Radar: December Cultural Picks 01.12.25

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Oliver Twist, BBC Sounds

I’ve been taking in a wide range of short fiction recently. What’s been interesting to note is how different styles can be effective in such different ways. I love not just the style of Charles Dickens and his long, adjective-laden sentences, but the humanity in the world he conveys in his fiction. Dickens, much like Shakespeare, holds a mirror up to society and lets us, the reader, judge for ourselves. We never feel lectured at by Dickens, although we may know all too well what his views on the treatment of the poor and the young were in a Victorian society polarised by the haves and the have-nots. It’s hard not to feel angry about the treatment of children back then, when listening to this excellent, abridged adaptation by the BBC. In this shortened version, it’s remarkable how many times Oliver Twist gets thumped, whacked, ‘drubbed’ and passed from pillar to post, the character of Claypole is particularly grotesque in his taunting Twist about his dead mother. 

Is this the archetypal orphan bildungsroman? Is this the best example of the orphan’s odyssey? If it’s not, it’s probably another Dickens novel that would pip it to the post, maybe Pip, indeed, from Great Expectations. There are so many reasons to love the orphan odyssey, as I like to call it: it’s the rag to riches nature of it; it’s the sense of triumph over adversity; it’s the upsetting of the odds; we empathise with the solitary nature of the character; it allows the author to paint such a vivid world around one character and invite us in; it promotes a sense of attachment from the reader, we feel we are rooting for Twist all the way through. And these are just a few reasons. In this particular adaptation they get children to voice the characters of Twist and Dawkins (the Artful Dodger) and while this was charming, at times it was hard to actually make out what they were saying (not the first time the BBC has had this problem - remember Poldark, anyone?) 

However, that said, it’s an immersive adaptation and does the original story much justice, reminding us that Dickens, unlike the work of many other novelists, and like poetry, improves by being read aloud, to the point where I wonder whether Dickens composed his novels by speaking them first. It seems that the language of Dickens and his narratives take on a new life when spoken.

The other short fiction I’ve been engaging with has been through physical books (remember them ones with pages?), as opposed to audiobooks (although, to what extent is every book an audiobook even when in paper form? Discuss...). In short fiction, just like in short poems, I’d argue there is more of an onus for everything to justify its place as more intensity is conferred upon the author’s choices of characters, situation and language. I enjoyed something about all of the following and think they offer innovative contributions to the form, even if they’re not perfect.

I was reminded of Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton by reading this article in The Times, and realised, to my shame, as often is the case, I had not read the book, and at 89 pages or so, and as someone who has taught at English public schools, I had absolutely no excuse. So, I spent an evening reading it, and can’t remember the last time I took such pleasure in reading a book. My complaint, often, with short fiction is that it finishes before we get to the main action, or that the writer hasn’t skilfully developed their character in the space given — a challenge that must be taken on by the novella-ist. But, what’s amazing about this novella is the scope that Hilton manages to achieve here, taking in the whole life of Classics teacher Mr Chipping from the start of his career to his quiet, unmomentous (and all the more tragic for it) death. Suffice to say, this is not a postmodernist, Beckettian take on the campus story; it rather embraces the genre shamelessly and is all the better for it. The most impressive thing about this is the compression and how Hilton covers so much ground in under 90 pages. As readers we’re not left hanging around for the good bits for a second — it’s jam-packed with key life events, the most tragic of which is the death of Chips’ pregnant wife. Hilton, like Dickens, never judges the characters, even the highly unlikeable young, whippersnapper headmaster, who gives Chips some home-truths. It’s a witty book too with Chips’ valedictory speech threaded with humour about the boys’ ability to translate Latin. 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan 

Claire Keegan cannot complain about underpowered endorsements on the covers of her books, especially considering the brevity of the books themselves. It seems that the literary world is falling over itself to see who can make the grandest claim about her writing (I won’t quote them here, there’s just too many). And I’m afraid to say that this is actually the kind of thing that makes me suspicious upon opening a book. Too many ebullient endorsements on a book can really put me off and make me start to feel harangued (even cornered) as opposed to persuaded. There was a lot I liked about the writing of Claire Keegan, and to a large extent I can see why there is such enthusiasm for her work. I enjoyed the clarity and acuity, and as a teacher who is constantly telling his students to show not tell, her writing is a lesson in this. There is an absorbing quality about the way in which she writes unshowy third person narration  — very much on the opposite end of the spectrum to Dickens in this respect, but every bit as engrossing. The brevity of the two books of hers I've read, however — and it does relate to both of them — does limit them and make them feel like the author has made a dash for the door before fully finishing what they have to say, and thereby avoided making big authorial decisions.  I particularly felt like this with Small Things Like These where it finishes with the character of Furlong walking back home with the girl found (for the second time) in the coal shed at the convent. In ending the story here, we feel like Keegan has avoided dealing with the repercussions of Furlong. It feels like there were so many questions that this homecoming raised for Keegan that instead of dealing with it, she simply evaded them and asked the reader to figure it out for themselves. I’m all for an elliptical ending (something William Trevor mastered) but for me there was simply too much that went unresolved here, which slightly undermined what went before. 

So Late in the Day is even shorter, coming in at just over forty pages, but written in just the same kind of arresting, pared back style as Small Things. Keegan has a great knack for capturing the banality of existence and really giving us the detail where other writers would stop short. However, I found the character of Sabine unconvincing — why would she have stayed with the man for so long before cancelling their engagement on the day before the wedding? Surely the moment he complained about the price of the ring and the resizing at the shop should have been when the game was up for their relationship. The other issue I had was that it felt like Keegan was being too judgemental about the male character, even in his indifference and not letting the reader make up their own mind, which is why this felt like a little mini-lecture on how awful men are and how women are failed by men.  For us to take these characters more seriously, there needed to be a bit more balance in the depiction of the male character, and also some balance in the presentation of Sabine, who doesn’t seem to put a foot wrong. But, then again, maybe I would say that because I’m a man... and aren’t men all the same?

The best bits of The Party by Tessa Hadley involved, well, the party. The part in the middle where we are taken back to the house of the main character maybe would have been more significant had it been part of a longer novel, but didn’t really add much to the action. This novella was a classic case of a short work that either needed to be shorter or longer. In saying that, like Keegan, Hadley has a great eye for description and I enjoyed the bits were stuff happened, like the party, even if I did see the character of bad guy Sinden (Sin and den, den of sin - geddit?) very predictable and thought Hadley would have somehow subverted his character somehow as opposed to making him the villain as we suspected from the moment we met him.