Description
Written in the form of a back-and-forth dialogue between the two authors, this book is about the relationship between feeling and thinking in Dickens''s novels. It presents Dickens as a psychological thinker, whose generative thought may be conscious, unconscious, half-conscious, or in transit between one state and another. This Dickens is always in live process, improvizing from one monthly number to the next, subtly revizing as he goes, shifting moods, tenses, and tones from one paragraph or sentence to the next, as what he writes sparks off what he suddenly, newly, thinks. The chapters approach this inquiry through close readings of chosen passages, including studies of telling revisions in Dickens''s manuscripts that reveal the power of his deepened second thoughts. They also draw on selected moments from his personal letters and prefaces when these more casual writings prove to be sketches or rehearsals for thoughts and feelings that achieve new life when they are transformed into
