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Going Astray
Among the numerous books on Dickenss London, Going Astray is unique in combining detailed topography and biography with close textual analysis and theoretically informed critiques of most of the novelists major works. In Jeremy Tamblings intriguing and illuminating synthesis, the London A-Z meets Nietzsche, Benjamin and Derrida. Rick Allen, author of The Moving A Literary Sourcebook on London Street-Life, 1700-1914 Dickens wrote so insistently about London its streets, its people, its unknown areas that certain parts of the city are forever haunted by him. Going Dickens and London looks at the novelists delight in losing the self in the labyrinthine city and maps that interest, onto the compulsion to go astray in writing. Drawing on all Dickens published writings (including the journalism but concentrating on the novels), Jeremy Tambling considers the authors kaleidoscopic characterisations of as prison and as legal centre; as the heart of empire and of traumatic memory; as the place of the uncanny; as an old curiosity shop. His study examines the relations between narrative and the city, and explores how the metropolis encapsulates the problems of modernity for Dickens as well as suggesting the limits of representation. Combining contemporary literary and cultural theory with historical maps, photographs and contextual detail, Jeremy Tamblings book is an indispensable guide to Dickens, nineteenth- century literature, and the city itself.
360 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2008
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June 5, 2015
Review title: Not for the casual traveler
I bought this book about Dickens and London in Manchester when I was there in 2010 and thought I would be spending several months in London on a followup assignment. When that assignment fell through and I returned to the US, I was disappointed that I couldn't walk London with Tambling in hand.
In retrospect, now that I have had time to read the book from distant shores, I realize it wouldn't have been much help to me as a casual traveler. Tambling's book is more serious literary criticism of Dickens' use of London as a setting for his literary works than it is a layman's travelogue. As literary criticism, as far as I can tell with my unpracticed eye, "Going Astray" is well done, and some of the insights are interesting.
A central tenant of Tambling's thesis is that Dickens shaped London, a city in transition from the rebuilt city after the Great Fire of the 17th century to the post-industrial city of the 20th century yet to come after Dickens' death too soon. Interestingly, despite its massive population growth in the 19th century, Tambling asserts that Paris remained the representative city of the century for its revolutionary fervor in contrast to London's fundamental conservatism even in the face of great societal, cultural, and economic pressure.
Tambling mines not only Dickens' most well-known novels, but also his two major collections of essays and journalism--Sketches by Boz and The Uncommercial Traveler--for places, distances, contrasts, and criticism. In fact, I have a copy of Sketches that I plan to read next, but in retrospect I would recommend that readers of Tambling first be familiar with both these collections before tackling Tambling.
And finally, on the travelogue aspect, there are some maps in the center of the book, but only historical maps illustrating the streets before and during Dickens' time, and Tambling does provide a gazetteer at the back that brings together all the location references in one place. It would have been helpful to the traveler to have included a modern foldout street map keyed to the gazetteer, but as I noted in my review, that really wasn't Tambling's purpose in writing this geo-literary criticism of Dickens.
I bought this book about Dickens and London in Manchester when I was there in 2010 and thought I would be spending several months in London on a followup assignment. When that assignment fell through and I returned to the US, I was disappointed that I couldn't walk London with Tambling in hand.
In retrospect, now that I have had time to read the book from distant shores, I realize it wouldn't have been much help to me as a casual traveler. Tambling's book is more serious literary criticism of Dickens' use of London as a setting for his literary works than it is a layman's travelogue. As literary criticism, as far as I can tell with my unpracticed eye, "Going Astray" is well done, and some of the insights are interesting.
A central tenant of Tambling's thesis is that Dickens shaped London, a city in transition from the rebuilt city after the Great Fire of the 17th century to the post-industrial city of the 20th century yet to come after Dickens' death too soon. Interestingly, despite its massive population growth in the 19th century, Tambling asserts that Paris remained the representative city of the century for its revolutionary fervor in contrast to London's fundamental conservatism even in the face of great societal, cultural, and economic pressure.
Tambling mines not only Dickens' most well-known novels, but also his two major collections of essays and journalism--Sketches by Boz and The Uncommercial Traveler--for places, distances, contrasts, and criticism. In fact, I have a copy of Sketches that I plan to read next, but in retrospect I would recommend that readers of Tambling first be familiar with both these collections before tackling Tambling.
And finally, on the travelogue aspect, there are some maps in the center of the book, but only historical maps illustrating the streets before and during Dickens' time, and Tambling does provide a gazetteer at the back that brings together all the location references in one place. It would have been helpful to the traveler to have included a modern foldout street map keyed to the gazetteer, but as I noted in my review, that really wasn't Tambling's purpose in writing this geo-literary criticism of Dickens.
Displaying 1 of 1 review