Girl in a Blue Dress [Paperback]

Girl in a Blue Dress is an interesting attempt at a fictional memoir of Dickens from his wife Catherine's point of view. I have no reservations about reading a fictional autobiography, but this one will irritate any reader who knows anything about the life of Charles Dickens. For a start the reader has to understand that this is a roman a clef but he or she will need to supply the clef (key) himself or herself. Charles is called Alred Gibson and his family, colleagues, contacts and friends are given pseudonyms - I can't understand why, unless the author is afraid of upsetting family members still living. We know it's a novel, so why send the reader on a hunt the real name game? So Charles Dickens is Christened Alfred Gibson, Catherine is Dorothea, John Forster is played as O-Rouke, Mamie Dickens or possibly Katie is now Kitty, Ellen Ternan is Miss Ricketts, Mary Hogarth is Alice, Georgina Hogarth is now Sissy, Wilkie Collins is Augustus Norris and so on. Why not call a spade a spade as Jay Parini does in his fictional account of Tolstoy's last year, or Beryl Bainbridge did with Johnson in According to Sweeney. Nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of in throwing off the ridiculous disguise!

Other reservations, only a shade less irritating are the use of modern expressions in what is basically a Victorian novel with 19th Century style: 'free agent,''don't start!' 'give me some space' and many other contemporary phrases are anomalous in a 19th century world and merely serve to remind one that this is a not only a contrived work - which of course it is - but a badly botched piece of fiction. Again, the attempt at pomposity, not entirely misplaced if the author is echoing Dickens himself - falls flat in modern expressions such as 'a prior claim on your emotions.' Gibson-Dickens would never say that and I doubt if Catherine would either.

However, despite these annoyances I persisted to the end and found much to admire in the characterisation - but not always in the lengthy and at times tedious domestic dialogues over cups of tea while AG/CD is being discussed by others.

I enjoyed the first part of this book and liked the two main characters, but it soom becomes very repetitive and boring as the female character, Dorothea, wallows in self pity and reminisces about her past. The male Character is based on Charles Dickens and the book is set in Victorian times so will appeal to lovers of historical fiction but it is certainly not the best example of hisorical writing. I found it very difficult to get through the book and don't understand how it got longlisted for the man booker prize.

Historical fictional biography isn't everyone's cup of tea. Those who don't like it will not enjoy Girl in a Blue Dress, which is a slightly disguised fictional biography of Catherine Dickens, wife of Charles Dickens.

Gaynor Arnold takes up where, so to speak, Charles Dickens left off. Alfred Gibson (Dickens) has just been buried and his wife Dorothea (Catherine Dickens) is briefed on the funeral by her daughter Kitty. It soon becomes clear that Dorothea did not live with her husband, and that there was scandal and wrongdoing in the Gibson household.

In a pageant of Victoriana - with servants and morals and etiquette and horses - Dorothea reflects on her ill-starred marriage to Gibson, moving from courtship and early love, through the rigours of childbirth, through to her long and lonely estrangement. And the story of Gibson, as seen through others' eyes, is of a man who is revered, both by himself and by others. He can do no wrong; he can treat women with high-handed arrogance, cruelty even, and the women will look within themselves for the fault.

Dorothea, in particular, cannot bear to see Gibson's cruelty for what it is. She looks for evidence that Gibson once loved her, as though this would matter. Dorothea refuses to hear criticism from Kitty, and even appears in the final pages to rationalize Gibson's relationship with his mistress - for whom Dorothea had been passed over. And the children, too, look to blame anyone other than Gibson for the breakdown of their household. They simply won't acknowledge the central role played by Gibson in controlling lives and manipulating information. The one exception, perhaps, was Kitty who did venture some negative opinion - but was perhaps easily dismissed as having her own axe to grind.

Gibson was a wonderfully well drawn character - his natural arrogance spurred on by public acclaim. His passion for work and fear of debt are well known, but manifest themselves in this novel in the form of absolute control freakery - but delivered with a false smile. He is a master of self-justification, and every slight and misdemeanour comes with a carefully thought through rationalization. Quite simply, Gibson didn't permit himself to make mistakes. Having said that, even Gibson could not halt the ravages of time, and appeared to trade in his female companionship for slightly newer models. This seemed to be the one area where Gibson admits to making a mistake - that of marrying Dorothea - even though the irony of the situation is that his one admission of a mistake is not really a mistake to be admitted. Rather, it is just a flimsy excuse for his shabbiness.

The beauty of the novel is in some of the detail - and an audience with Queen Victoria herself is a clear highlight. The frustration of the Queen, caught between trying to engage in real conversation and pompously maintaining her rank. And the visit from Eddie, a foppish - even camp - son is pure vaudeville. Then the hapless Augustus and his money worries...

Girl in a Blue Dress is a simple novel, very well told, and with a surprising hidden complexity in the relationships, emotions and motives at play - all hinging on the greatness of the self proclaimed One and Only (Gibson/Dickens, not Chesney Hawkes) - and people's desire for greatness by association, whatever the cost. For myself - a fan of both Dickens and historical biography - it was spellbinding, compelling and impossible to set down. The pages flew by in a voracious hunger for more gossip and salacious details.

Encore!