Vladimir Nabokov urged students at Cornell to appreciate Bleak House as art, and to appreciate Charles Dickens as artist, "enchanter." As a storyteller, Nabokov said of Dickens:

At its worse, Bleak House reveals the storyteller stumbling now and then...

That is so true on both counts and may have been said with equal force of David Copperfield. One could not tell either book as a story, there are multiple stories in each and Dickens does stumble in telling them all in one book. The shame of it is that there are several real good books in the subplots of each with memorably drawn characters ready for prime time. The shame of it is that Dickens could have been a great storyteller! The Steerforth-Rosa Dartle-somebody else triangle in David Copperfield: that's a whole book. A great story and a seperate, thinner book. Instead, we are introduced to Steerforth and Rosa early on and then poof! they're gone for hundreds of pages. The Smallweed family in Bleak House: Oh my God, three of my favorite characters, hilariously drawn by Dickens. There is no reason they needed to be interwoven with Jarndyce and Jarndyce. None. At all.

For most readers, then and now, Dickens was so popular because of his characters. Then and now, chances are when you give an example to a friend to explain why you like Bleak House or David Copperfield, you will tell them about your favorite characters. You can't tell them the story, there is no coherent story, you tell them your favorite scene.

Dickens knew this and my hunch is that he wrote in as many different characters as he could think of and the story be damned. 

Mr. Dick

This character in David Copperfield is brain damaged. He is, as a result, a simpleton, childish, lacks verbal skills, is obsessed with his memorial to King Charles I, possesses intuitive empathy.

                                                                 Yes, that is Mr. Dick.

Until, that is, Chapter XLV beginning on page 542.

Addressing Copperfield,

"You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I am afraid?"

No. Mr. Dick does not talk like that. 

...

"Now, boy," said Mr. Dick, "I am going to put a question to you." 

On an earlier reading I circled "boy" in black. Mr. Dick would not address David Copperfield aka Trotwood as "boy."

"What do you consider me, sir?" asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms.

"Folding his arms" is to indicate that Mr. Dick is smarter than David, has a secret. No. Mr. Dick is not smarter than David. Two sentences before Mr. Dick had addressed Copperfield as "boy." Now, "sir."

No. NO! Fail.

"A dear old friend," said I.

"Thank you, Trotwood, returned Mr. Dick, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me."But I mean, boy," resuming his gravity, "what do you consider me in this respect?" touching his forehead.

...

"Weak?" said Mr. Dick.

"Well," I replied, dubiously. "Rather so." 

"Exactly!" cried Mr. Dick...

NO! Mr. Dick does not have insight into his condition. 

...

"In short, boy," said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, "I am simple." 

Black circle by moi.

...

"Then, I have got it, boy!" said Mr. Dick.

The eureka moment for a person who didn't get eureka moments. Circle, margin note, "Mr. Dick wouldn't talk like this."

There is an illustration accompanying "Then, I have got it, boy.":

That is not the Mr. Dick of the preceding 541 pages. That looks like Mr. Micawber:

This is the Mr. Dick from earlier chapters.

                                                              Sitting in corner at right.

With his kite.

Dickens lost control of this character. It is as if he forgot how he had drawn Mr. Dick in the previous 541 pages. And that's a FAIL!

David falls in love with his boss's daughter, Dora Spenlow, at first sight. And, quite frankly, we're not quite sure why.
...
Dora's father, Mr. Spenlow, is unaware of their courtship...and demands that David forgets the whole thing. But then, Mr. Spenlow suddenly dies...So, while Mr. Spenlow is alive, David can't marry Dora. And once Mr. Spenlow dies, David immediately (and symbolically) takes Mr. Spenlow's place as Dora's caretaker. He spoils her and fusses over her as though her were her father as well her fiancé. And it's, well, a little weird. 

...

[David is] such a young man himself that he's not ready to be married to such a dependent woman, in need of being spoiled and cared for all the time the way Dora does. Still, despite these concerns, Dora and David get married. 

...

Dora miscarries and slides into the long illness that will eventually kill her...the whole Dora episode leaves a bit of a bad taste in our mouths...

https://www.shmoop.com/david-copperfield/dora-spenlow.html

And that's the other thing: Dickens does not even kill Dora good. The miscarriage did not kill her, a "long illness" killed her. What is this "long illness"? She's a teenager! Healthy as a horse! Brains to match. 

I agree with everything "Shmoop" wrote there. Dora is a ridiculous, superfluous character who Dickens should have aborted rather than bring to life and then unconvincingly snuff out.

I have had this thought before with Bleak House, even researched it a bit one time. These long novels get away from Dickens. There are sooo many characters, so many barely overlapping sub-plots I wondered if he wasn't on some stimulant that over-stimulated him.

Another example is Mr. Dick, next.

An empty wooden ship washed up in Japan — and it looks like another mysterious North Korean ‘ghost ship’

                               ?

