Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1870
Acquired: November 2016
Read: December 2025

Every year over my winter break, I read a Charles Dickens novel I haven't previously read. I've been reading them in order of descending popularity on LibraryThing: this perhaps has been a mistake, since it means the last few years I have been subjected to triumphs like Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son.

I was thus a bit apprehensive about this year, where I would be reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood. What if it was as bad as the last couple books I'd read? And, famously, incomplete? ("The food here is terrible. And such small portions!")

Well, it seems to me that as he lay dying, Charles Dickens must have gotten a bit of his mojo back, because Edwin Drood was shaping up to be solid mid-tier Dickens. Not necessarily great work, but there are decent characters here and interesting dynamics and some strong descriptive passages. I doubt it would have ended spectacularly (maybe I am wrong), and certainly, books like Dombey and Son show that Dickens can start strong but ultimately fizzle out, but I was into it thus far, read it fairly quickly, and disappointed when it all came to a stop.

Just one Dickens novel to go! 

I read a Charles Dickens novel every year. Next up in sequence: Barnaby Rudge

Serialization and Strategy in Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son

When I read Dombey and Son (1846-48), I noted that it seemed to demonstrate a much higher level of planning than the prior Dickens novel I had read, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44). The structure of Chuzzlewit very much demonstrates (to me anyway) that Dickens must have been making it up as he went along, with its diversion to America and the fact that Martin (a damp squib if there ever was one) pretty much stops being the protagonist of the novel that bears his name.

Dombey and Son, on the other hand, is very obviously planned. It ran nineteen monthly installments, the last of which was double-length, making for twenty in total. At the end of every fifth installment, something of great significance happens: the death of a main character, the marriage of a main character, the flight of a main character. It's like watching the season finale of a modern serialized streaming show. I was curious about this, and reading the introduction to my Penguin Classics edition suggested that Alan Horsman's 1974 Clarendon edition of the novel would provide a detailed account of novel's composition, so I ordered it through interlibrary loan.

In his introduction, Horsman cites Dickens's friend and biographer John Forster, who had "stressed the contrast between Martin Chuzzlewit and subsequent books like this one which showed Dickens 'more bent upon constructive care at the outset'" (xv). Horsman argues that Forster is exaggerating a bit, as we know that Dickens had Chuzzlewit's ending in mind from the beginning. But I think (to put it awkwardly) that Horsman is exaggerating Forster's exaggeration. Sure, Dickens had his plot twist in mind the beginning... but clearly he did not have the beats and pacing in mind from the beginning in the way he did in Dombey and Son. Had he precisely planned everything in Dombey? I don't think so, based on the evidence Horsman cites, but we do often see evidence of him working ahead a bit. For example: "On 6 December [1846] he was occupied with the first chapter of Number IV. 'Paul, I shall slaughter at the end of number five'" (xxvi). And later: "As one would expect, the planning of Number V is very careful" (xxviii).

That said, things do get a bit looser later on. Dickens had a broad-strokes idea, but didn't have the precise planning worked out from the beginning: "The problem which the memoranda for Number VI emphasize is to continue throughout the remainder of the novel…. February letters show that he found it 'very difficult to fall into the new vein of the story'" (xxix). Perhaps this why I found my interest in the novel diminished as it went! It seems like Dickens had a lot he knew he wanted to get done by the end of no. v, but having crammed this all in, was less certain about where he was working toward for the remaining fifteen installments: "The second marriage [of Dombey] has now to sustain the greater part of the novel… he was to warn himself 'To bring on the marriage gradually'" (xxxi-xxxii). Horsman chronicles how Dickens thought of other aspects of the novel to pull into the foreground, but also how Dickens wasn't unlimited in what he could do; there were things he planned on that just didn't pan out.

Horsman doesn't mention those big turning points I identified in nos. x and xv in the same way, so it seems likely these weren't planned quite so rigorously in advance as the ending of no. v was. But it is clear that Dickens was being deliberate in his pacing in a way he had not been in Chuzzlewit, even if this ultimately undermined (I would argue) the success of the novel as a whole.

Forster said that, "for Dickens, 'the interest and passion of [the story], when to himself both became centred in Florence and in Edith Dombey, took stronger hold of him, and more powerfully affected him, that had been the case in any of his previous writings, I think…'" (xxxii). Again, Horsman seems a bit skeptical of Forster's claim, calling him "defensive" (xxxii), but I agree—going in publication order, for me this is Dickens's first novel to have some genuinely emotional moments, even if he would get better at this later on. And Forster also says the second half "seemed to many to have fallen short of the splendour of its opening" (xxxii)—and again, I agree. Because Dickens had to get to that twentieth installment, much like how a modern streaming show has to get its season out to ten episodes no matter what, the later parts of the novel are less dense with incident than what came before. 

