Mr. Timothy

Rating:
Summary: God Bless Us... Everyone.
Review: Being a big fan of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I was eager to pick this book up and see where Bayard was going to take Tiny Tim as an emerging adult.

I didn't expect what this story had to offer, but as Bayard was loyal to Dickens, he shows us another dark facet of England. The collection and sale (in effect) of very young girls to the upper crust of society. And Mr. Timothy Cratchit as its unlikely hero.

The language of the book remained true throughout - and the combination of characters fit all the roles I would have expected in a Dickens tale. And while the story itself sometimes stuttered with strange asides tossed in to create time for other things to happen or to show which character was on which side - it wasn't the story itself I found myself taken by.

I particularly enjoyed the italicized letters that Tim wrote to his deceased father. The language and ideas of a life overlooked, of the love one might feel for one's parent not realized until it was too late. Of Tim as an adult trying to realize who he is going to be and not having his father to help him through this hardest of times. And realizing how much irritation and anger and impatience he spent on his father when alive as he is haunted by his father's ghost out of the corner of his eye. All of this as Bayard takes Tim on a journey to seek his own family, his own home.

Tim's letters to his father were the icing on the cake that made me truly enjoy this book and this one line in particular cemented Tim's missed feelings - "You had spent months, apparently, determining this configuration -- poring over maps, consulting with omnibus drivers, timing every leg of every day's journey. Had I been older, I would have realised: here is a man who wants to come home."

Rating:
Summary: touching and thrilling
Review: Following the route of Gregory Maguire, Louis Bayard has taken a fairly minor yet memorable literary character and revisits him at another point in time. Entirely successful with a fun "DaVinci Code"-type caper (pacing not the puzzle), Mr. Timothy shines most with Bayard's Bob Cratchit ghost device/letters and depiction of filthy London. Ending is extremely touching and beautifully written a la Dickens; also loved clues of Tim's true sexual orientation: point did not dominate but made perfect sense. This one deserves the Masterpiece Theatre treatment--not the usual American-produced lard.
A wonderful, multi-tiered read.

Rating:
Summary: Not A Christmas Carol. . .but Excellent
Review: It is a risky and difficult task to take on a famous piece of literature. Everyone who falls in love with a book likes to imagine how the story continues after the author decides to leave it. A writer who challenges a reader's imagination does so at his own risk. Failures are legion. But that is just what Louis Bayard has decided to do with Mr. Timothy, a novel based on characters from Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

As the title suggests, the story focuses on Tiny Tim Cratchit, now grown-up and healthy except for occasional twinges in the leg and a slight limp. Despite the support of the still living and reformed Scrooge, Tim is cast adrift upon the death of his father, Bob, and has thrown his lot in with a group of prostitutes where he earns his room & board by teaching the madam to read and write. While there, he becomes entangled with a young, troubled girl. In the process of trying to save the girl he discovers a ring of slavery and murder.

It's quite a plot!--not original but deftly handled and interesting mainly because of the risks he takes with character. Here are characters we know--the Cratchits, Scrooge--who Bayard has made his own without losing touch with the foundations Dickens has laid. Despite the happy ending we might have imagined at the end of A Christmas Carol, Bayard has not hesitated handing around death, weakness and despair to the Cratchits along with strength and goodness. He is not catering to his readers but challenging them, particularly rabid Dickens fans like myself, and he succeeds. Whatever I ultimately felt about the plot, I totally believed that this is what could have become of the Cratchits. Because of that, I enjoyed this novel immensely.

And Bayard has added a cast of new characters almost Dickensian in scope and many--Gully, Colin, Philomela, and a host of others--just as memorable. Intertwining these characters and their stories with reminiscences of how the Cratchits got from Dickens to now, Bayard has created a powerful piece of fiction. Having no knowledge of Bayard's other work, I had no idea what to expect from him but I am very pleased with the result and I think any reader, Dickens fan or not, will find a good read here.