大,而且读起来很愉快。彭定康把这本书分成了12章,每一章讲述狄更斯的五本圣诞书,另外几章讲述了狄更斯对停尸房的探访,他早期的圣诞节经历,《匹克威克外传》中的圣诞季,促使狄更斯在他的节日叙事中“大锤一击”的社会邪恶,19世纪40年代的圣诞节庆祝活动(包括在第十二夜庆祝他大儿子的生日),狄更斯在圣诞书籍出版后创作并表演的圣诞数字,最后是关于结局及其对生活和小说的影响的最后一章。在每一章中,彭定康对狄更斯的生平和作品、当时的社会结构、对他的小说的广泛的戏剧改编以及对他的出版物的各种评论的广泛了解,都提供了启发性的背景,甚至可能会让经验丰富的狄更斯学者感到惊讶。当然,没有人会对这样一位著名学者的博学感到惊讶。尽管如此,我自己写过《圣诞颂歌》,我愚蠢地认为,在专门讨论这本书的章节中,对我来说不会有太多新的东西。我当然错了。彭定康将《卡罗尔》解读为尾声,或小史诗,为斯克鲁奇的旅程提供了一个有用的框架[End Page 488],并“使第四五音(和其他地方)的声音更能引起共鸣”(103)。彭定康对《圣诞颂歌》和其他圣诞书籍插图的分析尤其具有启示性,而且这些图像的复制效果惊人地好。他指出了我之前没有注意到的插图中的细节和差异(比如《卡罗尔》的最后一个画面是在斯克罗吉的家里,而不是办公室,正如文本最初所表明的那样,而且这个场景经常在戏剧和电影版本中被描绘出来)。就传记背景而言,Patten描述了狄更斯对《卡罗尔》盗版的法律诉讼,痛苦地强调了这一法律诉讼对他在情感和金钱上的代价,以及它如何影响了狄更斯余生对法律的看法。在每一章中,彭定康都提供了足够丰富多彩的情节和人物描述,让读者无论最近是否读过这些作品,都能跟着他的思路走。他讲的《壁炉上的蟋蟀》很有气氛,也很吸引人,使我对这个我从来不喜欢的故事产生了好感。坦率地说,我更喜欢彭定康讲述的板球故事,而不是狄更斯的。即使是彭定康也无法让《生命之战》吸引人(至少对我来说),他对故事中的两个姐妹马里昂和格蕾丝提出了一个有趣的猜测,暗示他们可能从狄更斯与妻子的姐妹玛丽和乔治娜·霍加斯的关系中得到了启示,可能认为“霍加斯三姐妹的生活结合起来会比他与凯瑟琳的婚姻更适合他”(231页)。有一个……
Dickens, Death, and Christmas by Robert L. Patten (review)
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Reviewed by:
Dickens, Death, and Christmas by Robert L. Patten
Natalie J. McKnight (bio)
Robert L. Patten. Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford UP, 2023. Pp. xx + 344. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2 (hb).
In this beautifully illustrated, richly contextualized study, Robert Patten traces the often surprising and deeply-rooted connections between death and Christmas festivities in Dickens's Christmas books and in his own experiences of the winter solstice holidays. Patten begins with a vivid description of the Paris morgue and its theatrical display of corpses, a site Dickens frequently visited, often around the winter holidays. It's a striking Prologue with its gruesome details of dead bodies on display, sometimes as if in conversation with each other, and it effectively establishes the key intertwining themes of the book: death and rebirth, remembering and forgetting, ghoulishness and festivity. It also highlights that Patten is writing not just for scholars but for a broader audience of Dickens enthusiasts. The lively writing of the Prologue, which immerses the reader in the sensory details of the scene in a manner few scholarly works ever do, continues throughout the book, and makes Dickens, Death, and Christmas not only extremely informative but also a pleasure to read.
Patten divides the book into 12 chapters, one on each of Dickens's five Christmas books, plus ones on Dickens's visits to the morgue, his early experiences with Christmas, Yuletide as seen in The Pickwick Papers, the social evils that motivated Dickens to strike "sledge hammer blows" in his holiday narratives, Christmas celebrations in the 1840s (including celebrations of his oldest son's birthday on Twelfth Night), the Christmas numbers Dickens penned and performed after the publication of the Christmas books, and finally a closing chapter on endings and their implications in life and fiction. In every chapter, Patten's vast knowledge of Dickens's life and works, the social fabric of the times, the extensive theatrical adaptations of his fiction, and the varied critical reception of his publications provide illuminating contexts that will probably surprise even seasoned Dickens scholars.
Of course, no one should be surprised by such erudition from such a renowned scholar. Still, having written on A Christmas Carol myself, I foolishly thought there wouldn't be much new for me in the chapter devoted to that book. I of course was wrong. Patten's interpretation of the Carol as an epillion, or small epic, provides a helpful framework for Scrooge's journey [End Page 488] and "makes the voices channeled in the fourth Stave [and elsewhere] more resonant" (103). Patten's analyses of the illustrations – for the Carol and for the other Christmas books – are particularly revelatory, and the reproduction of the images is astonishingly good. He points out details and discrepancies in the illustrations I had not noticed before (such as the final image in the Carol being set in Scrooge's home, not the office, as the text originally indicated and as the scene is often portrayed in theatrical and film versions). In terms of biographical context Patten's depiction of the legal suit Dickens pursued against a piracy of the Carol painfully underscores how costly that legal action was for him both emotionally and monetarily and how it shaped Dickens's perspective on the law for the rest of his life.
In every chapter Patten provides enough colorful description of plot and character for readers to follow his line of thought whether or not they have recently read the works. His telling of the Cricket on the Hearth is so atmospheric and engaging that he has reconciled me to that tale, which had never been one of my favorites. Frankly, I like Patten's telling of the Cricket story better than Dickens's. And while even Patten cannot make The Battle of Life appealing (at least to me), he offers an intriguing speculation on the tale's two sisters, Marion and Grace, suggesting they might have been informed by Dickens's relationship with his wife's sisters Mary and Georgina Hogarth, possibly thinking "that some combination of the three Hogarth sisters' lives would have worked better for him" than his marriage to Catherine (231).