It's also fascinating to learn how down-to-the-wire Dickens's composition could be; there were times Dickens had to send in each chapter of an installment as he finished it to have enough time to be typset. There were even times that a chapter had to be broken up by pages so different typesetters could do different pages simultaneously! In such a down-to-the-minute environment, I suppose the more planning you can do in advance, the better.

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.

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. XV–XVI (Chs. 46-51)

No. XV (chs. 46-48)
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to which she had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant above it, and stamping it down. She saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house. (721)

Not much to say about this one... except that I called it! Precisely at the three-quarters mark, Dickens gives us our next big moment in the story, the total collapse of good feeling between Dombey and his wife, which leads to Dombey striking Florence, and Florence fleeing his house into the refuge of Captain Cuttle. Cracking stuff: any Dickens novel can have its languid moments, but he knows how to twist a knife like few others.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

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

It's interesting how deliberately structured and plotted Dombey and Son is, because this was very much not the case with Dickens's previous novel, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44, which I suffered through last winter). Indeed, I don't think it's the case with any previous Dickens novel. Maybe Oliver Twist? I don't remember that one well. But it certainly wasn't true for Pickwick Papers (1836-37), or Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), or The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41). The only other early Dickens novel I haven't read yet is Barnaby Rudge (1841); I guess I'll see how structured that one is... but I kind of doubt it's highly structured given what I know of it.

I wonder what happened in 1846 that turned Dickens toward plotting things out in more detail and pacing more deliberately... perhaps he suffered through Martin Chuzzlewit as much as I did and wasn't keen to repeat the experience! The introduction and notes to my Penguin Classics edition don't mention anything about this as far as I noticed, but they do recommend reading the 1974 Clarendon edition of the novel for an account of its composition. I will put in an interlibrary loan request for it.

No. XVI (chs. 49-51)
'Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy... but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere.' (757)

Well, guess what... Walter is alive! Given this seemed quite obvious from the moment his body failed to turn up, it's a little annoying that Dickens dragged this out for five whole installments. It's like the guy hasn't been on the show a whole season!

But anyway, decent stuff as we move into the endgame, but I particularly liked the little glimpse we get of Dombey: "Mr Dombey and the world are alone together" (781).

This is the sixth in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. xvii and beyond. 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)
   

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. XIII–XIV (Chs. 39-45)

No. XIII (chs. 39-41)
Towards his first wife, Mr Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance, had borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself to be. He had been 'Mr Dombey' with her when she first saw him, and he was 'Mr Dombey' when she died. He had asserted his greatness during their whole married life, and she had meekly recognised it. He had kept his distant seat of state on the top of his throne, and she her humble station on its lowest step; and much good it had done him, so to live in solitary bondage to his one idea. He had imagined that the proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own—would have merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured himself haughtier than ever, with Edith’s haughtiness subservient to his. He had never entertained the possibility of its arraying itself against him. (608-9)

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1846-48
Acquired: December 2024
Installments read: January 2025

Not much to report about this one, which continues the depiction of the slow deterioration of the Dombey marriage—see above. Also some good but sad stuff about Florence. The new Mrs Dombey's mother dies.

No. XIV (chs. 42-45)
'Does that bold-faced slut... intend to take her warning, or does she not?' (669)

Another one that I found a bit slow and a bit plodding. More Florence, please! I mean, Dombey is thrown from his horse and injured and all, but there's a bit too much Carker. I get that he's up to no good, but I find something about Dickens's underhanded villains who spend a lot of time "on screen" a bit dull; I mean, he's not as bad as Pecksniff from Martin Chuzzlewit, but I feel like less would be more with this guy, but instead we just get more. Which is not more.

That said, at times, he's chillingly effective. When Dombey is injured, Carker brings a message from him to Edith (only I am suspicious that the message probably does not represent Dombey's actual intentions), trying to drive a wedge between Edith and Florence:

'His instructions were,' he said, in a low voice, 'that I should inform you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to him. That it suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to himself. That he desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are in earnest, he is confident it will be; for your continued show of affection will not benefit its object.'
     'That is a threat,' she said.
     'That is a threat,' he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent: adding aloud, 'but not directed against you.' (683)

I've been reading this book a solid month now, you know, and though my reading has slowed a little of late, I'm almost at the three-quarters mark, so I ought to finish it up in February.

