In the last several weeks, in between pounding my head on the keyboard trying to access my old account, I had the dvd fired up because my sat connection to the tv needs revamping and I can't afford the dew-hickey that needs to be installed to get the high def signal needed.
Luckily, I collected loads of dvds, so I can go for a year without any repeats. And decided to have a Dickens film festival, which covers many hours, as there are lots. Most of them are very close to the novels, all of which I've read more than once, but it is fun to watch them come alive, and I usually find something new in the material every time I do my yearly viewing.
What really jumped out at me this time around were things that had bored me originally when I read them as a young man, but could be part of any news broadcast today. In many of those novels, so-called pyramid schemes are the catalyst that serve to bankrupt many of the characters and propel the plot. Scams involving life insurance policies, and then there is a bubble, and it bursts, driving unwitting investors bankrupt and into ruin. Speculation in goods, where a major investor pulls out once the gain has been at its' peak is a key factor in the novel Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, his third novel, back in the 1830's if I remember the date correctly. And people are ruined, as is the father of the main character before he is born.
Those themes run through many of them, in other words, and even in David Copperfield, you find embezzlement on a grand scale.
Land speculation scams are a large part of Martin Chuzzlewit, for instance. All of these things cause a lot of misery and ruin for the unsuspecting and gullible, and the greedy.
And now, nearly 200 years later? You find the very same things still going on, no one has learned anything, no one has fixed anything, no one has created effective protective regulatory laws, and some really bad characters prey on society and mostly get away with it. In fact, nowadays, no one even gets your proverbial slap on the wrist.
Seemingly, it goes in cycles, but nothing ever changes. I think that is what makes the work timeless. In his later years, according to his biography, Dickens was very disillusioned. His novels had caused laws to be changed, but the conditions he abhorred were still never really corrected. Some new way of getting around them always came up.
So watching this time around, all in one stretch over several days, I reflected on how little mankind has actually changed or even gotten better in any way.
And THAT... is discouraging. Hope and Change? Ya think???
Luckily, I collected loads of dvds, so I can go for a year without any repeats. And decided to have a Dickens film festival, which covers many hours, as there are lots. Most of them are very close to the novels, all of which I've read more than once, but it is fun to watch them come alive, and I usually find something new in the material every time I do my yearly viewing.
What really jumped out at me this time around were things that had bored me originally when I read them as a young man, but could be part of any news broadcast today. In many of those novels, so-called pyramid schemes are the catalyst that serve to bankrupt many of the characters and propel the plot. Scams involving life insurance policies, and then there is a bubble, and it bursts, driving unwitting investors bankrupt and into ruin. Speculation in goods, where a major investor pulls out once the gain has been at its' peak is a key factor in the novel Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, his third novel, back in the 1830's if I remember the date correctly. And people are ruined, as is the father of the main character before he is born.
Those themes run through many of them, in other words, and even in David Copperfield, you find embezzlement on a grand scale.
Land speculation scams are a large part of Martin Chuzzlewit, for instance. All of these things cause a lot of misery and ruin for the unsuspecting and gullible, and the greedy.
And now, nearly 200 years later? You find the very same things still going on, no one has learned anything, no one has fixed anything, no one has created effective protective regulatory laws, and some really bad characters prey on society and mostly get away with it. In fact, nowadays, no one even gets your proverbial slap on the wrist.
Seemingly, it goes in cycles, but nothing ever changes. I think that is what makes the work timeless. In his later years, according to his biography, Dickens was very disillusioned. His novels had caused laws to be changed, but the conditions he abhorred were still never really corrected. Some new way of getting around them always came up.
So watching this time around, all in one stretch over several days, I reflected on how little mankind has actually changed or even gotten better in any way.
And THAT... is discouraging. Hope and Change? Ya think???
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