Sweet Barnaby (shame about the other good guys)

How very vexing. I've seen the whole series three of Downton Abbey now, but because of Swedish Television's scheduling, my fellow Swedes won't be finished watching it until Christmas - which means, for the sake of loyalty, I'll have to postpone any further blogging about it until after the Christmas special (ages away). Maybe it's just as well - a Downton blog post at this stage would probably just turn into a list of twenty-odd more or less good excuses for rooting for a dolt (sterling acting; O'Brienishly manipulative script; hormonal imbalance on part of villain-loving viewer - that's three already). Come the new year, I may be in a more reasonable state of mind. Or not.

So, moving on to something completely different. For the past weeks, I've been rereading Barnaby Rudge. I thought it moved a bit slowly the first time I read it, and I was interested to see whether I'd matured and gained some patience since last time. The answer is, not really. It's a novel that's big on atmosphere but a bit short on pace. The Gordon Riots, which form the backdrop of the second half of the book, slow things down considerably. The truth is a little of angry-crowd-in-fire-scenes go a very long way with me, especially as Dickens insists on embellishing them with long, semicolon-full sentences. Yes, they contain powerful images, but there is only so much of those you can take in, and anyway I can't say I care that much. I want to get on with the story. After all, if I wanted to read up on the Gordon Riots, I'd probably choose a more trustworthy source that the opinionated Dickens.

All the same, even if you're not really into angry-mob scenes as told by a shocked model citizen, there is much in Barnaby Rudge to enjoy. Barnaby himself is an acquaintance worth making. The Wise Fool is one of my least favourite stock characters normally, but with Barnaby the conceit works because he's not such a fool as all that. He's not "wanting" as people used to say; his wits are over-heated rather than slow. A madman with a surfeit of imagination and a certain instinct for what is right - though it leads him astray more than once - he easily engages the reader's sympathy, not least when he's bravely but wrong-headedly fighting for a misguided cause.

A shame the characters who are in their senses aren't always as compelling. I seem to remember an Amazon review complaining that the villains in Barnaby Rudge weren't really up to Dickens's usual standards. In my view, the villains do their job well enough: it's the good characters, aside from Barnaby, who are the problem. The two young heroes are ciphers, especially Edward Chester (Joe Willet shows a little more spirit, but he's not what you'd call a memorable personality). Edward's love Emma Haredale is just as colourless. Dolly Varden, the other heroine, at least has some humanising flaws - she's a flirty piece - but if you are a woman, and straight, it's hard to share Dickens's cooing admiration of her charms. I felt more than a little sympathy with her mother's latently malevolent (and plain) maid, Miss Miggs, who has no time for her young mistress. Emma's gloomy, hard-done-by uncle Geoffrey Haredale stands out by his uningratiating manners; given that he is such a bear it's not so strange that various villains should take against him (especially as they're of the Dickensian, easily-slighted kind). Barnaby's suffering mother is such a model of hand-wringing selflessness it's almost ridiculous. And don't get me started on the awful John Grueby, staunch British-bulldog servant of the deluded Lord George Gordon. One of my main pleasures when I'm in a how-would-I-adapt-this-novel-for-television fantasising mood and am thinking of Barnaby Rudge is to imagine how I would cut out John Grueby completely from the story.

The main good character besides Barnaby, Gabriel Varden, is one of two examples in the book of a tried and tested Dickensian recipe for a character not working out quite as well as it usually does. Varden shares many characteristics with famous good Dickens characters such as Mr Pickwick. He is good-natured; he is generous; he is quick to forgive; he likes to spread good cheer wherever he goes. The phrase P.G. Wodehouse used about Dickensian characters - "yeasty benevolence" - springs to mind. And yet somehow he doesn't quite "take". I couldn't warm to him, and yes, I do warm occasionally to good characters in Dickens as well as the bad ones. Part of the problem is Varden's role in the story. The tale of how a locksmith refused to help the rioting crowd pick the lock to Newgate was what inspired Dickens to the idea of Barnaby Rudge in the first place; the trouble is, once we get to the Newgate bit, we want the prison to be taken. Why, Barnaby's in there! Gabriel Varden's refusal to comply with the mob's demands doesn't inspire the thrill of admiration for his courage which it's probably supposed to.

The other character who follows a Dickensian recipe but isn't a whole-hearted success is Gashford, a typical fawning Dickens villain on the make who somehow does not attain the dizzying heights of Uriah or Carker. But more of him and the other Barnaby Rudge villains some other time.