Dickens at 200

Today is the bicentenary of the birth of the novelist Charles Dickens.

Like many of my favourite novelists - Conrad, Orwell, Patrick Hamilton - Dickens' genius lies in creating a world from what he saw about him and peopling it with characters many of whom have become bywords for a type of person (Scrooge, Miss Havisham, Pecksniff).  His serialisation of his works and the massive public interest in each new chapter can be seen as a precursor for the TV soap opera.

I know the charges against him - a particularly Victorian sentimentallity (lampooned by Oscar Wilde's with his famous remark about the death of Little Nell), daft names (although they were taken from gravestones) and repeated use of plot devices like rediscovered wills and people who are secretly related to each other.  He is though the only nineteenth century English novelist I can think of who combines superb description with laugh out loud humour. No other writer in the English language has had his or her works adapted for film and TV as much either, a testament to the the characters and plots he created in his novels.

Dickens and Drood

I enjoyed the first episode of BBC's The Mystery of Edwin Drood last night and am looking forward to the concluding part tonight.  Based on Charles Dickens' last novel, unfinished at his death in 1870, it also supplies an ending to the story.

Unlike most other TV adaptations of Dickens, I haven't actually read the book so don't know how close it is to the original but there is some top class acting in it, including from, amongst others, Alun Armstrong, Ron Cook and a particularly impressive Rory Kinnear as the good natured clergyman Rev. Crisparkle.

You can watch the first episode here.

The last post (of the year)

I'm taking a break from blogging over Christmas and the New Year. So until then, here's an appropriately seasonal tune from the great R&B/jazz singer Nat 'King' Cole.

Have a happy Christmas and God bless You, Every One!

Beer and breast milk

I've just started reading Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. Like other novels by Dickens - Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop - it abounds with references to beer and brewing.

As the novel opens, the son of the title has just been born. His mother dies shortly afterwards, leading Mr Dombey to employ a working-class "wet nurse" to breast feed him.  He also orders that she be supplied with "porter - quite unlimited."

I've heard the idea before that stout promotes the production of breast milk.  According to the beer writer Michael Jackson, in Malta Farsons Lacto Stout is prescribed by doctors to breastfeeding mothers. 

The question is whether it's actually true.  Is it an advertising ploy like Guiness is Good for You or is there scientific evidence to back the claim up?