Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Nos. I–III (Chs. 1-8)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Every year over my winter break, I read one new-to-me novel by Charles Dickens. This year, I am trying something new and going to read and write it up by installments; Martin Chuzzlewit originally appeared in nineteen monthly parts from January 1843 to July 1844, the installments averaging 2.8 chapters. My plan is to alternate them with other books, and each week, review as much as I've read since last week. My guess is this will take me about two months, but we'll see. In the last few years, I've burned out on some mediocre Dickens novels, so my hope is this will liven it up a bit.

Originally published: 1843-44
Acquired: December 2023
Installments read: January 2024

No. I (Chs. 1-3)
At some point, Dickens became the king of the opening. I remember being gripped by the birth scene of David Copperfield in David Copperfield (1849-50) (though maybe that's because I read it with my newborn son on my lap), the opening court scene of Bleak House (1852-53) is amazing, as is the birth in prison of Amy "Little Dorrit" Dorrit in Little Dorrit (1855-57), and who, of course, can forget Pip in the graveyeard in Great Expectations (1860-61), a scene burned into my memory by its Wishbone adaptation? When I read A Tale of Two Cities (1859), I went so far as to write, "I imagine there's not a Dickens novel that doesn't open great; he knew how to set a scene. Mysterious riders in the night, cryptic messages, well-observed humor about people taking public transit. I was totally into it."

Well, clearly Charles Dickens did not have this power yet in 1843. The novel opens with a weird, satirical, only intermittently humorous history of the Chuzzlewit family, then moves on to a long and tedious chapter about the Pecksnif family, then to another long and tedious disquisition about an old man in an inn, who we very belatedly learn is Martin Chuzzlewit... though, not the Martin Chuzzlewit, who at the end of the first installment of the novel ostensibly devoted to his "life and adventures" is still resolutely off-screen! Wow, way to hook 'em, Boz. A lot of Dickens novels, I have found, begin strong but get tedious, but much worse are the ones that—like Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39)—start tedious and continue in that way. Hopefully this is not one of those.

No. II (Chs. 4-5)
Far be it for me to play backseat editor, but if I'd been Charles Dickens's publisher and got the manuscript, I'd've told him to dump the first three chapters and start with the fourth. It's perfect Dickens: having heard that old Martin Chuzzlewit is dying, everyone vaguely related begins lurking nearby, hoping to somehow finagle themselves into his good graces—and thus, of course, his will. The whole chapter culminates in a meeting between all the relations, who all despise each other and spend their time wittily insulting each other. It would have been a delightful, intriguing opening, but it makes a strong fourth chapter instead.

Unfortunately, the fifth chapter is dull, focusing on Pecksnif's former student (Mr. Pinch) recruiting a new student, who turns out to be the younger Martin Chuzzlewit. It doesn't half take its time about it; in other books, Dickens does the "many disparate characters doing stuff" thing well (e.g., Our Mutual Friend [1864-65], Bleak House) but so far I am finding it hard to latch onto any of them here.

No. III (Chs. 6-8)
I have to say, Dickens is very much overestimating how interesting I find Pecksnif. Like, he's funny, but he's not that funny. The three chapters here cover Martin Chuzzlewit and Mr. Pinch coming to know each other better, the two of them being harangued for money by Slyme, a lawyer, and Pecksnif going on a coach journey to London. Plus also a guy quitting working at a pub. It's a bit all over the place, still, and it all goes on a bit too much. Like, I do find some of the Martin/Pinch interactions very cute (such as Martin falling asleep to Pinch reading Shakespeare), and there are a couple good jokes in their encounter with Slyme and his associate, Mr. Tigg, but it just goes on and on and on. This has the undisciplined sprawl of the eighteenth-century picaresque (never a favorite genre of mine), but instead of being about one person, it's about a million of them for some reason.

It feels weird to say this, but Bleak House was much more tightly written!

This is the first in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment no. iv.