Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlieBird
are all of Dickens characters so one dimensional?
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I haven't had an opportunity to even start
Bleak House yet, but I do find it an ironic selection for the "Literary" book club. Dickens was as general and "pop" an author as any who lived in his day, a one man industry analogous to Stephen King in our time. Yes, his works have become classics, but are they thus transmuted from mass-market commercial efforts into literary works? I gather
Bleak House was one of his more ambitious and abstract works, but shall we read Stephen King's
Rose Madder or
Insomnia next? If Dickens lived today, he would probably be writing television.
I don't genuinely object to
Bleak House's inclusion nor insist that we observe a more stringent definition of "literary." I'm just making the observation for it's own sake, really. At the time of their publication, Dickens' works almost certainly saw more attention in book clubs of the sort from which ours diverged than from serious critics. Perhaps it can be a talking point for the discussion: is this a genuinely literary work, a commercial work, a self-indulgent departure by a popular author with an established reputation, or other?