An empty, overturned wooden boat has been found drifting off Japan's western coast, and it could mark the start of another flood of "ghost ships" from North Korea to wash up on Japan's shores.
...
One hundred and four "ghost ships"— vessels discovered with no living crew — were found along Japan's shores last year, the highest since authorities started collecting data in 2013. Many were found with dead bodies in them, whlie others were empty.
http://www.businessinsider.com/empty-wooden-boat-sighting-in-japan-suggests-ghost-ship-sighting-2018-7

                               ?

Faux Pelini
‏@FauxPelini

have him call me I have an idea for a defense argument

@4029news
Miami man with no arms charged with stabbing tourist http://dlvr.it/QbFTFM 
8:08 PM - 11 Jul 2018

I have a question which I direct into the ether. Why did Charles Dickens introduce the absurd Dora Spenlow character only to kill her off? Did he come to have doubts about her as he was writing? Then why not excise her out entirely? David Copperfield would have been improved by the subtraction. I have read this book a couple of times and am perusing it again and from first reading I have wondered about Dora Spenlow. David Copperfield was Dickens own favorite of his novels, it is autobiographical; was one of Dickens' own wives or loves Dora-like? Deary me, I hope not. The "child-wife" diminishes the Copperfield character and, to the extent Dora was a caricature of a real woman in Dickens' life, diminishes Dickens moreso. She is Exhibit A in the feminist critique of Dickens, instantiating the proposition that Dickens did not write women well because he could not write women. I do not find that proposition carried, not in a book also with Betsey Trotwood, but I cannot defend Charles Dickens against the charge on Dora Spenlow. 

Conspiracies

Trump-Putin.

DOES MENACHEM ONLY PLAY CROONOWITZ WHEN I'M HOME? I've only heard Croonowitz when I'm home! (heh-heh-heh-heh) Does he like watch for my car to pull in? "Ah! He's home early today. Uh-uh-uh-uh." One time he did call to me from the balcony, "Benyamin, new car!"

Did Rosenstein deliberately announce the indictments of the Russians today to coincide with Trump's meeting with QEII? Deliberately before Trump met with Putin?

John Kidd-Jack Hitt?

LeBron James reportedly spends $1.5 million to take care of his body 

(Business Insider)

We are so much alike, LeBron James and I.

Today

Posts

Entry	Pageviews
The Joy of America: Citizenship. Jul 4, 2010	24
"The Chinese Cultural Revolution," by Zhang Mu. Ch... Jun 19, 2011	18
The Day the Music Was Reborn. Jul 12, 2018	10
It is Friday the 13th and Trump is in Britain. Jul 13, 2018	9
I have been that close to a pretty, nude, dead gi... Jan 31, 2015	6
"I did it...my...way." He has started early today... Jul 13, 2018	4
The Day the Music Died Jul 12, 2018	4
"FAA Recognizez Andreas Guenter Lubitz."-Aviation ... Mar 26, 2015	4
Trump Supporters: "They don’t care." Aug 20, 2017	2
Seeking the Soul of China Jul 21, 2010	2

If this is a ‘witch hunt,’ it sure is finding a lot of witches

(Paul Waldman, WaPo)

Right?

"Russians Targeted Clinton’s “Personal Office” On Same Day Trump Called on Russia to Find Her Personal Emails, Indictment Says"-Slate

And your point is?

"Europeans Believe Trump's Agenda Is to Divide and Conquer."-NYT

Just Like Putin!

...they have begun to believe that...there is a strategy: to undercut European solidarity in NATO and the European Union so the United States can exercise its economic and military power to shape relations with individual countries, just as China and Russia seek to do.

...

...Europeans are now convinced that Mr. Trump has an agenda that is inimical to their interests, said François Heisbourg, a French political analyst. 

...

...Tomas Valasek, the director of Carnegie Europe...said, "He wants to pit countries against one another and use U.S. power and wealth against the others for his advantage.”

...

...European leaders made little effort to engage with Mr. Trump, chatting to one another while Mr. Trump walked along with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a semiauthoritarian outsider.

...

...Sigmar Gabriel, the former German foreign minister, said...“We cannot delude ourselves anymore. Donald Trump only knows strength. So we have to show him that we are strong.”

Sincerely, this is Putin too. There are no differences.

Mueller Indicts 12 More Russians--In Hacking of Democrats

32 people and three companies have been indicted by Mueller. 14 Russians and three Trumpists have already pled guilty. Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments at the same time Trump was meeting with QEII, creating split screen split personality TV. Trump is then leaving Britain to meet his campaign manager in Moscow.

"I did it...my...way."

He has started early today. Just my luck. Ah, Friday the 13th.

Windows are open. Menachem, it's fucking too hot outside to have the windows open.

Now, "It's...just...impossible, impossi-ble-ble-ble"...Never heard so pronounced a trill as this. Or a slower anything.

..."Unforgettable you-ou-ou."

Maybe this is inoculation against a 4:30-ish performance. Maybe he's trying to get his fix in before sundown when he can't use mechanical devices. Or maybe this is a marathon. :( Maybe he is trying to drive his goyem friend insane. Maybe I was too hasty putting my shoulder-launched, sound-seeking missile on ebay.

