It’s been a year and a half since I set up this blog. At the time, I thought I might actually be able to (at least) approach the (admittedly daft) goal of reading all of Dickens novels in one year. It all started in Craig Seymour’s creative non-fiction class, in which we had to propose a book project—some sort of narrative of personal experience (like Sarah Vowell’s Assasssination Vacation or Beth Lisick’s Helping Me Help Myself or the granddaddy of them all, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.)
Well. Easier said than done when your project involves fifteen novels. Even if you like big, fat, wordy Victorian monsters. I diligently started with one of my favorites, Great Expectations. But after the class ended, there were other classes (as I try—one class per semester—to earn my master’s degree in professional writing), there was my job, there was all the other reading I wanted to do in addition to Dickens, there was the rest of my life.
But Dickens would not stay out of my life. Sometimes, I let him in: reading Matthew Pearl’s exciting, engaging The Last Dickens. But even when I wasn’t looking for him, he seemed to be looking for me. On the Ticonderoga at the Shelburne Museum, there was a prominently-displayed quote from Dickens about steam-boat travel, taken from his American Notes. (Not that he ever sailed aboard the Ticonderoga.)
There have been so many more quirky Dickens-coincidences, but I unfortunately I’ve lost track of most of them. But no more. Here is where I’ll record my “Dickens moments,” whether on the page or out in the world.
