Hard Times has some of Dickens' best character names: Gradgrind, Bounderby, Mrs. Sparsit, and, my favorite, McChoakumchild. As soon as you see them, you know what kind of person they are!
Dickens and Balzac lived at roughly the same time, and hold the same sort of venerated position in their countries' literature. And aspiring novelists would do well to read both of them to learn how to write novels.
They were opposites in other ways, though- Dickens did his writing as a day job, whereas Balzac was a night owl. Balzac was far more of a realist than Dickens and conceived his whole oeuvre as a united work (creating an example for, among others, Zola), while Dickens used comic exaggeration to soften the harder edges of his drama (he was a theatre fan and sometimes acted in productions himself). But, ultimately, they were concerned with making their characters believeable as real people, and, there, they succeeded.
"Gradgrind" is the most outrageously Dickensiest name I can even imagine. But knowing Dickens, I'm sure he has a dozen even Dickensier names buried in his books somewhere. He can't keep getting away with it!
Very well intricate very well said
Hard Times has some of Dickens' best character names: Gradgrind, Bounderby, Mrs. Sparsit, and, my favorite, McChoakumchild. As soon as you see them, you know what kind of person they are!
And along came Louisa May Alcott ;)
Dickens and Balzac lived at roughly the same time, and hold the same sort of venerated position in their countries' literature. And aspiring novelists would do well to read both of them to learn how to write novels.
They were opposites in other ways, though- Dickens did his writing as a day job, whereas Balzac was a night owl. Balzac was far more of a realist than Dickens and conceived his whole oeuvre as a united work (creating an example for, among others, Zola), while Dickens used comic exaggeration to soften the harder edges of his drama (he was a theatre fan and sometimes acted in productions himself). But, ultimately, they were concerned with making their characters believeable as real people, and, there, they succeeded.
"Gradgrind" is the most outrageously Dickensiest name I can even imagine. But knowing Dickens, I'm sure he has a dozen even Dickensier names buried in his books somewhere. He can't keep getting away with it!