Awesome Dickens Ladies Part 2

Nicholas Nickleby: the Infant Phenomenon, hilarious member of the acting troupe Nicholas joins.

A jigsaw puzzle of Nicholas Nickleby. 

"This, sir," said Mr. Vincent Crummles, bringing the Maiden forward, "This is the Infant Phenomenon--Miss Ninetta Crummles."

"Your daughter?" inquired Nicholas.

"My daughter--my daughter," replied Mr. Crummles; "the idol of every place we go into, sir. We have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in England."

"I am not surprised at that," said Nicholas; "she must be quite a natural genius."

"Quite a--!" Mr. Crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough to describe the Infant Phenomenon. "I'll tell you what, sir," he said; "the talent of this child is not to be imagined. She must be seen, sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated. There; go to your mother, my dear."

"May I ask how old she is?" inquired Nicholas.

"You may, sir," replied Mr. Crummles, "She is ten years of age, sir,"

"Not more?"

"Not a day."

"Dear me," said Nicholas, "it's extraordinary."

It was; for the Infant Phenomenon certainly looked older, and had moreover, been precisely the same age for certainly five years. But she had been kept up late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin and water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system of training had produced in the Infant Phenomenon these additional phenomena."

So, that's pretty great.
BUT THE NEXT CHARACTER IS EVEN GREATER!

 

Buuut I have a whole lot to say about her, so I'll do another post. Who in the world could it be? THE SUSPENSE!!

Pip's going back to the time when he owned this town.

The time has come, people of the Internet, to talk about how Sovereign Light Cafe is my Great Expectations song. Here is the story of how I made the realization.

Right in the middle of my era of crazed Dickens-obsession I was reading Great Expectations, which have I mentioned before is the best?? Because it is. Orphans and convicts in creepy graveyards, spider-cakes, unrequited love, the Aged P, delusion, death by conflagration, youthful stupidity. WHAT LARKS. So I was happily reading away (I think I was sitting waiting in a Trader Joe's parking lot, for a reason that now evades me. Why wouldn't I go into Trader Joe's? They have sample cheeses!) And then a song came on the radio. The song.  As I half-listened, it dawned on me that firstly the song was stand-alone awesome and secondly THE WORDS IN THE SONG MATCHED THE EMOTIONS IN THE BOOK. Besides the overall feeling of nostalgia and regret that pervades the book,  I was at the specific part where Pip's life has imploded and he's like, Well, darn, I sort of ruined everything by pushing away those deserving of my love and deserting them to chase my selfish and all-too-elusive dreams of superficial self-betterment, I guess I'll try to pick up the shattered pieces of my existence and go back where I really belong . And the song was like, "You've got nothing to hide, you can't change who you really are/ You can get a big house and a faster car/ You can run away, boy but you won't go far.." And I got all teary-eyed and realized that this was A Moment.

And so I obviously scribbled down the name of the band in the front of my book (spelling it "Keen" at the time, may I be forgiven) and went home and totally fell in love with their music. I saw them live in January and they did Sovereign Light Cafe and that was Another Moment. And Great Expectations is awesome and Keane is awesome and this post is a very happy way to start the day. For me at least. Maybe not for you. Maybe you don't like melodic/anthemic piano-based British introspection. That's ok! For you then, here is another happy thing: I read in the intro to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (I'm behind on reviews) that when they were young, the Bronte sisters kept pet geese named Diamond, Snowflake and Rainbow and a pheasant named Jasper. JASPER THE PHEASANT.

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