London Fields

On the 9th June, 1870 the English author and journalist Charles Dickens died. He had an illustrious career, as a novelist and as a public speaker and performer on the stage. However there was one place which loomed much larger than anywhere else in his imagination. This was his long and enduring connection to England’s capital city, London. Dickens is now considered synonymous with London, and its people. He captured the genius loci expertly, and he preserved its unique character for generations of readers.

English people from other parts of the country are always astonished by the change in culture whenever they visit London. Londoners are exceptional people. They are defined by their attitudes and sensibilities. This is glaringly obvious to outsiders. Visitors remark upon the aggression and on the cynicism that is concealed beneath the shiny and expensive veneer.

Observers have commented that the assorted denizens of London are always keen to make an impression, characteristic of a metropolis in which everything and everyone is in competition. Dickens absorbed this frenetic atmosphere and his work embodied the restless soul of London. It was clear in his writing style, he was fond of superlatives and exaggeration. Most of his characters are caricatures, fond tributes to the indomitable and unforgettable figures that inspired him as a young man.

Contemporary writers have used London as a template to critique urbanisation and capitalism, and to reveal the associated ills of alienation and atomisation. However in Dickens’ day London did not operate in that way. Unlike the isolated, soulless experience of today, in his experience everyone was interconnected. For example in “Master Humphrey’s Clock” he observed that,

“Here life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and starvation laid themselves down together…wealth and beggary, vice and virtue, guilt and innocence…all treading on each other and crowding together”.

He admired the vitality of London and its indefatigable spirit and proclaimed that, “every voice is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass vibrating”.

Dickens was enamoured by the dynamism of the city.

Ever since its inception, London has been an economic powerhouse, and it remains central to the economic fortunes of the entire country. This is astonishing, considering its history. It began rather inauspiciously as dank marshland, before the Romans invaded. The Romans’ acuity was invaluable to the city’s success, as they swiftly built viaducts, bridges and roads and the city began to thrive.

London depends on youth and talent as its lifeblood, and Dickens drew on this in his portraits of poor, yet plucky youngsters like Pip in “Great Expectations” and the eponymous hero in “Oliver Twist”. However he was not afraid to expose the darker side. It must be said that far too many readers focus upon this and ignore the wider picture.

It is too simplistic to portray him as a radical or a socialist. Although moved by the plight of the poor, he supported charity, an innately conservative and Victorian virtue. He did not seek political or social revolution in any shape or form, and he would have been horrified by such a suggestion.

Dickens’ writing is embedded with a distinct moral code and the brutal reality of city living emanates from every page. The characters in his books are complex, and finely drawn evocations of human vice and villainy. These are true reflections of individuals stripped of all pride and vanity.

He made a deliberate decision to write about the hidden corners of London, the prisons, the asylums and the orphanages. In his mind, the true nature of London was revealed in these places, these were the lurid extremities where few city dwellers would dare to venture.

The sombre scenes of these institutions are starkly rendered. These are the areas that are forbidding and foreboding, rarely encountered by others, especially those cocooned in luxury and privilege. The grime and the grit, the sulphuric gloom and the caustic humour exhibited by the unlucky few who find themselves plunged into this atmosphere have a close association with Dickens. These descriptive qualities have even acquired the soubriquet “Dickensian”. Everyone understands what this concept means whenever this is invoked as an adjective.

G.K Chesterton understood it, and he wrote a vivid essay on his writing, describing,

“A vision of the Dickens’ world-a maze of white roads…thundering coaches, clamorous market-places, uproarious inns, strange and swaggering figures.”

Chesterton adored the fantastical world of Dickens, a hinterland populated by memorable characters.

It is an unmistakable milieu that remains baffling, yet intriguing to outsiders. However for those of us who remain deeply immersed in the culture of England, and particularly the culture of London, it is eerily familiar. Dickens’ had a great insight into this spare existence. It was only alleviated by dark humour.

It seemed that joking made the bleakness surmountable. Chesterton declared that,

“The English poor live in an atmosphere of humour; they think in humour. Irony is the very air that they breathe.”

Dickens felt a great affection for his fellow Londoners, and he never fell into the trap of patronising them. Chesterton concludes that Dickens “responded to a profound human sentiment”. This human sentiment is his greatest legacy,