When Isla said it would be a two-hour performance, I’d been confused. I’ve been to author readings. The best are short and sweet. Even the longest top out at thirty minutes, which let me tell you, is a long time to be actively listening to someone who is not an actor or a public speaker. No matter how interesting the material, most authors are not meant to read their work.
Dickens is an exception. Possibly because, at one time, he’d entertained thoughts of acting as a career path. As I watch, I’m honestly not sure what I think. My preconceptions are smashed to such splinters that I can only sit there and gape.
In my time, Dickens is classic literature. I know that was very different during his own life. He was considered a populist writer, with all the scorn that can bring. His appeal went far beyond the educated upper—or even middle—class. He told stories about the poor and working classes. Real Victorian life, the sort I see every time I visit the Old Town.
Yet as much as I understood his broad class appeal, I couldn’t help but still stick him in the “classic author” box, alongside the other literary greats. Which means I am in no way prepared for what I am witnessing.
This is Dickens’s final tour because the performances are getting to be too much for him, physically. Yet the man I see is in his fifties and hardly doddering. The reason these performances exhaust him? Because they’re actual performances.
I am treated—if that’s the word—to the most gonzo reading ofA Christmas Carolever. It’s as if seven-year-old Mallory got to play all the parts and played her little unselfconscious heart out. Except the guy doing the performance is Charles Dickens himself.
“What do you think?” Isla whispers. “Are readings like this in your day?”
I try to imagine Margaret Atwood getting up on stage and doing this sort of “reading” fromThe Handmaid’s Tale.
Nope.
I can’t imagine even the most populist authors of my time giving a performance like this.
And this is Charles freaking Dickens.
“He’s very... energetic,” I say.
“Isn’t he? They say his readings bring him more income than his books do.”
“I... can imagine.”
As I watch, I am reminded again how much this world is not what I expected. When I silence my preconceptions, I begin to enjoy it, rather than staring like an elderly aunt at her first rave.
Dickens finishes his reading fromA Christmas Carol. Then it’s on toOliver Twist. Good choice. Definitely a crowd-pleaser. I’m wondering what scene he’ll read when?—
It’s the Nancy and Sikes scene. The brutal murder of Nancy at the hands of her boyfriend, Bill Sikes. I glance around nervously. This is an all-ages crowd, and he’s reading what might be the most violent scene of his career. And everyone in the music hall—from children to well-dressed ladies—hangs on his every word.
“This is...” I manage to choke out, “an interesting choice.”
“He always reads this one,” Isla says. “The crowd would rise up in protest if he did not.”
I sit there, watching a packed theater of prim Victorians devouring Charles Dickens’s reading of a gruesome and tragic murder scene.
“At least a dozen women will faint,” Isla whispers. “Loudly and enthusiastically.”
I stare at her. Then I stare at the bloodthirsty crowd of ladies and gentlemen, all of them dressed in infinite layers as protection against the horror and shame of revealing a stray bit of bare skin.
I willneverunderstand Victorians.
“Not what you expected?” Gray whispers at my ear.
I turn and gesticulate, unable to put my thoughts into words. His lips curve in a smile that grows until he needs to cough in his hand, politely, before he laughs aloud. Then I settle in to watch the reading... while Gray settles in for, I suspect, the even more entertaining spectacle of watchingmewatching the reading.
ChapterThree
The performance is over, and I’ve realized I’m not getting my book signed. I’d tracked down a first edition ofOur Mutual Friend, my favorite Dickens novel, and tucked it into my bag. The readings I’ve attended always culminate in a signing. But, again, the author events I’ve attended aren’t two hours of a performance so energetic that I’m exhausted from just watching.
Isla and McCreadie are gone. McCreadie had scoped out a suitable spot to enjoy a polite tipple after the show, and we’d encouraged them to escape as quickly as possible and snag a table. Any chance Gray and I get to give McCreadie and Isla time together is a chance we take.
Gray and I have lingered, with me clutching my book and looking around hopefully, as if there’s a hidden “author signing” for those in the know.
“You brought a book?” Gray says.
