I consider myself a pretty well-schooled reader: my mum was a lit critter, so I've soaked this up from childhood; I've been a copy editor for nearly nearly twenty years or so; I'm a writer, I pay attention to words and can say what the function of sentences is in a longer text. I would have done badly on this test because I would have been vastly overthinking: they must want to hear something profound, and much of the analysis is pedestrian. I mean, how much can you say about the immortal prose of 'London'? (I only analysed the first paragraph).
I had to look up: – Michaelmas Term (modern day: ends in December; I was off thinking it would be in the new year. I forget how short three terms are, but at least I know it (used to live in Oxford) – Lincoln's Inn Hall and the Lord Chancellor. I'm not sure whether the Old Hall was 'the hall' before the current one was opened in 1845. Contemporaries would know whether this is a marker of time as well as place. Anyway, Lincoln's Inn is in London proper. – Megalosaurus. This was named in 1824, and I wonder how many people would be familiar with this. It marks the intended readership as somewhat educated. (The first part of Bleak House was published before the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs made it famous in 1854.) – Holborn Hill. This is close to Lincoln's Inn. Going by the StreetView, it's a moderate rise, not a steep hill. His readers might or might not know. – history of umbrellas as protection from rain. (First recorded usage, 1708, referring to women. Not really coming into their own in Britain until the 1780s; all the rage in Paris much sooner.) A marker of people without their own carriages; and I have a feeling that 'foot passengers' echoes that. Would have to be more familiar with the literature of the time to know what people walking in an urban environment are usually referred to.
To sum up the paragraph: Dickens sets the scene with a mixture of sentence fragments/short sentences and long, elaborate, winding ones: We're in London, in November, it rains, and things are bleak (mud, soot, people going splat.) He even leads with the Court, though that's a sleight of hand you only appreciate in the last two paragraphs of this excerpt; until then it was just a bit of flavour.
Skimming through the rest, Dickens is still setting the scene right until the end; he starts with very broad strokes (indistinguishable dogs, working horses in blinkers), and paints a bleak picture right from the start mostly using the weather/atmospherics. The gas lights are another thing I had to look up just to see when they had their heyday. by the time this book was written, they were pretty well established, at least in London, and the point was made that this would have boosted literacy because people could spend more time reading!
He's also spending enough time on the Court; and giving specific details about people there that I'm expected much of the next chapter at least to be set there and dealing with a specific case. (I haven't read Bleak House at all.)
Overall, it feels quite wordy. Leaving aside the fact that Dickens was paid by the word, which encourages wordiness, there's not actually much to trim on sentence level; each little gem of description adds to a very rich overall picture, and while you could cut some, you'd leave the text poorer. There's a lot of poetry in the descriptions, and it feels like something that ought to be read aloud.
Many of the details might have gone over the intended readership's heads, but that's ok, because there are enough details, and what you're missing is likely to be 'some of the richness' rather than 'crucial information needed to understand the book'; and most readers will have recognised *some* of them, just different parts. One might know Holborn Hill, the next the almshouses in Greenwich.
I've come away with a greater appreciation of Dickens than before; much of this opening feels intentional rather than filler, so thank you for that.
What someone who is not familiar with London, with 19th century literature, and without a good historical grounding makes of this I don't know. 'What is this sentence doing' can be a trap because it draws attention away from the overall text: how there isn't a specific narrator, and how we gradually creep from generic Londonness to a specific moment in time.
Given what he did with the Lord Chancellor, I wonder whether some of the details in this introduction might reappear later, but overall, there's too much to keep track of.
no subject
I had to look up:
– Michaelmas Term (modern day: ends in December; I was off thinking it would be in the new year. I forget how short three terms are, but at least I know it (used to live in Oxford)
– Lincoln's Inn Hall and the Lord Chancellor. I'm not sure whether the Old Hall was 'the hall' before the current one was opened in 1845. Contemporaries would know whether this is a marker of time as well as place. Anyway, Lincoln's Inn is in London proper.
– Megalosaurus. This was named in 1824, and I wonder how many people would be familiar with this. It marks the intended readership as somewhat educated. (The first part of Bleak House was published before the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs made it famous in 1854.)
– Holborn Hill. This is close to Lincoln's Inn. Going by the StreetView, it's a moderate rise, not a steep hill. His readers might or might not know.
– history of umbrellas as protection from rain. (First recorded usage, 1708, referring to women. Not really coming into their own in Britain until the 1780s; all the rage in Paris much sooner.) A marker of people without their own carriages; and I have a feeling that 'foot passengers' echoes that. Would have to be more familiar with the literature of the time to know what people walking in an urban environment are usually referred to.
To sum up the paragraph: Dickens sets the scene with a mixture of sentence fragments/short sentences and long, elaborate, winding ones: We're in London, in November, it rains, and things are bleak (mud, soot, people going splat.) He even leads with the Court, though that's a sleight of hand you only appreciate in the last two paragraphs of this excerpt; until then it was just a bit of flavour.
Skimming through the rest, Dickens is still setting the scene right until the end; he starts with very broad strokes (indistinguishable dogs, working horses in blinkers), and paints a bleak picture right from the start mostly using the weather/atmospherics.
The gas lights are another thing I had to look up just to see when they had their heyday. by the time this book was written, they were pretty well established, at least in London, and the point was made that this would have boosted literacy because people could spend more time reading!
He's also spending enough time on the Court; and giving specific details about people there that I'm expected much of the next chapter at least to be set there and dealing with a specific case. (I haven't read Bleak House at all.)
Overall, it feels quite wordy. Leaving aside the fact that Dickens was paid by the word, which encourages wordiness, there's not actually much to trim on sentence level; each little gem of description adds to a very rich overall picture, and while you could cut some, you'd leave the text poorer. There's a lot of poetry in the descriptions, and it feels like something that ought to be read aloud.
Many of the details might have gone over the intended readership's heads, but that's ok, because there are enough details, and what you're missing is likely to be 'some of the richness' rather than 'crucial information needed to understand the book'; and most readers will have recognised *some* of them, just different parts. One might know Holborn Hill, the next the almshouses in Greenwich.
I've come away with a greater appreciation of Dickens than before; much of this opening feels intentional rather than filler, so thank you for that.
What someone who is not familiar with London, with 19th century literature, and without a good historical grounding makes of this I don't know. 'What is this sentence doing' can be a trap because it draws attention away from the overall text: how there isn't a specific narrator, and how we gradually creep from generic Londonness to a specific moment in time.
Given what he did with the Lord Chancellor, I wonder whether some of the details in this introduction might reappear later, but overall, there's too much to keep track of.