{"id":2641,"date":"2009-11-30T19:37:50","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T00:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=2641"},"modified":"2009-12-01T21:47:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T02:47:21","slug":"reading-dickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/11\/30\/reading-dickens\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Dickens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>[Written the day after having been one of the performers to read Dickens&#8217; A Christmas Carol to an audience of several hundred.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>[First, the reader surrenders to text; then the audience<br \/>\nsurrenders to the reader&#8217;s surrender.<\/p>\n<p>Being a ham helps: Dickens&#8217; text is highly developed<br \/>\nmelodrama, written when that form of expression<br \/>\nwas probably at the height of its development.<br \/>\nNowhere is Dickens&#8217; involvement in his action more<br \/>\nevident than in his confession that he wept as he<br \/>\nwrote the death of Little Nell.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Reading the first few words out to the darkened audience,<br \/>\nwords lying on the inert white<!--more--> rectangle of the page,<br \/>\nwords that assume an urgency while the reader<br \/>\ncontemplates climbing the mountain that awaits.<br \/>\nThe text lies on the page, not to be conquered,<br \/>\nbut to be revived, to speak, breathe, fear, love.<\/p>\n<p>The reader speaks: words drag reluctant from the page;<br \/>\nattempt drunkenly to stand, spouting gibberish.<br \/>\nWalls, streets, wooden tables, windows come slowly<br \/>\nto existence in the room between reader and listener.<br \/>\nFuzzy pixels resolve into tinderboxes, cutlery, dark<br \/>\nbriar pipes, shoes, buckled boots, muddy skirt hems,<br \/>\ngloves, bonnets, widebrimmed felt hats, spectacles;<br \/>\nvague gray air resolves into mist and smoke from<br \/>\ncoal fires; blurs resolve into faces, puppets become people;<br \/>\ngibberish becomes words and meaning; the listeners relax<br \/>\nand sense becomes action as Scrooge begins his journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, November 29, 2009, I read Stave four of A Christmas Carol. Other readers were Sean Adams, Ester Bryan, Anne-Marie Lee, Laurence Wall (CBC Ottawa New Editor) (#989) <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/11\/30\/reading-dickens\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[808,809,135,120,810],"class_list":["post-2641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-a-christmas-carol","tag-cbc-reading","tag-christmas","tag-cornwall","tag-st-johns-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}