Barnaby Rudge

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"Better to be mad than sane, here. Go mad." - Rated
Focused primarily on the "anti-popery" riots in London in1780, and filled with wild scenes of carnage involving a large cast of characters from all levels of society, Barnaby Rudge is Dickens's first historical novel, and it includes the real Lord George Gordon, a virulent anti-Catholic who whipped the populace into a frenzy. The author sets the scene for the tumult by first painting a picture of quiet village society in Chigwell in 1775, five years earlier, often using humor to depict the numerous characters.

Geoffrey Haredale, a Catholic, has inherited the estate of his brother Reuben, who was murdered twenty-two years before. He has brought up his niece Emma, who is in love with the kindly Edward Chester, a Protestant, the son of the odious Lord John Chester, who lives nearby. Dozens of characters populate the book--including Barnaby Rudge (the developmentally disabled son of Mary Rudge, who works on an estate), the Willetts (who run the Maypole Inn), Gabriel Varden (a locksmith) and his daughter Dolly (who eventually works for Emma Haredale), mysterious strangers, ghosts, a sinister blind man, and even Grip, Barnaby's talking raven.

The action takes off when the time shifts from 1775 to 1780, and the focus changes from village life and the sometimes amusing domestic concerns of the people to the growing anti-Catholic sentiment being stirred up in London. The humor, which has been a big part of the first part of the book, ends, and Dickens concentrates on the growing hatred and the battles spawned by that hatred, with good people being drawn into brutality that they would otherwise avoid. Violence and several deaths take place, the populace becomes a mob, and rioting leads to the burning of properties. The love stories, which have been a large part of the first section of the book, are put on the back burner for the major part of the book.

Written in 1841, this is Dickens's fifth novel, one which suffers from its original serialization and loss of focus. Though the atmosphere and some of the characters rank among Dickens's best, and some of the humor in the first part is delightful, the tone is inconsistent, changing with the riots and ensuing action. As is always the case with Dickens, all mysteries are cleared up at the end, with Reuben Haredale's murder solved and the whereabouts revealed of several characters who disappeared between 1775 and 1780. With hints of some of the greatness to come, this novel precedes David Copperfield, Bleak House, and A Tale of Two Cities, and shows Dickens experimenting with his themes and ideas. Mary Whipple

On a par with.. - Rated
Barnaby Rudge is probably one of the lesser known novels of Dickens. His other historical novel 'A Tale of Two Cities' is certainly more popular and perhaps superior in quality. Barnaby Rudge in terms of quality I feel is however on a par with another early book of his - the popular 'The Pickwick Papers' which is a good read.

Those of us who are not avid students of history can be forgiven for knowing nothing of the 'No Popery' riots of 1780. Barnaby Rudge provides an entertaining lesson in history.

The best comedy is supplied in the first third of the book which is set five years before the riots. A charming array of characters is introduced whom cover wide social strata. The Varden household dynamic and the society of apprentices provide almost pythonsque laughs. Grip, offers a surreal component as the pet of Barnaby Rudge who is himself unconvincing as a half wit. Convincing though are the baddies such as the uncouth criminal Hugh and the slimy deviant Sir Chester.

The second part which commences just prior to the riots lacks comedy but contains the best writing. It is a long novel but well worth the effort. I found myself impatient for the riots to begin, then when they begun I wanted them to finish, and then throughout the final chapters wished that there were more. Dickens serves out proportionately the comeuppance of each and actually rounds off nicely. So if you read Barnaby Rudge, savour, for it has a fine reward.

Possibly Dickens's least-known work. - Rated
"Barnaby Rudge" was the first commercial failure Dickens had. There were a number of reasons for this, mainly I suspect that it was published during a recession, but also because Dickens had by then made a big name for himself as an observer of his own times. That is very much the image he still has today, Dickens is synonymous with the mid-19th century, so going back to the end of the 18th century wasn't perhaps commercially a good move. These days "Barnaby Rudge" has become overshadowed completely by Dickens's other historical novel, "A Tale Of Two Cities", not helped by the fact that both books cover more or less the same themes: the horrors of mob rule, a city plunged into anarchy, the storming of a prison, and what happens when innocent people get dragged into a cause that is being manipulated by people with dubious axes to grind, plus of course the perennial theme of love triumphing in the face of evil.

