Who Cares? Novel Reading, Narrative Attachment Disorder, and the Case of "The Old Curiosity Shop"

Rather, his tragedy is that he is afflicted with a curious attachment disorder; he is a narrative invalid, passive, inert, diseased-incapable of participating in the "stream of life": Think of a sick man in such a place as St. Martin's Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the mid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of narrative theory 2007-07, Vol.37 (2), p.296-325
Main Author: Bachman, Maria K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Attachment disorders
Behavior
British & Irish literature
Children
Collins, Wilkie (1824-1889)
Curiosity
Dickens, Charles
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
Disorders
Emotion
Emotional distress
English literature
Grandfathers
Literary criticism
Mind
Narratives
Narrators
Noise
Novelists
Novels
Works
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Summary:Rather, his tragedy is that he is afflicted with a curious attachment disorder; he is a narrative invalid, passive, inert, diseased-incapable of participating in the "stream of life": Think of a sick man in such a place as St. Martin's Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child's step from the man's the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick treat of an expectant pleasure-seeker-think of the hum and noise always present to his senses, and of the stream of life, that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come.
ISSN:1549-0815
1548-9248
1548-9248
DOI:10.1353/jnt.2008.0003