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20 Charles Dicken’s Inner Child

Charles Dickens’s Inner

Child

by Christopher Hitchens

Those who study Charles Dickens, or who keep
up the great cult of his admiration, had been
leading a fairly quiet life until a few years ago.
The occasional letter bobs to the surface, or a bit
of reminiscence is discovered, or perhaps some
fragment of a souvenir from his first or second
American tour. The pages of that agreeable little
journal The Dickensian remained easy to turn,
with little possibility of any great shock. At least
since The Invisible Woman, Claire Tomalin’s
definitive, 1991 exposure of the other woman in
Dickens’s life—the once enigmatic Nelly
Ternan—there hasn’t been any scandal or
revelation.
And then, in late 2002, The Dickensian
between his biography and his fiction among
carried a little bombshell of a tale: it seemed the things that make Dickens eternally REL-MAR McConnell Media Company
that in 1862, during Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s visit fascinating. Opening his own memoir, the most Is Pleased To Announce The
to London, he had met Dickens. And not only inept fictional narrator of my generation showed Appointment of
met him but elicited from him the exact that he was out of his depth by dismissing “all MR. KAL KORFF
admission that we would all have wanted the that David Copperfield kind of crap.” Mr. As
great man to make. Here is how it goes in En - Holden Caulfield may one day be forgotten, but EUROPEAN & ASIAN BUREAU
glish, as summarized by Dostoyevsky in an CHIEF
the man who stumbled across the little boy
1878 letter to a certain Stepan Dimitriyevich
trapped in the sweatshop basement, and realized
Yanovsky. According to this, the two men met at
their kinship, will never be. In the second
the offices of Dickens’s own personal magazine, chapter of David Copperfield, and not in any
All the Year Round. And here’s how the tongue-in-cheek exchange with the expert on
confessional session went: the lower depths of St. Petersburg, is where we
He told me that all the good simple find the clue:
people in his novels, Little Nell, even the holy This may be fancy, though I think the
simpletons like Barnaby Rudge, are what he memory of most of us can go farther back into
wanted to have been, and his villains were what
such times than many of us suppose; just as I
he was (or rather, what he found in himself), his
believe the power of observation in numbers of
cruelty, his attacks of causeless enmity towards
very young children to be quite wonderful for its
those who were helpless and looked to him for closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that
comfort, his shrinking from those whom he most grown men who are remarkable in this
ought to love, being used up in what he wrote. respect, may with greater propriety be said not
There were two people in him, he told me: one to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it;
who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the rather, as I generally observe such men to
the opposite. From the one who feels the retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and Kal has been an Analyst, Broadcaster,
opposite I make my evil characters; from the
capacity of being pleased, which are also an Commentator and Investigative Journalist
one who feels as a man ought to feel I try to live
inheritance they have preserved from their on or for such popular TV networks as ABC,
my life. Only two people? I asked.
childhood. CNN, Discovery Channel, FOX, History
So convenient and neat was this package Channel, MSNBC, NBC, National
that many first-time recipients endorsed it (Continued on Page 21) Geographic and has appeared on countless
without even bothering to cut the ribbon, let radio shows and in the newspapers,
alone ask why something as tasty as a including National Public Radio’s Science
Dostoyevsky original had lain unscrutinized for Fridays, Art Bell’s Coast-to-Coast AM, Dr.
so long. Original? Come to think of it, where is If you would like Seth Shostak of SETI, Jeff Rense’s
the Russian version? Between 1862 and 1878— to have your radio Sightings, Laura Lee Show, Rob
in other words, the dates of the meeting and the show or podcast McConnell’s X-Zone Radio Show, Chip
report of it—what was S. D. Yanovsky doing to on a broadcast Presher’s Mind Cemetery, San Francisco
busy himself? We know little about him, other network that Examiner, Prague Post, Metropolitni
than that he treated the great writer’s Expres, Washington Post, U.S. News and
reaches millions of
hemorrhoids. The Russian version of their World Report, Phoenix New Times, Daily
people around the
correspondence doesn’t seem at all traceable Review, Argus, Stanford Daily, San Jose
world and cross
now. Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Ohlone
marketed thoug a
So it was sweet while it lasted, the rumor Monitor, Omni, Skeptical Inquirer, Skepsis,
of a meeting between two great literary titans: multimedia True, Saga UFO Report, Beyond Reality,
an encounter that one of them didn’t even find company with Fortean Times, San Francisco Chronicle,
interesting enough to put in a letter. It could over 31 years of Frontiers of Science, LBC Radio, RTL,
have happened, but I doubt it. That’s the success in the DW2, TV Nova, Radio Praha, Radio Free
wonderful thing about the celebration of broadcast / media Europe, YouTube, Scribd, Facebook and
Charles Dickens: he truly is ranked among our business contact - countless others. Here is a small sample of
immortals, and it truly doesn’t matter if the his unprecedented, unique portfolio over the
legend should sprout and then drop a decades. No other journalist doing the kind
Dostoyevsky or two. programming@xzbn.net - or - of reporting and writing that Kal does, has
We can certainly count the coincidences programming@xzonetvchannel.com this distinctive and diverse background.