Why We Still Read Dickens (for Harry)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

While that's generally true, I think it was a weakness in 'The Pickwick Papers'; where it seems that he kept chucking in chapters that had nothing to do with the story - presumably the imminent deadline made him use stuff he already had to hand.

I used to regard 'Pickwick' as my favourite Dickens, but a rereading a few years ago made me aware that these chapters were serious flaws in the book.

"Pickwick", though, was never originally intended to be a novel; it was commissioned as a series of amusing stories for a monthly magazine, with Mr. Pickwick and friends merely there as a "connecting device" to loosely link the stories into some sort of framework. It was also Dickens' first work of fiction, so really needs to be judged as the work of a very young and inexperienced writer - he was only 24 at the time of its publication.

I'd suggest something like "Great Expectations" or "A Tale of Two Cities" for anyone who wants to read Dickens more "mature" work, and doesn't want anything too long and "heavy". Both can be downloaded here at MR.

I've just uploaded a thoroughly proof-read new version of "David Copperfield", if anyone wants to read that. It was Dickens' own personal favourite of his books, and is semi-autobiographical (although nobody knew that until after his death, when the extreme hardship he'd suffered as a child came to light in his friend John Forster's biography of him). It is, however, very long - I think it's Dickens' longest book.

[neilmarr]

Right you are, Harry. Sparrow is right, too, of course; but some of Dickens' work was intended more like a colection of short stories, loosely hanging from a common hook. And now to track down your clean version of *Copperfield*. Although I've read every word of Dickens that I could ever find -- and several times at that -- it's been ten years or more since last I last read his works ... and never before on an ebook reader. I can feel some pleasant bedtimes coming on.Thanks. Neil

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Right you are, Harry. Sparrow is right, too, of course; but some of Dickens' work was intended more like a colection of short stories, loosely hanging from a common hook.

Yes, that's true of both "Pickwick" and "Nicolas Nickleby". "Oliver Twist" is generally regarded as Dickens' first "real" novel.

[DixieGal]

David Copperfield made me glad to be living in our modern world, you know, the one with Prozac. You guys know that I'm brutally cheerful, so I've never said, "I think I'll seek out a Dickens novel to bring me down." But every time I've read one, it has been impossible to put down.

I read quite a few in college - both for lit classes AND history classes in order to learn more about the daily lives of the common people. Also William Blake's poems, which are cute little rhymes that contain terrifying truths, such as tiny chimney sweeps were doing a job likely to cause cancer, etc.

I've still to read Middlemarch. The only thing I remember about it was not having time to read it, faking my answers on an exam, and making an A anyway.