Dickens beats the dickens out of Weaver

This year, one of my goals is to read more Charles Dickens.

So far, it's going poorly.

"Bleak House" is still sitting in the pile of books at the side of my bed. It's been cracked open a little, but not as often as some of the other books I consider more coherent, more contemporary … shorter.

Mr. Dickens and I have often had a tempestuous relationship, since the days in middle school when I picked up "David Copperfield," finally resorting to rifling through the last 50 or so pages before exclaiming, "When the heck does he start doing magic?"

So, a bad beginning.

Then, I made my stage debut in high school during a onetime English class performance playing Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol." It was, if I do say so myself, a roaring success, even if my hair was so loaded with baby powder to make me appear older that every time I tipped my hat, a cloud of white arose and lingered on the stage.

A good second chance.

But any goodwill toward Mr. Dickens was quickly squandered later that same year, when we had to read "A Tale of Two Cities." Forget the best of times, it was the worst of required reading. Some of my fellow classmates and I held grudges against Mr. Dickens for at least a year afterward.

In fact, the next year, one of my friends heard his name and said, "The 'Tale of Two Cities' guy? Hate him!" in such a hilarious manner, it should have gone on a T-shirt. We all would have worn it, so connected to one another were we in our hatred.

So, it took a while to get "Tale" out of my head. The experience was so miserable, I haven't even considered going back and trying to re-read it on my own, like I did "Catcher in the Rye," in college. I actually liked J.D. Salinger's masterpiece the second time around, so it's possible I'd find new appreciation for wicked Madame Defarge and heroic Sydney Carton.

But I don't want to risk being tempted to cast Dickens out of my life altogether. Not when his name is held up as one of the greatest storytellers of all time, and so many of my favorite authors use him as an example of what they're trying to do with their own work.

Ideally, the ones I'd get to read would be "Bleak House," because I'm so intrigued by it, and then "Our Mutual Friend," mostly because John Irving, the author of such modern-day Dickensian tales as "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" refuses to read it until he can guarantee it's the last book he'll ever read. (Irving's sentiment was later lent to a character by the creators of ABC's "Lost.")

Although I don't know if I would be able to resist the temptation to spoil the book in front of Irving, if ever I meet him.

I know I wouldn't be able to resist fake-spoiling it, though: "And then when it was revealed the whole thing had been Tiny Tim's dream all along, that's when I threw the book across the room."

Poor John Irving - he'd live out the rest of his days plagued with doubts about whether his last Dickens book is the worst Dickens book.

But as the due date for "Bleak House" beckons and I sort through the other things on my to-read list, I can't allow the self-doubt to halt my plans to embark on what is apparently one of our world's most enjoyable literary experiences.

Hopes are high and expectations are great.