The Istoriaphile’s Corner

It’s almost winter again and I keep thinking the books of Dickens.  For many of us, Dickens is an immutable part of this season although I don’t think he reached that place just because of his famous Christmas tale. Winter is a melodramatic mix of beauty, fear and hope, just like his stories and the first one that comes to mind is The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.  Nickleby is Dickens’s third novel and by that time he had his formula down pat.  There’s the hero, young  Nicholas, impetuously ready to take up arms against every unjust cause he meets; there’s his impossibly good and patient sister Kate who is just a little too close to her brother for twenty-first century sensibilities and their addle-pated mother.  There’s a rogue’s gallary of baddies to threaten them including the sneering, high-born, louse, Sir Mulberry Hawk (whose picture should be in the dictionary by the term “sexual predator.”)  For those who favor the emotionally crippled-bad guy, Uncle Ralph Nickleby spends his life and reason plotting for money and vengeance on our hero since people like Nicholas but they don’t like him!  (Seriously, this guy needed therapy!)   There are other not-so-nice guys but…