I'm worried about that three-quarters mark, though; so far, Dickens has made the worst things happen at the ends of installment nos. v and x. What will no. xv bring?

This is the fifth in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. xv and beyond. 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)
   

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. XI–XII (Chs. 32-38)

No. XI (chs. 32-34)
It’s entered on the ship’s log, and that’s the truest book as a man can write. (505)

As I had kind of predicted, after a heavy emphasis on Florence and Dombey in the previous installment, we totally stay away from the two of them here. The first chapter is about Captain Cuttle finding out that Walter's ship was destroyed at sea with no survivors. (My prediction, though: in the absence of a body, assume he will turn up alive in a later installment nonetheless.) Dickens does a great job with Cuttle's grief:

Because it ain’t one loss, but a round dozen. Where’s that there young schoolboy with the rosy face and curly hair, that used to be as merry in this here parlour, come round every week, as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal’r. Where’s that there fresh lad, that nothing couldn’t tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and blushed so, when we joked him about Heart’s Delight, that he was beautiful to look at? Gone down with Wal’r. Where’s that there man’s spirit, all afire, that wouldn’t see the old man hove down for a minute, and cared nothing for itself? Gone down with Wal’r. It ain’t one Wal’r. There was a dozen Wal’rs that I know’d and loved, all holding round his neck when he went down, and they’re a-holding round mine now! (505)

People claim that we didn't get the idea of a multiplicity of selves until modernism, but Charles Dickens has got it here!

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1846-48
Acquired: December 2024
Installments read: January 2025

This chapter, and the other two, continue the growing recognition of the villainy of Mr Carker. Mr Carker reacts coldly to Captain Cuttle's announcement of Walter's death, throwing him out of the firm. The next couple are honestly a bit confusing at first, because over halfway through this book, Dickens is apparrently still introducing new key characters! I thought at first they were from earlier chapters and I'd forgot them, but no. I guess if you think of each quarter of the novel as a "season" of a television show (which seems a pretty good analogy, pacing-wise), it makes sense to introduce some new regular cast members at the beginning of season three. 

Anyway, the new character here is Harriet, the sister of the two Carker brothers; in this chapter, she has a conversation with a mysterious man about John, the disgraced one; there are also hints that Mr Carker is up to something as regards Edith, Dombey's new wife. Harriet then dispenses some assistance to a homeless woman.

Then, in the next chapter, we learn more about the homeless woman, another new character, named Alice—but like Harriet, related to a preexisting character, Good Mrs Brown, the street woman who way back in installment no. iii took advantage of Florence. Alice is Mrs Brown's daughter, recently returned from transportation to Australia. Here, we learn that 1) Good Mrs Brown has been keeping tabs on the Dombeys ever since then, and 2) they both have some reason to hate Mr Carker. Upon Alice realizing it was Carker who helped her, she and her mother actually go back to Harriet's house and return the assistance she got. Wow! How all this is going to weave together, but provided I can keep track of it all, I am interested to find out.

No. XII (chs. 35-38)
'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about – Mr Toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand. (580)

Unlike most installments of Dombey and Son, this one has four chapters instead of three—I assume of somewhat shorter length, since I think all the installments are equally long. The first one here is the real standout, chronicling the return of Dombey and the new Mrs Dombey, Edith, from their honeymoon:

'And how my dearest Dombey did you find that delightfullest of cities, Paris?' she [Mrs Skewton, his mother-in-law] asked, subduing her emotion.
     'It was cold,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'Gay as ever,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of course.'
     'Not particularly. I thought it dull.' (543)

There's a really beautiful, but sad, and powerfully written, scene as Dombey almost finds himself showing affection toward Florence. But then he realizes that the only time that Edith demonstrates any affection toward anyone is when she sees Florence; indeed, Edith is a totally different person in the presence of Florence. What exactly Edith is up to, we don't know, but it's clear the one person she has genuine affection toward is not even her own mother, but Florence. Dombey is still, so still that Florence and Edith take him to be asleep in his chair, and so he observes them in secret, discovering a different side to the two of them that he never gets to see under normal circumstances.

