Dickens’s Inner Demon
Charles Dickens was such a powder keg of pent up emotions and energy that he set off every night to walk it off for three or four hours. If he stopped doing that, he said he would “just explode and perish.”
He once met the great Russian novelist Dostoevsky, who later recalled that Dickens had told him there were two people inside him – “One who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite.”
Dostoevsky replied, “Just two people?”
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We’ve heard this story before (and hope we’re not repeating it here, but after 500 posts, who knows?). This week we’re indebted to Verlyn Klinkenborg for bringing it up again in an excellent Sunday Observer column on Dickens in the Sunday Times.
Comment by Al — January 16, 2012 @ 3:15 pm
Dostoesvsky was merely confused because Dickens only had two names: Charles and Dickens; whereas Doetoesvsky probably had several dozen, what with patronymics and all, and probably ascribed a persona to each one, And then, of course, there were all the diminutives of all the patronymics, which left each Russian sharing his personal space with an entire village-ful of people whose names he couldn’t keep straight.
No wonder he was puzzled.
Comment by Steve Alber — January 17, 2012 @ 2:58 pm
Quite so. The meeting with Dickens must have been brief after all the time consumed by introducing Dostoevsky — Feyodor or Feodor Mikhailovich (there’s your patronymic) Dostoevsky or Dostoiewsky or Dostoisfsky, son of Michail Andreevich and Maria Fedorovna, etc. etc. And, as you suggest, he traveled in company with his entire village — which today would be quite expensive but back then the diminutives could travel free.
Comment by Al — January 18, 2012 @ 4:47 pm