The next chapter (3), “… to be a Shakespeare,” asks why Dickens must reject the theater as a stage for his hero. And the chapter that follows (4), “Exit: ‘the sanguine mirage’,” explores how Dickens goes about exiting the theater in favor of a far, far better stage. This paraphrase may make it seem that the book is now going to verge suspiciously on that very dull thing, lit. crit. Lest such a misgiving take root, let me affirm here that this book can only imagine two ways to use other books: to laugh with them, or to rewrite them.

I like in Dickens what makes me laugh: his irresistible, indefatigable critique of what James Kincaid has called (in quite other circumstances) “the straightforward life,” not simply the straight life but any life which thinks earnest partnering has got to be the only secure basis for happiness. But many more able people than I have taken that critique as their subject.

I focus here, instead, on what I can rewrite to suit myself. Other choices don't seem all that enticing. I don't want to venerate Dickens's, or anybody else's, books. And I certainly think it's a profound waste of good emotion to be angry with them. Books – even great books – are not important enough to be turned into parents.