The motto of the book, its indictment of Dombey, might be best expressed through this exchange in chapter 35:

[Dombey:] 'I directed that no expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been done, I believe.'
     'And what can it not do, dear Dombey?' observed Cleopatra.
     'It is powerful, Madam.' (544)

Obviously the trajectory of this novel is going to be Dombey learning that there are things more powerful than money... but at what cost is this knowledge going to come? For me, the most heartrending passage in this chapter was this exchange between a couple of Dombey's servants: "Cook leads a sigh then, and a murmur of 'Ah, it’s a strange world, – it is indeed!' and when it has gone round the table, adds persuasively, 'but Miss Florence can’t well be the worse for any change, Tom.' Mr Towlinson’s rejoinder, pregnant with frightful meaning, is 'Oh, can’t she though!'" (542). It does seem quite probable to me that things are going to get worse for Florence before they get better; you can feel the tension rising through this chapter most excruciatingly. Poor Florence.

The other chapters here are less captivating but still important, showing the continuing deterioration (is that the right word? you can't deteriorate a thing that was never constructed to begin with) the Dombeys' new marriage, and the continuing negative influence of Carker.

Back in the opening quarter of the book, with Paul's schooling, there was a lot of Dickens's usual invective against bad systems of education; with Paul dead, we can't really get that, but there's still a little of it here, through the character of Rob, who is sent to a badly run charity school for the lower classes:

they never taught honour at the Grinders’ School, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch, that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the Grinders’ Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders’ Institution. (588-89)

This is the fourth in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. xiii and beyond. 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)
   

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. VIII–X (Chs. 23-31)

No. VIII (Chs. 23-25)
Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery. (375)

I feel like Dombey and Son is drifting a bit in this installment, languishing. It's not bad... but I'm also still not quite clear where the novel is going following from the death of Paul Dombey. In these chapters, we follow Florence mostly, with a bit also about Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle. Probably this is all going somewhere... but where?

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1846-48
Acquired: December 2024
Installments read: January 2025

If the novel has a main point, though, it's clearly Florence's emotional deprivation. In this installment, Florence overhears the aunt of an orphan talking to her charge about Florence: "your misfortune is a lighter one than Florence’s; for not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love" (381). There are a lot of emotionally deprived orphans (or seeming orphans, e.g., Great Expectations) in Dickens, but (perhaps I'm forgetting something) I can't think of any nonorphans so deprived as Florence. How bad is it to have a parent who doesn't love you, doesn't even hate you, just doesn't think of you at all? All the stuff about Florence is sort of quietly devastating, and for me anyway, she's emerging as one of Dickens's best female characters. 

I'm not really sure where this is all going to go, but I continue to mostly enjoy the journey.

No. IX (chs. 26-28)
Am I hitting some kind of mid-book slump? Again, an installment I was mostly pretty "meh" on—except for the stuff about Florence, of course, who I continue to have great empathy for. I think the problem is when there's too much stuff about Dombey himself (and his social circle). But all that does lead somewhere in this one, which is... Dombey is getting remarried! What implications will this have for Florence, who doesn't even get to meet her new mother prior to the engagement? I would say it can't make her life worse, but there's over half the novel to go, so it probably will.

What is up with Mr Carker? I don't trust that guy. You might object to a key character only emerging halfway through a novel, but I guess that's serialization for you. Indeed, I like the way he's slowly emerging as a figure of significance. (Douglas Adams does something similar with a minor character in the Doctor Who serial The Pirate Planet.) ((I am willing to bet no one has ever compared these two texts before.))

No. X (chs. 29-31)
Say what you will about our man Charles Dickens, but he knows how to pace a serial. Dombey and Son consists of nineteen parts, but the last is double-length (a two-part finale), so the end of installment no. x is the exact midpoint of the novel. At the end of the first quarter, Paul Dombey died; at the end of the second quarter, Mr Dombey gets remarried.

But poor Florence! What is going to happen to her? Dombey's new in-laws are clearly up to something (I am a bit worried I should know what this is but that I glazed over it when I was bored in a previous installment, but I'm sure I'll figure it out), and Dombey's new wife clearly has regrets about it... but is willing to go forward with the plan anyway.

This installment basically totally revolves around the lead-up to the wedding. It has been a while, actually, since we have checked in on some of the side characters. Soon, I am guessing? But in the meantime, I continue to be very into the trajectory of Florence, surely one of Dickens's most put-upon female characters!

