Dickens World

I just read that there is a new amusement park opening in Chatham, England based on the books of Charles Dickens. It is named, appropriately enough, Dickens World. According to their web site, it’s a place where one can be “immersed in the urban streets, sounds and smells of the 19th century.” I’m not so sure about how the smells part will be. Apparently they have attractions like the Haunted House of Ebenezer Scrooge (which totally cracks me up). They even have an area for preschoolers called “Fagin’s Den,” which strikes me as somewhat ill-named (don’t you remember Fagin? He’s the gangmaster of the bunch of kid thieves from Oliver Twist). There will be rides and a Dickensian Shopping Mall. I wonder what you can buy at the Dickensian Mall? Old moth-eaten wedding dresses?

The thing that is interesting is that stuff like this usually recreates a world that was (or we imagined to have been) romantic and pretty and chivalrous. Like the world of Renaissance England at the many Renaissance Faires that sprout up every summer in the US. Of course the day to day life during the Renaissance was pretty dirty and dangerous and smelly (I’m kind of obsessed with the smelly bit), but in the public imagination, it is the world of fairy tales and knights in shining armor. So, we recreate what we wanted it to have been.

The London of Charles Dickens was dark and impoverished and smelly and dismal. I don’t know of many people who have idealized his books as depicting a world we wish we could live in. Of course, there are all sorts of people in the US who recreate things like the Civil War (even down to starving themselves like the soldiers starved), but these are usually super-fans who idealized the concept of fighting for a cause they believe in or something similar. Victorian England of Charles Dickens’ novels was fairly awful. So, I’d be interested to see how this park goes over with the general public. Just think, the streets are populated by ratcatchers and pickpockets. Yay!

Then again, if it’s sanitized and Fagin is just a jolly grandfatherly character and the pickpockets are more bumbling than menacing, (and it’s not really smelly) maybe it would be totally fun for the whole family.

Of course, I really want to go. This is just up my research alley–when I used my brain oh so long ago. I love this kind of stuff. It opens in May. Maybe we can mortgage the house and fly out for a week or two. I wonder if they have a hotel designed to give you the experience of Newgate Prison–super fun!