Barnaby Rudge: BBC (Bbc Radio Presents)

Category: Books,Humor & Entertainment,Radio

Barnaby Rudge: BBC (Bbc Radio Presents) Details

From School Library Journal Grade 7-12-Dicken's tale of private lives and public events takes place in the unrest of the 1780's London. This BBC production includes a full cast, music, and sound effects.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From the Inside Flap nificent tale of private lives and public events takes place in the seething unrest of 1780's London.  With a cast of characters as richly diverse and comically grotesque as ever, he expertly weaves the complex themes of public authority and rebellion with the private conflicts of fathers and sons in a spellbinding fictional recreation of the historical facts of the Gordon riots.Despite their implacable enmity, the upright and honest Geoffrey Haredale forges a strange alliance with the duplicitous John Chester to thwart the marriage between his niece and Chester's honorable son Edward.  But family concerns are eclipsed when brooding tensions erupt into the Gordon riots.  As the simple-minded Barnaby is thrust to the forefront of violent dissent, Edward is driven to an act of desperate heroism in order to save his lover and her uncle.  And in the aftermath of chaos, the shadowy figure behind the private tragedies of murder, blackmail and terr Read more See all Editorial Reviews

Reviews

After a lifetime of knowing about this work only "Here comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,/Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths pure fudge," I finally read this, sometimes called Dickens' least-known novel; and almost immediately started rereading it. True, I had a research reason for immediate rereading; but find it holds up better, perhaps, the second time around. True, Dickens is particularly weak with his female characters in this one, most of them being incredibly tedious as sexist "comic relief," and the two heroines seeming sympathetic only by dint of being young. The only lady who really interests me is Barnaby's mother. But many of the male characters don't come off much better. There is a very interesting villain of the suave and polite variety, whose principal opponent is rather smoldering and almost equally interesting; and I can't help but like Gabriel Varden the locksmith (who by one account was very nearly the title character). By and large, however, it is Barnaby himself and his raven Grip who make this novel rewarding to read.

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