This is the third in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. xi and beyond. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–IV (chs. 1-13)
2. Nos. V–VII (chs. 14-22)
   

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, No. V–VII (Chs. 14-22)

No. V (Chs. 14-16)
This deviates from the structure of the last couple installments. Instead of going Paul→Paul→someone else (probably Walter), here we get Paul→someone else (indeed, Walter)→Paul. In the first chapter, Paul and Florence attend an end-of-term party for the students at Paul's school, but Paul suffers an attack of illness. The whole chapter has a kind of dreamlike quality, and though the installment came out in February, and the party actually precedes summer break, it actually felt very appropriate to read it in December; tonally, it felt very appropriate for Christmas, with its nostalgic, wistful tone.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

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

There's also some good jokes about an eternal Dickens bugaboo, the oversystematization of that which should not be systematized. In this case, there's a funny bit about how the teachers at Paul's school rate him at 6¾ on a scale of one to eight for "natural capacity" and "general disposition to study"... though only at a four for "gentlemanly demeanour" (208). Paul, however, is "undecided whether six three-fourths, meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six somethings that he hadn’t learnt yet, with three unknown something elses over"!

Incidentally, when sick, Paul perceives things around them changing size and position; it seemed to me that this could be (based on my limited understanding) an example of a malady named after a different Victorian novel, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, but in some quick Googling, anyway, I didn't find anyone else making that connection to Dombey and Son. Maybe I don't understand AIWS, or maybe I misread the novel? For example, it's noted that "Mr Toots’s head had the appearance of being at once bigger and farther off than was quite natural" (213). It's very vivid, though, making me wonder if Dickens himself suffered from it at some point.

The Walter bit goes on a bit too long, like all the other ones, but we do see that Walter is beginning to invest himself emotionally in Florence. Florence, incidentally, is probably the Dickens girlest Dickens girl who ever Dickens girled, being a beautiful naïve slip of a girl who the men adore. The statement that she was "something precious, unattainable, unchangeable, and indefinite – indefinite in all but its power of giving him pleasure, and restraining him like an angel’s hand from anything unworthy" (243) could sum up so many of Dickens's female characters.

The big spoiler for this section—which I did not know going in, so avert your eyes if you want that to be true of you as well—is that the "Son" of Dombey and Son is no more following this section. That's right, Paul dies one-quarter of the way into the novel of which he is one-half of the title!

I did not see this turn of events, partially for that reason, and partially because it seemed like we were in for a very typical Dickens formula: the bildungsroman about a boy with an emotionally deprived childhood, e.g., Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), David Copperfield (1849-50), Great Expectations (1860-61). I would say it's clever of Dickens to subvert your expectations that way... except that two of those examples postdate this novel, so it wasn't a formula yet! But anyway, it's a very effective piece of writing either way, Dickens at his sentimental best. He would bring himself to tears reading the chapter aloud at public performances, apparently; I would have loved to see and hear such a thing.

No. VI (Chs. 17-19)
'Wal'r,' said the Captain, handing it [the watch] over, and shaking him heartily by the hand, 'a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the afternoon, and it’s a watch that’ll do you credit.' (300)

The first and third chapters here are about Captain Cuttle and Walter respectively, and they're fine for what they are. (Is Captain Cuttle the character my friend said I'd like?) But the clear standout here is the middle chapter, "Father and Daughter," about how Florence is mourning the death of her brother Paul and how her father just doesn't care for her or her feelings in any way, shape, or form.

I occasionally have remarked that I want to have more access to Florence's interiority, but I think I'm just projecting my twenty-first-century expectations onto this novel. Dickens wasn't a realist, like those Victorian writers that came after him, such as George Eliot or Elizabeth Gaskell, his project wasn't to reveal character by taking you into someone's head. Dickens reveals character through dialogue and action. In the realist novel, you have this artifice, that the narrator somehow knows what Hetty Sorell or Molly Gibson were thinking. Dickens projects no such artifice—well, he projects a different one. His narrators never claim to know what someone is thinking, only what someone is saying and doing. Imagine someone else telling you the story of Florence Dombey because it was real; they wouldn't give you her thoughts via free indirect discourse or something because they don't know them. But what they could tell was what she did, how she looked out at the happy family across the street every day, and that would be enough to let you know how she felt, because that's how humans always figure out how each other feel. You need to imagine a Dickens novel is being related to you by a friend who knows the story in detail.

So of course we don't have access to Florence's interiority, and you should stop hoping for it! Dickens does a great job of communicating what's going on inside her regardless, particularly in that devastating scene where Florence goes to see her father.

