'The Chap' vs 'Sir!': The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.

‘That sort of chap, real easy…’ a phrase from a conversation between a young man and his friends in one of the so-called shopping centres in Moscow, frankly speaking, had fascinated me: I could not help but pay attention to the deep and multifaceted image that came to my eyes as soon as my ear caught on to this phrase. Yes, I got so hooked that I couldn’t have myself unhooked from this chappy obsession for another week now—as they say, make me unsee it. ‘That sort of chap, real easy…’—that’s strong, what can I say!

I shared my linguistic discovery with a friend: ‘This is not slang at all, Ivan,’ what I meant (about slang), ‘this is degradation.’ I hope that the friend only evaluated the words taken out of context, maybe too strictly. After all, we also used to walk the streets hanging around, walk over construction sites (which was especially fascinating), and pop into shops. Then (during my young youth), however—if there were shopping centres at all somewhere—it was rather a rarity. I have to confess, at that time I was swearing with might and main—such was the way and manner of communication between my friends and me. But then it stopped short of the chap somehow.

Does the environment make us or do we make the environment? It probably all depends on the details and context. Where and how, and in each case in a different way.

When I was a teenager, there were no social networks, there was no YouTube, there were no endless TV shows and series coming down on people’s heads and minds from all sides without warning about consequences, about an overdose. In the 90s, there was a budding Internet that excited consciousness—one could reach the Microsoft website (!) right from home via a terribly squeaking and creaking modem (pew-pee-eeeeee-pew-wee-wee...), to NASA or whatever, and wait for it to slowly load a photo-picture of fantastic beauty of a neighbouring, or not so much, galaxy. 
There were books—different, and unfortunately not very many: fiction, and psychology, and detective books, and a little from the school curriculum. There were pirated VHS cassettes (they were the tape ones…) in rental shops. I listened to different music—from Michael Jackson and Madonna, to our Lyube and the Litsey group (I especially liked their song about autumn)…

To my mind that sort of chap... to a certain extent reflects modern culture and its level on the whole. 
Take, for example, the so-called variety show. One pretty girl—and so it may seem to someone—is called just in line with this chappy type. Her stage name is stylistically very similar to the name of this sultry fellow (after all, no parents could have named their child that way!). The girl is vulgar, the songs are meaningless, the clips are cheap and boring… The songs of the Kombinaciya group of the very same 90’s—well, take at least, for example, the story of Two Slices of Sausage—would seem… Yes, it’s just some kind of a great a cappella! But do you know how many views the chappy girl has got on that YouTube?! Tens of millions, and some of them go over 50! It turns out that people like it! In a book store Chitai-gorod (there is one in the same shopping centre next to my house) there is no one—it’s bare as a palm. That’s the environment of today.

But, on the other hand, I think that all those words above are just the first signs of my age rubicon. Or maybe I’m just jealous of the worldwide success of a creative person. I hope that this is the real reason for the indignation.

But generally speaking, this short article is entirely about something else. It’s about Dickens, whose book—The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club—I’ve recently finished reading. More than 3300 pages on my phone! And I did it! Yes, indeed! 

The words, stories on their own, descriptions, plot—and what story arcs (here I laugh out—loudly) are there in the book... How can one build a narrative in such a way that you, sometimes and often, drop out of reality and seem not to notice the time passed while reading—another story is over. But I only read the translation. I imagine what the original can do to our perception. Is it possible to translate Pushkin into English so that he would be admired as much as he is by a Russian-speaker? However they somehow managed to translate Shakespeare into our native language well, very much so. In addition what I say is that these Posthumous Papers... are not just some kind of stories—they are a song to human intelligence, its potential, its beauty and goodness (since there are many good and instructive stories in the papers). Reading Dickens is like listening to Netrebko in MDM (Moscow House of Music): it is beautiful and it envelops you, totally and completely.

It was sheer aesthetic pleasure.

I would like to give some quotes as confirmation of my words (at least regarding beauty and enveloping). By the way, I forgot to mention that the author is absolutely fine with humour as well!

‘Get on your bonnet,’ repeated Wardle.

‘Do nothing of the kind,’ said Jingle. ‘Leave the room, Sir—no business here—lady’s free to act as she pleases—more than one-and-twenty.’

‘More than one-and-twenty!’ ejaculated Wardle contemptuously. ‘More than one-and-forty!’

‘I ain’t,’ said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of her determination to faint.

Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of the latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which was gambolling playfully away in perspective.

‘So I’ve only this here one little bit of adwice to give you. If ever you gets to up’ards o’ fifty, and feels disposed to go a-marryin’ anybody—no matter who—jist you shut yourself up in your own room, if you’ve got one, and pison yourself off hand. Hangin’s wulgar, so don’t you have nothin’ to say to that. Pison yourself, Samivel, my boy, pison yourself, and you’ll be glad on it arterwards.’

Among the herd (so said the legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the prince had a fellow-feeling—for he too was wise—a pig of thoughtful and reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears.

Here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little.

‘Don’t be frightened, Sammy, don’t be frightened,’ said the old gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. ‘It’s only a kind o’ quiet laugh as I’m a-tryin’ to come, Sammy.’

He stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm’s length, cocking his little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people do, when they take a cup of tea. Then he drew his feet together, and made a low, grave bow, and then put out his left hand. 

IP: Please, dear all, pay attention—do not cock your little finger. Only affected people do that.

‘It only shows how true the old saying is, that a man never knows what he can do till he tries, gentlemen.’

‘The bis’ness, Samivel,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘good-vill, stock, and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o’ the money, two hundred pound, agreeable to a rekvest o’ your mother-in-law’s to me, a little afore she died, vill be invested in your name in—What do you call them things agin?’

‘Wot things?’ inquired Sam.

‘Them things as is always a-goin’ up and down, in the city.’

‘Omnibuses?’ suggested Sam.

‘Nonsense,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Them things as is alvays a-fluctooatin’, and gettin’ theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the chequers bill; and all that.’

‘Oh! the funds,’ said Sam.

‘Ah!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, ‘the funs…’

IP: So well noticed about the shares! Who would have thought that our ancestors knew the whole truth even then and there, and we, not intelligent enough, still buy into it after all…

Enjoy your reading!
I believe that Dickens will win over that sort of chap—we have already managed to get into Before, haven’t we! And what sort of before!

PS. The only thing that seriously concerned me, as a person completely indifferent to alcoholic beverages, from the point of view of the health of future generations of Her Majesty’s subjects (18th century, at the time of writing the book) was the endless and never-ending scenes of libations: ale, port, beer, porter, rum, punch, whiskey, toddy, wine, madeira, brandy, grog... an incomplete list of all kinds of pleasures for relaxation, which the heroes indulged in, starting from early morning. I do condemn it and strongly!