From Tiny Tim to Mopey Tim

I have known of the existence of Louis Bayard's novel Mr Timothy for a long time, but something always held me back from buying it, although it is that comparatively rare thing, a sequel to a Dickens book (A Christmas Carol). The something holding me back was probably the blurb, which tells us that the Mr Timothy in question is Tiny Tim grown up, and that he's slumming it by living in a brothel and earning an extra quid dredging corpses in the Thames. We also learn that he is "not the pious child the world thought he was" and that he is trying to break free from his dependence on Scrooge. Most ominous of all, "the thick of London's underbelly" is mentioned.

Well, I bought the book in the end. When glancing at it in the bookshop, I could see that it was well written, and that there seemed to be at least one interesting scene with Scrooge in it. And yes, it is well written, but otherwise my fears have to a great extent been fulfilled.

If Tim keeps a civil tongue in his head while visiting Scrooge, it is partly because he still needs money. The visit only takes place because it's the only way he can get his allowance, and he has the effrontery to feel resentful about having to put in an appearance. There is no sense of affection for the old man who, as Carol makes clear to us, saved his life. What's more, instead of making something of himself given the great opportunity offered by Scrooge's benevolence, Tim is wasting his time mooching around the slums of London, feeling melancholy. For this, at least, he appears to feel some kind of guilt.

There seems to be quite a few people about who have such a problem with the message of A Christmas Carol that they feel they have to write a corrective narrative where it all goes belly up. There was a short story knocking around the net somewhere with the premise that Scrooge lost money so heavily on his charitable schemes his business floundered. (Mind you, I only read a paragraph or two of it, not caring for the prose style.) I read about a play shown not so long ago in London where Bob Cratchit coldly informs Scrooge that he is no longer welcome at the Cratchit family dinner: Bob has come to be sick of his boss's japes, see, and is envious of his bond with Tim. (At least in that version Scrooge had a bond with Tim.) Then there's the Blackadder version of Carol I've mentioned earlier, where Ebenezer Blackadder goes from being an exploited philantropist to a scoundrel. The kindest thing one can say about that version is that it identified the person with most reason to feel resentful about Scrooge's benevolence: Scrooge himself.

As I've said before, I have my own problems with A Christmas Carol, and I can understand a certain instinctive resistance to its unsubtle moral message. But I don't care for these corrective Carol narratives, mainly because I suspect that what bugs many about it is that Scrooge is allowed to be a hero at the end, someone whose generosity has the chance to make other people's lives better. And though by the end of Carol Scrooge has become a kind man full of fellow-feeling instead of a cold-hearted miser, he still has one characteristic which condemns him in the eyes of some, whatever he does. He is still rich.

Me, I'm with Ebenezer all the way - always was, to be honest, redemption entirely optional. But there are other things that irritate me about Mr Timothy, apart from the ingratitude of the glum adult version of Tim. There's the "London's underbelly" syndrome. When an author gushes about Mayhew, it is seldom a good sign. It means that a lot of time will be spent mayhewing around London's slums for atmospheric, descriptive purposes. I'm sorry, but "London's underbelly" does not interest me much, and if it did, I'd probably be reading Mayhew himself so I could be spared the self-righteous aren't-the-Victorians-horrible tone of modern historical novels. By the way, what is an underbelly exactly?

It is rich that we so often accuse the Victorians of hypocrisy and prurience. If Victorian novels have their fair share of "fallen women", it is nothing compared to our own age's obsession with the Victorian prostitute. Wherever there is a historical novel set in Victorian times, there always seems to be a prostitution plot somewhere. Serial killers with sordid motives are popular too. So there we are, tut-tutting about these supposedly Victorian phenomena (for my part, I've only ever heard of one Victorian serial killer, while our modern age produces a great deal more of them), while avidly reading (and writing) about them. Hmmm...

For all that, I'll be sticking with Mr Timothy a bit longer, as the crime story element is starting to get interesting, and the obligatory cheeky urchin is reasonably likeable. I may come to regret it, though.