"Who is the present day Dickens in terms of pricking society's conscience."

This is a new thread for conversation so that Peter's thread doesn't bog down.

Here is the question as I originally posed it.
"I was thinking about Charles Dickens, and the effect he had on his society and culture. An author who wrote widely popular stories, appealing to a broad audience, which had a bit of a price to them about the social ills of the time, but we're also amusing. I was wondering who our modern Dickens would be, or if there is one, and Sir Terry Pratchett came to mind. I suppose there are a large amount of people who wouldn't touch one of his books, but Dickens was not universally loved either.

What do you think? Way off base? Am I missing another author who would fit better?"

I was looking at the stats page popular authors. Stephen King is second, I believe. I don't read him, but the few I read didn't have a social message. Same with Neil Gaiman.

I don't think Pratchett wrote with the goal to "change" things, so much as he did to highlight absurdity in the lives of people, religions, government, etc.

I'm afraid I don't read a lot of the popular fiction out there, I am more familiar with genre authors.

I don't think we have an author who is as popular as Dickens was who fills this niche. But I believe the writer Jody Picoult to be quite good at tweaking consciences, or at least holding up a mirror to show us things we would rather not see. I've only read a couple of hers, but she's not shy about addressing controversial things.

>3 clamairy: I don't think I've read anything by her. Personally, I don't like to be told how to think and feel, or be manipulated towards a cause when I read. If an author can do that without making me feel that way, more power to them. Some of Dickens books are a bit heavy handed for me, but apparently most people liked them back then. What I love about Dickens are the characters and the picture of his world.

Pratchett invites you to be angry with him, and then makes you laugh. Not because what he says is unimportant, but because it can be so very important. I was thinking of Lois McMaster Bujold. She is not afraid of dealing with painful areas of life in her Vorkosigan novels; such as physical disabilities, homosexuality, misogyny. But I don't think she is widely enough read by the general population to count, like Pratchett.

Is that the problem? I know many readers stick to one or two special genres when they rea these days.

Now that popular culture is so fragmented instead of the monolith it used to be, I’m not sure this is even possible - remember when everyone watched the same TV shows and would talk about them the next day? These days we all have so many different options for each thing we want to consume, we hardly even have much in common anymore. When Dickens was writing for serialization, it was different yet again. Literacy rates were low(ish), but the number of outlets was less. He was popular, but not always approved of. I can’t come up with a single person who could fill this type of role these days.

PS. I've read one Picoult, zero Pratchett and tons of King.

>1 MrsLee: It's a great question. The authors that occur to me tend to be focused on one issue or area (Adichie, Gyassi, Ward, McCann). I don't know if an author who calls our attention to unpleasant subjects can be popular as Dickens was. There have been authors who tried to highlight things subtly (LeGuin comes to mind), but I can't think of anyone hugely popular.

Barbara Kingsolver, of course. Her most recent, Pulitzer Prize winning book, Demon Copperhead was directly inspired by David Copperfield. But throughout her career Kingsolver has taken on any number of difficult subjects from Native American adoption in Pigs in Heaven to climate change in Flight Behavior.

>7 vwinsloe: That's a perfect choice. Several of her books have been bestsellers. (But whoever said it above is right. No one can fill Mr. Dickens' shoes in these times.)

Hm. I've never read a Kingsolver.

>9 Bookmarque: Well, you simply must then. I think that I've read all of her novels, and they rarely disappoint. The most recent, Demon Copperhead, is about foster care, rural poverty, and drug addiction. My personal favorite is probably The Poisonwood Bible which is about a missionary family in the Congo.

>7 vwinsloe: I have only read three or four of her books. You make a compelling argument, but does she have the heartwarming and amusing quality of Dickens? The books I've read were pretty sobersided. She writes beautifully, that's why I've read three or four, but at the end I am usually not left with a hopeful heart.

It might be that like Shakespeare, Dickens is a one off and we don't need another author "like" him. After all, there have been many authors since him that I like better. :)

>11 MrsLee: I always find a few laugh out loud moments in Kingsolver's books. She has a very good sense of humor. Her nonfiction Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is hysterical.

I agree that Dickens is unique. The particular circumstances of his historical time are important to his writing style as well as to the subject matter of his books.

>12 vwinsloe: That one is on my TBR shelves. I will try to read it sooner than later. :)

Most of Dickens isn't heartwarming and mostly not amusing, either.

>14 reconditereader: I suppose not. Although there are some fine moments of humor in some of them.

>14 reconditereader: I remember that Pickwick Papers made me laugh. But for "heartwarming" or not, try Oliver Twist. I remember a radio announcer once referring to Fagin in the musical adaptation as being a loveable rogue. In the book he is pretty much the polar opposite (ETA:at least as far as "loveable"). In other words, lots of Dickens is pretty dark, and much is also too maudlin for modern taste. I gave up on The Mystery of Edwin Drood because I just couldn't stand Rosa Bud.

I truly hated Great Expectations. Oliver Twist is gruesome. I saw the humor in the Pickwick Papers but it mostly wasn't my cup of tea.

>17 reconditereader: Yay you! When I was knee-high to a grasshopper I was totally put off by the gloomy Dickensian pictures on the walls of my mom's uncle's house (he lived back-to-back with us). The "inoculation" was "boosted" by having Edwin Drood as a school set book, taught by a god-awful arrogant English teacher. I now run like a rabbit in the opposite direction when someone suggests Dickens, and am relieved that the consensus of this thread seewms to be that there isn't a modern incarnation.

>18 hfglen: I have a book which was my grandmother's when she was a child in 1908. It is a collection of Dickens stories about children. Edited so that there is not much of the actual story left. I tried to read it in my early 20s but ended up being disgusted because every - child - dies!

Happily in my 30s I read A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. I enjoyed the last, its creepiness appealed to me. Since then Dickens tales can be hit or miss, but I will still take a chance on them.

>17 reconditereader: >18 hfglen: >19 MrsLee: So, what I'm hearing is that I should continue my Dickens reading with David Copperfield, then stop there.

>19 MrsLee: and >18 hfglen: I'm afraid I tend to agree with >5 Bookmarque: on this. In part, as she notes, it is nearly impossible in the current environment, given the fragmented aspect of leisure entertainment (TV, movies, gaming,etc.). I think the other thing to remember about Dickens is that he wielded enormous influence as both an author AND as an editor of various periodicals encouraging newer authors in writing about the social ills. That doesn't happen in the same way anymore. The closest thing that comes might be James Patterson's factory approach, where he simply drafts story outlines but leaves the drudgery of actual writing to a stable of contract-writers. But that's really only an example of the force of brand name influence; no one ever touts Patterson as a voice of conscience in the way you are asking.

>20 Karlstar: You should make your own decision on this. I happen to really love most of what I've read, though I will admit I couldn't wait for Bleak House to wrap up.