Dickens and Lawson
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:12 pm
I've been asked to write an article comparing Charles Dickens with Henry Lawson - with particular reference, I think, to their effect on changing society. I'd be interested in any comments on the subject.
I am at a bit of disadvantage first off in that I haven't actually read a great deal of Dickens. I think I was put off him at school when all the English authors were shoved down our throats to the exclusion of everybody else. Since then, I've had a real aversion to reading English writers.
In recent years I've made a conscious effort to try to correct this. I read 'Jane Eyre' a couple of years ago, and thought it was absolutely fantastic.
I haven't had as much luck with Dickens, though. I tried 'The Old Curiosity Shoppe' and got about halfway through before throwing it aside in sheer boredom. The characters didn't ring true to me - too much exaggeration and caricature. To my mind, that's what you don't get with Lawson. If anything, his characters are understated. I find them more involving. They seem more real.
Maybe I relate better to Lawson because I am Australian.
It can obviously be said that both wrote about poverty. It is probably also true that both brought the realities of poverty to the attention of an educated, middle class audience. Dickens seems to have been very consciously trying to use his writing as a means of reducing society's iniquities. I guess Lawson was too, in a way, particularly through his involvement with the shearers' strike and the early days of the union movement. Still, there's an honesty, a reality in Lawson's work that I didn't detect so much with Dickens. Maybe it's just the dryness and the dust, and the monotony of the landscape.
Any suggestions?
I am at a bit of disadvantage first off in that I haven't actually read a great deal of Dickens. I think I was put off him at school when all the English authors were shoved down our throats to the exclusion of everybody else. Since then, I've had a real aversion to reading English writers.
In recent years I've made a conscious effort to try to correct this. I read 'Jane Eyre' a couple of years ago, and thought it was absolutely fantastic.
I haven't had as much luck with Dickens, though. I tried 'The Old Curiosity Shoppe' and got about halfway through before throwing it aside in sheer boredom. The characters didn't ring true to me - too much exaggeration and caricature. To my mind, that's what you don't get with Lawson. If anything, his characters are understated. I find them more involving. They seem more real.
Maybe I relate better to Lawson because I am Australian.
It can obviously be said that both wrote about poverty. It is probably also true that both brought the realities of poverty to the attention of an educated, middle class audience. Dickens seems to have been very consciously trying to use his writing as a means of reducing society's iniquities. I guess Lawson was too, in a way, particularly through his involvement with the shearers' strike and the early days of the union movement. Still, there's an honesty, a reality in Lawson's work that I didn't detect so much with Dickens. Maybe it's just the dryness and the dust, and the monotony of the landscape.
Any suggestions?