Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. XVII–XIX (Chs. 52-62)

I'm afraid my Dombey and Son project got away from me in February, both in the sense that I didn't get very much of it read, and it in the sense that I stopped writing up each installment immediately after reading it, so I can't do my usual thing of reacting to each installment on its own.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1846-48
Acquired: December 2024
Installments read: February–March 2025

Perhaps it was my otherwise distracted state, perhaps it was the book, but I found that it more fizzled out than climaxed. The last three installments have depressingly little of Florence and her emotional states; once she (inevitably) gets engaged to Walter, she basically fades out as a focal character. There's even little of Dombey himself. He and Florence reconcile, I guess, but it felt to me like this was mostly something we heard about secondhand rather than experiences. There's some good stuff with Dombey's wife, at least, which was probably the highlight of these last three installments.

I am a woman... who from her childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and rejected, put up and appraised, until my very soul has sickened. I have not had an accomplishment or grace that might have been a resource to me, but it has been paraded and vended to enhance my value, as if the common crier had called it through the streets. My poor, proud friends, have looked on and approved; and every tie between us has been deadened in my breast. There is not one of them for whom I care, as I could care for a pet-dog. I stand alone in the world, remembering well what a hollow world it has been to me, and what a hollow part of it I have been myself. (823)

I never particularly enjoyed Mr Carker as a villain, and found the way he was eliminated kind of disappointing. Thinking about it, though, I'm not sure Dickens's villains have ever really worked for me, even the ones other people seem to be really into (e.g., Uriah Heep). 

Overall, I enjoyed the earlier installments of Dombey but it lost me the more it went on... but of course, if you've ever seen a modern streaming show, you'll know that's a thing that happens all the time in serialized fiction!

This is the final in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–IV (chs. 1-13)
2. Nos. V–VII (chs. 14-22)
3. Nos. VIII–X (chs. 23-31)
4. Nos. XI–XII (chs. 32-38)
5. Nos. XIII–XIV (chs. 39-45)
6. Nos. XV–XVI (chs. 46-51)

My winter 2025/26 Dickens novel will be The Mystery of Edwin Drood.