My Dark Origins article for March is a discussion about The Chimes, A Goblin Story by Charles Dickens. Thanks for hosting Kaye Lynne Booth.
I have been participating in a Dickens Readathon which is being hosted by by Marsha Ingrao from Always Write blog (this is her latest post for the challenge:https://alwayswrite.blog/2023/02/13/dickenschallenge-novella-4-the-battle-of-life/); Trent McDonald from Trent’s world (https://trentsworld.blog/2023/02/07/the-third-annual-dickens-challenge-a-triple-threat/) and Yvette Prior (https://priorhouse.wordpress.com/2023/02/09/five-novella-descriptions-2023-dickenschallenge-read-one-novella-by-june-9th-post-2/).
I have recently read The Chimes, a Dickens novella which was first published in 1844, one year after the well known A Christmas Carol. It’s social critisism perfectly suited my criteria for Dark Origins posts and I decided to share my thoughts and research on this novella for my March Dark Origins post.
The story involves the disillusionment of Toby “Trotty” Veck, a poor working-class man who works as a casual messenger or ‘ticket-porter’. Dickens goes to great lengths at the beginning of the story to detail Trotty’s poverty as per the following description:
“Making, with his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints…
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What a fantastic post, Robbie. I have never heard of this story from the great man himself. Thank you for telling me about it. I read the snippets you had on here and they certainly caught my attention. I’ve tended to become complacent with Dickens over the years. At one stage I had a large collection of his better-known novels I was keeping for my granddaughter. Now you have jogged my memory, I can’t remember what happened to them! Oh well, I had better start looking.
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Hi Danny, I think it is great you were keeping your Dickens books for your granddaughter. My mom had a lovely collection and she sold them. I am still pained.I have subsequently acquired my own collection but the are not leather bound. I have enjoyed the novellas I’ve read to date and look forward to the last one.
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Hi Robbie, thank you for an excellent post! This novella is often not read nor even noticed.
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Hi Charles, I hadn’t heard of it before this challenge, but I liked it a lot.
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I’ve never read this Dickens. It does sound like him, though, with what you term ‘social criticism’.
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Hi Jacqui, the five Christmas novellas have been interesting reads. This and A Christmas Carol are his usual social criticism with paranormal elements but the other two are different. I have one left.
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Didn’t know that either. 5 of them! I can’t say I’ll read them, but I’ll read your reviews.
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They are interesting to review and think about. The Battle of Life is my firm favourite to date.
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I hadn’t heard of this novella before, Robbie. The theme of inequality would be hard to read, for sure. You do the novella justice with this thorough review.
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Hi Christy, I didn’t know about four of these novellas before this Dickens challenge. I feel Dickens’ words are even more powerful in these shorter settings.
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Excellent description of this story by a great author, Robbie. Your thoughts on the conditions Dickens writes about are reasoned and straightforward. Good job! 🙂
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Thank you, Tim. I am always greatly moved by Dickens’ stories and saddened that they are still so relevant in our modern world.
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I enjoyed your interpretation of this Dickens classic. Shared!
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Thank you, Jan. I really liked poor Trotty and the lovely Meg.
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On my way to read the rest!
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Thanks, Liz
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You’re welcome, Robbie.
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