HARD TIMES

Charles Dickens offers Simon Prebble every opportunity to show off his talent. Prebble brings life to the complex characters, describing them with all the color of the author's words and giving them personalities beyond their fitting voices. He assumes the dialects spoken in Victorian England—the educated and the uneducated—maximizing the alliterations and complexities to comedic effect. The nimble Prebble mimics a character's lisp, while keeping the words understandable. He describes the soot and sweat of industry to champion the working poor. Knowing Dickens was paid by the word helps explain why he uses so many when economy would do. Also, the fact that his stories were serialized explains why they go on and on, rather than taking the formulaic structure of modern novels. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2009]