CHARLES DICKENS AND ME

Abstract

This article examines Dickens as a novelist, rather than critic, would see him. The author, who is a novelist himself, believes that Dickens is the model for novelists, particularly for the Indian novelist in English. The paper maintains that Indians such as R. K. Rarayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chandra, Indra Sinha, Manu Joseph, Tabish Khair, and Lakshmi Raj Sharma are all under the influence of Dickens. It may be said that Dickens leads the Indian novelists by the nose, providing them with inspiration and model workmanship. Since it is not possible to take into account the complexities of all the Indian novelists mentioned above, in a paper of this size, the author shows how his own fiction has been virtually tutored by Dickens. The work of other Indian novelists, however, is discussed briefly in relation to Dickens and what emerges is that Dickens rather than Rushdie, or anyone else, has shaped the Indian novel in English. What has impressed the Indian mind is both at the level of the form and content of Dickens's novels. The art of characterization as well as the plot construction; mingling drama and narrative; the use of a special kind of language and harmonizing the chaotic universe of suffering – each of these aspects of Dickens has affected the Indian novelist's mind.