Having said all that, "Barnaby Rudge" holds up strongly as a book in its own right. The anti-Catholic Gordon Riots are virtually unknown to us these days (I have to admit, somewhat shamefully, I had never heard of them before, it was quite an eye-opener to find that such a devestating thing had happened in London!), but its central core theme of people becoming divided and wrecking havoc and hatred on each other is as relevant now as ever. Barnaby himself is a mentally-handicapped young man, and it is heartbreaking to see him allowing himself to be adopted by the cause in the belief that he will make his mother proud of him. It is also a delightful portrait of someone totally pure at heart caught up in a cynical, hate-filled world. I don't mean that to sound as though Dickens is preaching, (which would be off-putting to anyone just wanting a good read) because he isn't, nowhere does he allow that to happen.

As you would expect with Dickens there is a whole cast of strong, eccentric characters: the vain, uptight spinster Miss Miggs who seems to delude herself that every man she meets is fatally smitten with her, the almost feral-like Hugh the ostler, Dennis the Hangman, enthusiastically keen to get a rope round everybody else's neck but not so keen to see it near his own, Gabriel Varden, the salt-of-the-earth locksmith and his insufferably neurotic wife, and the immensely slappable Sir John Chester. The younger characters pale by comparison, though I have a soft-spot for Joe Willett, bullied by his overbearing father so much he has to run away from home and join the army. The central star-crossed love-story between Edward Chester (Protestant) and Emma Haredale (Catholic) virtually makes no impact at all, simply because the characters are so two-dimensional, and Dolly Varden is just a daft young flirt who realises, too late, that she's let a good bloke out of her grasp. Also much of the stuff surrounding Barnaby's mysterious father really doesn't make much impact at all. Rudge Snr simply doesn't come alive as a character. He's spent so long in the shadows that he seems to have become one!

What makes this book worth reading are obviously the Riots themselves, and showing the devestation it has on the ordinary people caught up in it, and the comedy set around the 'Maypole Inn'. Most importantly though, the character of Barnaby himself, and his talking black crow, Grip. Here you get Dickens's love of humanity and his compassion worked to great effect.

A forgotten gem! - Rated
The neccessity of the Higher English "Specialist Study" caused me to be drawn to this novel. I could not have hoped for better material.

Underrated and almost forgotten, I had no pre-conceived ideas about "Barnaby Rudge", and was therefore pleasently surprised by how enjoyable I found it. The mentally impared title character is a charming one - the very personification of the purity Dickens attempted to capture in many of his novles. The plot, inspired by the Gordon riots of 1780, is a patchwork of inter-twining and enthralling adventures, sufficiently mysterious so as to both confound and delight the reader. The formidible stock of characters are all delightfully and vividly brought to life, and one cannot help but share in their joy and pain - I for one found myself cheering, weeping and smiling rediculously in the course of the book.

If there is one annoyance it is the lack of a substantial villian - in this novel, Dickens presents not one or two wholly evil creatures, but instead a handful of "baddies", each causing turmoil in their own way. Although all are thourghly detestably, none command the raw hatred felt for some of Dickens's more famous bad guys, such as Bill Sikes or Uriah Heep.

Nonetheless, "Barnaby Rudge" is still a brilliantly conceived novel and, flowing as it does from the pen of the master story-teller, cannot help but captivate the reader.

Dickens as a master of mayhem and destruction - Rated
Barnaby Rudge is not currently one of Dickens's favourite books, although in its time it was a wild success. The heroine, Dolly Varden, gave name to a type of hat and to a trout, among other things. But for several reasons (among which one can surely count the difficulty of enacting the riots for film or TV, which is nowadays the way in which most people seem to get to know Dickens) it is seen as far less successful than his other experiment in historical fiction ("A Tale of Two Cities", placed during the French Revolution and the Terror). It deals with a little-remembered episode from the Georgian era: the "No-Popery" riots led by MP George Gordon in 1780 to repeal the Catholic Relief Act of 1778 (the riots succeeded in delaying Catholic Emancipation in the United Kingdom by half a century and tarnished the reputation of the greatest parlamentarian and cripto-catholic Irishman of the age, Edmund Burke). Dickens's portrayal of the riots is masterful and his grim sense of humour unleashes itself on the many likely subjects that such a situation naturally affords.

Among the weaknesses of the book one must count its chief heroes and villains. The eponymous Mr Rudge is not one of the most appealing of Dickens's heroes, since he is merely a simpleton, and the evil Lord Chester and Mr Gashford do not attain the magnificence of an Uriah Heep or a Seth Pecksniff. Willet the elder is an appealing character, although the son seems too generic. Some of the other characters are brilliant, particularly Mr. Dennis the Hangman, who voices some of the most lugubriously funny sentiments Dickens has ever allowed himself to vent. This is a flawed work, but it comes from a master novelist, and it is a masterwork.