Dickensblog

I'm finally taking a moment to respond to Mikhail Simkin's critique of my response to his study. (For those just joining us, a brief recap: Simkin claimed to have proved that there was no substantial difference between the works of Charles Dickens and those of Edward Bulwer-Lytton; a few critics responded in various forums; Simkin attempted to debunk our responses.)

I'll briefly address what I see as his major points, under the cut:

• Simkin quotes the New York Daily News as follows: "'Skeptical? We were too, so we asked an English major at Dartmouth, which is allegedly in the Ivy League, to take … [the] quiz…She correctly answered six out of the 12 questions…'" She is also one person. A statistician like Simkin should know better than to point to one single person as final, irrefutable proof of his theory.
• In response to my point that plot or character details would give a truer picture of Dickens's work than the descriptive prose used in the test, Simkin argues, "To learn the plot one has to read the whole novel. To describe a character one needs several pages." Really? Try this: "Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow." That's Dickens describing a character in six sentences. He does that kind of thing a lot. So do other novelists. In fact, generally speaking, if a novelist takes several pages to give us the basics of a character, that novelist is doing it wrong.
• Simkin goes on to claim, "The test results show that Dickens's and Bulwer-Lytton's prose styles are of the same quality." The test results show no such thing. Even if one grants his claim that most people can't tell the difference — and I maintain that his methodology was neither stringent nor scientific — that doesn't prove that the fault lies with the authors rather than the readers. His whole argument is based on a false premise.
• I suggested that Fifty Shades of Grey might be nominated for the worst work of all time. Simkin responds, "The novel is on the top of The New York Times bestsellers list. Remarkably, the large number of readers does not vouch for high prose quality in this case. Why should it do so in the case of Dickens?" It's true that popularity alone does not determine quality, though it may sometimes signal it. But it's worth noting that Simkin is forgetting a rather obvious fact: Fifty Shades has only been out since 2011. Talk to me when it's been popular for 176 years . . . like, say, The Pickwick Papers.
• The reason for Dickens's popularity, Simkin concludes, is that "people copy each other's choices." As an example that might be comprehensible to a mere literary critic, he points out that the name Jacob is much more popular than the name Simon, and asks whether that proves that the name Jacob is inherently better. Of course it doesn't. But it doesn't prove that it's not inherently better. Again, you simply can't determine the worth of something based solely on how many people pick it. Besides which, an 'umble literary critic might point out that it's difficult to prove any one word "better" than any other word — for a recognizable style that can be compared to other styles, you need quite a few words. (For a statistican, Simkin seems awfully fond of seizing on one person, or one word, or one of anything that he thinks might demonstrate his point.)

I've responded as best I can to Mikhail Simkin's points, but I don't suppose he'll care what I have to say — he's already off on his next "scientific" analysis, this time trying to show that there's no difference between Alexander Pushkin and his fellow poet Nikolay Yazykov. I swear I am not making this up. Some bad habits, it seems, are unbreakable.