I don't think this is an absolute; clearly we do get a bit of Paul's interiority in his last couple chapters, as he's dying. But it's not a move Dickens makes a lot, and he only deploys it to make a particularly strong point. His next novel after Dombey and Son would be David Copperfield, which is (I believe) his first told in the first person, so we finally do get that dose of interiority... but the old-fashioned way. He would use it in just two other novels, both ones I rank among his best, Great Expectations and Bleak House (1852-53).

No. VII (Chs. 20-22)
'You are too great a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you’re far above that kind of thing.' (314)

This is probably the first installment of Dombey and Son that I found ho-hum. It had its moments, but none of the three chapters was a great one. In the first, Dombey hangs out with a new character, Major Joe Bagstock—he's who I've quoted above, and he is in general quite funny. In the second, Dombey and Bagstock go on a trip and bump into Mrs Richards, who reveals her eldest son (whose education Dombey sponsored) has gone bad. In the third, said son shows up at Dombey and Son looking for a job so he can straighten himself out, and doesn't get one directly, but Dombey's clerk gets him a placement with Walter's uncle, the instument-maker. (Walter himself is missing, his ship unheard of since its departure.)

It's all fine, and definitely there are some great bits, but it felt to me like things were being moved into position for the next phase of the story—whatever that may be.

This is the second in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. viii and beyond. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–IV (chs. 1-13)
   

Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Nos. I–IV (Chs. 1-13)

Every winter break, I read the most popular Charles Dickens novel that I haven't previously read. This year, that brings me to Dombey and Son, originally serialized in nineteen monthly parts from October 1846 to April 1848 under the title of Dealings with with the Firm Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. Last year, I experimented with reading Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44) serially. Not across nineteen months(!), but rather alternating installments of the novel with parts of other books (or, in some cases, whole other books), and then writing up those installments as I went. I would say it was a successful experiment, in that instead of being forced to endure nothing but Martin Chuzzlewit for weeks, I got to alternate it with book that were actually good, so I decided to go for it again this year.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1846-48
Acquired: December 2024
Installments read: December 2024

I should say, that going in, I literally knew nothing at all about this book, beyond what I gleaned from the introduction to my Penguin Classics edition. I feel like I've never heard anyone ever mention it, even in passing. A totally forgotten (or forgettable) Dickens novel? It doesn't bode well, to be honest, beginning a book that's nine hundred pages long and not even worth complaining about, but I tried to be open-minded.

No. I (Chs. 1-4)
Some Dickens novels begin ominously, a mode that Dickens excels in. Think of A Tale of Two Cities (1859) or Great Expectations (1860-61). But it seems to me that earlier in his career, perhaps because his big success was still the hijinks of The Pickwick Papers (1836-37), Dickens was much more likely to begin comically, even when his topic was tragic. He takes a similar mode here to that of David Copperfield (1849-50), beginning with the birth of a child, largely under sad circumstances, but mostly focusing on making jokes about it all. The first line is so funny I stopped immediately to read it aloud to my wife: "Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new" (11). And then the second line is also a joke: "Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet" (11).

What this all belies is that the opening of the book is quite sad! Dombey is the owner of the titular firm; he use to be the "Son" and now he is the "Dombey," but though he has been married ten years, he has only just got a "Son." He does have a daughter, aged six... who he doesn't care about at all, because a girl "was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested – a bad Boy – nothing more" (13). Dombey's lack of affection extends to his wife, who dies after giving birth to Son, and Dombey is more concerned about the logistical difficulties this will lead to in raising his Son. And though this bit is of course sad, Dickens also has a lot of jokes here, mostly from the dead Mrs. Dombey's sister-in-law, who keeps insisting she just needs to make an effort and she'll be fine: "It’s necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps a very great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make; but this is a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never yield, when so much depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold you if you don’t!" (20-1)

I feel like Dickens pulls you in with the jokes in order to subsequently get you with the tragedy, but also the tragedy is perhaps a bit too muted, more abstractly understood than felt, but like I said, maybe the Dickens audience of 1846 didn't want tragedy, only comedy, so he had to understate it a bit. (This is after The Old Curiosity Shop and the death of Little Nell, though, so maybe I am overstating this point.)

After this, there's some comic hijinks as Dombey must engage a wet-nurse, excellent stuff, I really enjoyed it. So many great lines about the wet-nurse and her apple-faced family. But then Dickens is always very good at this sort of thing, and from here we move away from comedy a bit, as the wet-nurse (real name: Mrs Toodle, but called Mrs Richards when at work because it's more "ordinary" and "convenient") meets the daughter of Dombey for the first time, and realizes how isolated and alone and sad the poor girl is. After all this, I was fairly into the book; a much better opening installment than Martin Chuzzlewit, to be sure.

