There are few plausible connections
between King Lear and The Pickwick Papers. Only one man seems
to have found a bridge between the two. He was Dr Alan Charity, late of York
University. Alan Charity was a brilliant
academic. It was said his doctoral thesis was so recondite that no-one else
could understand it, not even him some years after it was written.
Dr Charity was aptly named. For
apart from being a deeply erudite scholar who could quote enormous passages
from The Prelude (which he frequently
did), he was a lovely man. To me he seemed benevolent, witty and perpetually
amused. Perhaps he was inwardly laughing at my habitual incompetence. He was
also of a charitable disposition, for it was he that gave me access to York
University.
On arrival for interview, I found
myself outside a door which had FR Leavis on its nameplate. I waited, expecting
some fierce interrogation from the angry patriarch of Eng. Lit. and was
relieved instead to find a somewhat tired and dishevelled man waiting to
interview me. He explained that FR Leavis was a visiting professor and spent
most of his time in Cambridge. I subsequently attended a talk given by the
great man shortly before his death. It was in a small room accompanied by two
other people. We listened as he ranted for what seemed like several hours
against the failings and impertinencies of other academics and critics, before
he slumped back into his chair. But that is another story.
I doubt FR Leavis would have been
kindly disposed to me. Dr Charity was in more amiable mode. I think he probably
wanted to get home. We chatted in a general way about books for twenty minutes
or so, and then he offered me a place. Not having anything else to do, I
accepted.
Some months later I found myself
outside Dr Charity’s office, waiting for an early morning tutorial. It was
10.00am. This was a problem. I have never been an early morning person and my
first term at university was not a moment to begin. I was not profoundly ready
for discussion of King Lear.
If Dr Charity’s first big mistake
had been to offer me a place at York, his second obvious error was to offer me
a glass of sherry. I was anyway barely sentient. The sherry rendered me
catatonic. As it happens, Shakespeare was the reason I wished to study
literature. Even before university I had read more or less the complete works, pretty much only The Merry Wives of
Windsor and Henry VIII having eluded
me. Perhaps for understandable reasons, they still have. I was well
acquainted with King Lear. I had much
to say about the play. It was just unfortunate I was incapable of coherent
speech or thought.
It didn’t take Alan long to assess
the situation. ‘Let us see what light The
Pickwick Papers can throw on King
Lear,’ he announced. Sipping his sherry, he then read to me for the
remaining hour of tutorial. I was entranced. Staggering from his office, I went
straight to the university bookshop and bought a copy of Pickwick which I then read and later re-read many times.
Much has changed since then. I
suspect that interview procedures are no longer so informal. I’m pretty sure
tutors would be forbidden to drink sherry at 10.00am and I’m almost certain
that Alan’s successors would have to write schemes of work and produce tutorial
plans and tick a million bureaucratic boxes, before each encounter with a
student. I doubt there is scope for an impromptu reading from The Pickwick Papers while notionally
discussing King Lear. And with
students paying thousands of pounds a year in tuition fees, they may rightly
feel entitled to more rigour.
All of which is a shame, since that
tutorial transformed my appreciation of Dickens. Having read Pickwick, over the next few years I went
on to read all of his novels, re-reading favourites several times, as well the short
stories and other works. Alan wouldn’t have been happy writing schemes of work
or ticking boxes (or not drinking sherry, frankly), but what he communicated
was a passion for literature, sharing his love for Wordsworth and Shakespeare
and Dickens and a multitude of other writers. He was a lovely man and a great
teacher. I owe him much and honour his memory.
PS. I emailed the alumni
association to see if a photo of Alan could be found, but didn’t hear back.
Instead, I’ve used a picture of me in student days. Sorry about that. If anyone
has a picture of him, I’ll post it up.