It is Friday the 13th and Trump is in Britain.

The Day the Music Was Reborn.

Croonowitz is back. I thought it was safe to write the earlier. It wasn't.

The Day the Music Died

You expect to hear your neighbors living in a condominium: talking, laughing, arguing, parties, music. But I live in a condo of largely older Orthodox Jews in a neighborhood known as Little Israel (I think they approved me because they were confused by "Benjamin." Common mistake.). My neighbors are quiet as synagogue mice. I have heard music played by two neighbors in 15 years, occasionally by a young woman upstairs from me years ago who has long since moved out, the other by someone around me, not on my floor, but until a couple of months ago I didn't know where he lived, who he was, or if he was a he or a she.

It was not unpleasant music, a crooner with a nice voice who sang Sinatra and Elvis songs in a croon rhythm to exaggerate his trill in a manner that I imagined appealed to those of his constituents who fancy exaggeration, which largely my neighbors do. So, it was pleasant at first. But, my neighbor played the same two or three songs at the same time of day, late afternoon, every day, for years. He played it pretty loud, too. It was louder in my unit in the winter when he flung open his balcony sliding glass doors, more muted in the summer but still plenty audible.

After a while it drove me to distraction. I tried earplugs but earplugs don't shut out all noise and I could still hear it. And because I knew the music so well, from endless repetition, I would, against my will, anticipate the part that always particularly grated on me, a music-less "uh-uh-uh-uh" trill, just the trill, no singing, "uh-uh-uh-uh." ARGH! I would get my CD player ready to go every day I was home at about 4:30 to drown it out. I would put on anything, I would switch it to radio and tune it to static, anything just to drown out "uh-uh-uh-uh." But these defensive maneuvers of course interrupted my work or my reading or whatever I was doing.

I thought of complaining, but about whom? I didn't know who it was! And if I had, was I really such an asshole as to complain about an older Jewish man or woman playing not unpleasant music for 15 minutes in the middle of the day? No, I was not that big an asshole, I'm an above-average asshole but not a BIG asshole. Usually. So, I would just turn the goddamn CD player on.

Then one day this past spring, I was outside the front of the building waiting on my son to come over. Suddenly, Croonowitz started. I whirled around, looked up: third floor, balcony sliding glass doors open. I had left my shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile in my apartment when I realized, "Oh my God that's Menachem." I knew Menachem's unit, I had been in it before, Menachem was the person I liked best in the building, and the music was coming from Menachem's unit. I felt guilty and resolved to sell my shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile on ebay. Croonowitz continued at his appointed time every day. I didn't complain to Menachem.

I didn't hear Croonowitz on July 3. Menachem must be away for the holiday. "YAY!" But his vehicle was still in its parking space right next to mine. (?) The last time I heard Croonowitz was ~July 2. The music had stopped. Menachem had stopped playing it. Stopped playing any music. Somebody had complained. Somebody who lived next to him on the 3rd floor probably. I would have had to leave every day the minute I heard him put Croonowitz on if I had lived next to Menachem on the third floor.

A few nights ago I heard a sound that I have never heard in 15 years living here, a television set, soft and unobtrusive. Somebody had complained and Menachem, like the good mensch he is, gave up Croonowitz for the Boob Tube. I wish I could say I am sorry for Menachem that he had to give up such a pleasure to him but I am too big an asshole for that. 

Really sorry it turned out that way.

Today

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FULL TIME

Croatia, a nation of 4 million, is going to the World Cup final against France! Deserved winners of this match and worthy opponents for the French. They had every reason to fold after giving up a goal in the 5'. They were a dogged, courageous team and it paid off for them.

Croatia 2 England 1, 109'

GOAL!

Mario Mandzukic in the 109' for Croatia! What a brave, brave team.

Half Time of Extra Time

It has been 100 minutes since England scored. Jesus.

21:15

ET 15 min +2: Then Perisic, deep on the left, curls low for Mandzukic, on the edge of the six-yard box. Pickford comes out bravely to put the striker off: he star jumps and Mandzukic’s effort is deflected wide and high. What a save! But he’s also crumped Mandzukic in his trouser arrangement with his knee. So there’s a bit of time for the striker to catch his breath before the corner’s taken.

Anya

‏

@AnyaRebke

England you are giving me major anxiety #EnglandvsCroatia

1:14 PM - 11 Jul 2018

Annabelle Knight
Verified account
@MissBelleKnight

I feel very much like this game is indicative of what the lads are like in bed... our team - young, enthusiastic and scored early. Croatia - older, scored after a lot of foreplay & delayed gratification. I hope I’m wrong & England are ready to go again ASAP! #ENGCRO #WorldCup18
1:09 PM - 11 Jul 2018

Derren Litten
Verified account
@DerrenLitten

I've had 4 vodkas and I still don't fancy a single player on the Croatian team.   THAT'S how ugly they are .
1:09 PM - 11 Jul 2018

END REGULAR TIME Croatia 1 England 1

89'

GET ON MY LADS!