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No Birthday Hat for You, Dickens


Aw, you guys, it's Dickens' 200th birthday. Back when I tried harder on here, I wrote two posts concerning him. They are:

Dickens vs Austen Cage Match

Dickens and My Kind of Overblown Prejudice Against Him

Since I rarely go to linked posts, I'm going to assume you won't, so I can with impunity just repost a line or two from those. Namely, that Dickens’ particular brand of hypocritical asshattery came about because, despite his constant assertions of how wonderful the Victorian nuclear family can be, he leaves his wife in 1858 and takes up with – dear God – an actress

I love his books. I do. But he's one of many authors I would have zero interest in meeting. We could time travel back to Victorian days and you could say "Alice! By George [for we would be awesome and adapt to the language], Dickens is directly down the street! Let us go hear him expound upon matters and some such things!"

And I would say "If I wished to hear someone I don't respect speak, I would attend a Twilight convention. Let us forsake this idiotic plan of yours and find some eel pie for purchase." (hah, the British eat disgusting things)

I don't have all the facts about his domestic situation, but it PISSES ME OFF when he writes his heroines in such a way that if they have even a spark of humor, they have to be punished (*cough*BellaWilfer*cough*), and talks so much about how important it is that they are wives and mothers and then LEAVES HIS FAMILY. What I really wanted for this post was a gif of Molly Shannon on 30 Rock saying "Come here, you magnificent douchebag!" But I could not find it. What I DID find, however, was this, labeled "Polite Bears":



Happy 200th birthday, Dickens. I'm glad you wrote Bleak House.

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