The fourth chapter is some blather about a shopkeeper and his nephew Walter, though, so you can't win them all, though again it had a couple good jokes. But then I got to take a break and go read something else. One installment down... eighteen to go!

No. II (Chs. 5-7)
It's interesting that two of the three chapter titles here center Dombey's son Paul—"Paul's Progress and Christening" and "Paul's Second Deprivation"—because it seems to me that the clear emotional focus of the chapters is Dombey's neglected daughter, Florence. Yes, Paul's christening is the event on which these three chapters hinge, in that it's there that the characters make some key decisions that end up having major repercussions. (Mrs Richards decides to go visit her son at his new school, which results in her and a couple others losing their jobs working for the Dombeys.) But the person who goes through trauma here is Florence; on her way back from the visit, she gets separated from her caretakers, and she is taken advantage of by "Good Mrs Brown," who steals her clothes and cuts her hair off and claims she will murder Florence if Florence rats her out! Poor Florence goes through some awful stuff here.

Still, we feel a bit distanced from it all. The things we're told about are quite awful to read, but I don't feel like we're totally in Florence's interiority the way Dickens sometimes brings us, like he did a few years after this with Little Dorrit in Little Dorrit (1855-57).

I didn't expect the whole thing with Mrs Richards and the Dombeys to fall apart like that so quickly, though, so I am curious to see where this all goes in the next installment.

No. III (Chs. 8-10)
'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son.' (153)

Here we get one chapter about Paul and two about a character I haven't discussed much so far, Walter. Back in no. II, Walter helped rescue Florence after her ordeal at the hands of Good Mrs Brown; here, he comes calling to Mr Dombey to seek help paying off the debts of his uncle, a ship's instrument-maker who has no customers.

I am a bit worried that Walter may be the character about which my friend Christiana said, "I can think of one character who I expect you to like," because I find that so far his sections substantially slow the narrative down with a lot of unnecessary detail. I'm loathe to say Dickens could have done something in fewer words... but I really think "nobody is buying anything at my shop" doesn't need as many words as he gives it.

On the other hand, I found chapter 8 very interesting; we've jumped ahead a bit here, and now Paul Dombey is almost five, and we actually get some insight into his psychology. Poor kid! But I like best of all the simultaneously sympathetic and scathing way that Dickens describes Mr Dombey himself: "But he loved his son with all the love he had. If there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the image of that son was there; though not so much as an infant, or as a boy, but as a grown man – the 'Son' of the Firm. Therefore he was impatient to advance into the future, and to hurry over the intervening passages of his history" (109).

No. IV (Chs. 11-13)
She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead – stone dead – and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoule. (163) 

We're settling into a pattern here, I think: two chapters about Paul Dombey, and then one going elsewhere. The Paul ones are about how at first he and Florence go to the seaside and spend time with a terrible governess (she's not called a governess, I don't think, but she's essentially so), and then Dombey decides Son needs an education, so he gets packed off to a nearby terrible school. What Victorian does horrible systems better than Dickens? Great stuff about the terrible, terrible education Paul is beginning to get; lots of good jokes on this and other topics. I am not loving this book yet (still a bit long-winded, we're still a bit distant from Paul and Florence, I think) but certainly I am enjoying it more than Martin Chuzzlewit or The Old Curiosity Shop; I don't know this one isn't better know. I guess Dickens has got 750 pages in which he can screw it up.

The other chapter is about the doings at the firm Dombey and Son, a place we previously haven't gone despite it being the title of the novel! Most of the characters here are thus new, but there's a bit more about Walter, who is being sent to the West Indies. I remain open-minded, I suppose, but I am not sure where this strand of the novel is going. The best part, though, is this zinger between two new characters who are estranged brothers:

'Haven’t you injured me enough already?'
     'I have never injured you, James, wilfully.'
     'You are my brother... That’s injury enough.' (200)

Dickens has a good line in insult comedy. 

This is the first in a series of posts about Dombey and Son. The next covers installment no. v and beyond.

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, No. XIX (Chs. 51-54)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Finally... the end!

