Our Dickens Champions Mitchell Classics Group have been reading Barnaby Rudge – here are Rosalind’s thoughts on the book:
It is one of Dickens’s most neglected, but most rewarding, novels. In its sympathetic portrayal of the mad boy Barnaby, and in its evocation of a turbulent London, it transcends the usual boundaries of the historical novel and becomes a complete statement of human weakness and communal power. (Peter Ackroyd, The Guardian, Saturday 8 October 2005).
I couldn’t agree more! Approaching this very long novel with some trepidation, it is probably the one I have enjoyed most of those we have read by Dickens. Although I found that the better known Oliver Twist and David Copperfield had their longeurs and irritations, particularly with the young female heroines, I read every page of Barnaby with great interest.
The Gordon Riots were only a name to me before reading the novel. Why haven’t I known about them before? Four prisons burned down; Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square destroyed; attacks on Parliament and St James and Buckingham Palaces … As has been observed by other bloggers, many of Dickens’ subjects are relevant today; I was reminded, as I read about the disturbances of 1780, of the London riots of 2011.
Mob psychology
Dickens’ reporting of mob psychology is terrifying and the attacks on Catholics and their houses are fuelled by the same unreasoning hatred as that of the Germans against the Jews in the 1930’s and 1940’s and of both Protestants and Catholic extremists to each other in Northern Ireland. His description of how the small people at the bottom of society, such as Hugh and Simmins, are inflated by their own sense of power by attacking others who they see as threats, is insightful. And yet, he still retains sympathy for their situation, as when he writes about those executed for their part in the uprising:
those who suffered as rioters were for the most part the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them.
His treatment also of the centaur, Hugh, suggests that Hugh was more sinned against than sinning, because of the situation of his birth: mother hanged, after being abandoned by his father, the dastardly Sir John Chester, the amoral dillettante, who won’t move a finger to save Hugh from execution. As Mr. Haredale accuses him at the end of the novel, it is he who is responsible for the destruction of the Warren and much else besides – an Iago-like figure with no moral qualms whatsoever and motivated only by his hatred for Geoffrey Haredale. He is killed in a duel by Haredale and Dickens suggests that his son, Edward, breaks away from the genetic influence of evil, by using him, along with Joe Willet, as heroic rescuers. Indeed, it is Edward who recovers the body of his half-brother and buries him after his execution.
Some of the humour at the start of the novel in the Maypole Inn centres around the fractious relationship between Joe and his father, the innkeeper, John Willet. Again, their spats could be found in many homes today – fathers unwilling to recognise their sons have grown into adults and sons trying to break away. The only harmonious parental relationship is between the solid-gold Gabriel (surely the name of the archangel was a deliberate choice) Varden and his daughter, Dolly, who breaks the mould of sickening young girl character, for whom Dickens sometimes shows a prediliction, because of her flirtatious faults.
Mrs Varden’s hypocrisy is a joy and her companion, Miggs, a female version of the unctuous Uriah Heep, very funny. Mrs. V. sees the error of her determined anti-Catholicism, however, and domestic harmony is restored in the locksmith’s household; whereas, the self-serving Miggs reaps her due deserts and ends up as a female prison warder.
Dickens’ zeal for prison reform is evident in his descriptions of Newgate, particularly that of the prison chapel, where condemned prisoners sat through their own funeral service next to their coffins. (This is not an exaggeration according to websites I looked at). His vivid descriptions of events in his first historical novel demonstrate his grasp of detail and skilful creation of atmosphere. It has been suggested that he had heard eyewitness accounts of the riots from older relatives; certainly, as I read, I felt as though I was present.
Get involved
Read Beeston’s Afternoon Reading Group and Manchester Dickens Reading Group reviews of Barnaby Rudge.
Read our Dickens Champions’ blog posts as they read and reviewed their way through Dickens in 2012.
