Dear Bozians...
CGlendin (CGlendin@AOL.COM)
Thu, 2 Apr 1998 13:48:27 EST
I am new to this list -- any list actually, so any breach of ettiquette is
purely unintentional.
Having just severely torn the calf muscle of my left leg playing baseball with
my 11-year-old son, I am now comfortably entombed in an overstuffed chair at
my computer with a bag of ice bringing that extremity to the brink of
frostbite.
I have an observation, but I must warn you, I have read just enough Dickens to
proudly wear a sweater bearing the name "sophomore." I rented the film version
(starring Alec Guiness and Derek Jacobi) of "Little Dorritt." For the first
part of the film, I felt as if I was a third-grader who had just been placed
in a college-level Calculus class, posessing the added handicap of being stone
deaf and blind as well.
It was a four film series, and I spent as much time going backward to review
as I did going forward. Eventually I made it to the hump where the Arthur
Clennam turns over the reins and the ENTIRE STORY is re-told through Amy
Dorritt's eyes.
I almost cried.
But instead, I found that the loose ends and confusing blind alleys of the
first part were totally cleared up as I now looked at the story from the other
side. This was sublime--like pedalling a bicycle up one side of the mountain,
I now had the exhillirating joy of riding down the other side.
My mother is a champion at needlepoint. As a little child, I watched her work
and had the handicap (due to the limitations of height that infancy demands)
of viewing her work from the underside. I could see brilliant yarns laid in
random and senseless patterns, twisted and broken into frayed ends that stuck
out all over like weeds in a technicolor lawn. But I knew that SHE knew what
she was doing and always when I asked to see the real picture, she would turn
it around and show me the grapes, apples and roses -- right where they were
supposed to be. I knew they would be.
And I think that's why I trusted Dickens too -- enought to wade through the
first half of that tremendously unique story. Now I think I'll go and read
the book.
Charles Glendinning
cglendin@aol.com