Originally published: 1843-44
Acquired: December 2023
Installment read: March 2024

No. XIX (Chs. 51-54)
I wish I could say this whole novel was worth it for the scene where the elder Martin Chuzzlewit whacks Pecksniff with a walking stick, knocking him to the floor. It did make me laugh and want to cheer. Unfortunately, getting to see an annoying character whacked with a stick doesn't quite make up for having to read over seven hundred pages about that character... but at least Dickens himself knew the guy was annoying.

I also think Dickens himself clearly recognized that Martin Chuzzlewit was a failure of a protagonist; the last few chapters are far more interested in Tom Pinch and how he ends up than Martin Chuzzlewit and how he ended up. He's the one who gets what is clearly the protagonist's wrap-up, not Martin, with a whole chapter spent on his future happiness. The up- and downside of the serial novel, one supposes. If your protagonist doesn't work out, you can get a new one (shades of a tv show shifting who its lead is), but... but if your protagonist doesn't work out, you can't go back and make someone more interesting the protagonist from the beginning, all you can do is pack them off to America!

So, overall, did this work as a way to read Dickens? Well, I did not (as you can tell) like Martin Chuzzlewit much... but I think I would have liked it even less had I attempted to read it straight through! Hopefully next year's Dickens is better (but I doubt it).

This is the last in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
3. Nos. V–VII (chs. 11-17)
4. No. VIII (chs. 18-20)
5. No. IX (chs. 21-23)
6. Nos. X–XII (chs. 24-32)
7. Nos. XIII–XVIII (chs. 33-50)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Nos. XIII–XVIII (Chs. 33-50)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

I was sick last week, so I was able to get through a lot of Martin Chuzzlewit. (If you think that sounds like I punished myself for being sick, you're right.)

Originally published: 1843-44
Acquired: December 2023
Installments read: February–March 2024

No. XIII (Chs. 33-35)
I seriously do not understand people who think the American segments drag this book down. The middle chapter here is about Americans being ridiculous and stupid (some Americans try to talk to Mark on a steamboat). The jokes are not top-tier Dickens, but at least they are jokes. I would much rather read them than whatever else is going on in this book.

No. XIV (Chs. 36-38)
This installment actually has some inklings of interest. Tom Pinch (who I am sure might have been in this book all along, but whom I last remember doing something interesting back in ch. 12) strikes out on his own, hanging out some with his sister, a much put-upon governess. Like the America stuff, it feels like a soft reset. Okay, Dickens thinks to himself, even after being packed off to America, Martin is still boring, so let's focus on this other guy, he seemed nice. I very much enjoyed all the stuff with him tramping about London:

Yoho, past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages and barns, and people going home from work. Yoho, past donkey-chaises, drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a bound upon the little watercourse, and held by struggling carters close to the five-barred gate, until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the road. Yoho, by churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial-grounds about them, where the graves are green, and daisies sleep—for it is evening—on the bosoms of the dead. Yoho, past streams, in which the cattle cool their feet, and where the rushes grow; past paddock-fences, farms, and rick-yards; past last year’s stacks, cut, slice by slice, away, and showing, in the waning light, like ruined gables, old and brown. Yoho, down the pebbly dip, and through the merry water-splash and up at a canter to the level road again. Yoho! Yoho!

(Was this chapter an inspiration for Little Blue Truck's Springtime? "Yoo-hoo duck!")

Anyway, will the second relaunch work? Well, who knows because then we get two chapters of tedium. The only thing more boring than Pecksniff is the two Miss Pecksniffs.

No. XV (Chs. 39-41)
With Victorian novels, I often play a game: how would you see it if it had a different title? For example, Adam Bede could be the exact same text and justifiably titled Dinah Morris or even Hetty Sorrel. But if it was, it would be much sadder. Or, how would we see Bleak House if it was called Esther Summerson?

Anyway, it seems to me Martin Chuzzlewit would much more justifiably be called Pecksniff, but then I would also hate it all the more. But on the basis of this installment, perhaps it ought to have been called Tom Pinch, and probably I might have liked it a bit more. There's no Martin, sure, but I'd much rather read about Tom Pinch doing stuff. This is a bit of a classic Dickens set-up: the down-on-the-luck fellow who gets a mysterious benefactor. But it's classic because it works. Chuck all the Martin and Pecksniff chapters and retitle this book, please.

No. XVI (Chs. 42-44)
Who is even less interesting than Pecksniff? Signs point to Jonah. Tom Pinch continues to seem like a nice book, though.

No. XVII (Chs. 45-47)
Okay, so I just said I found Jonah boring... but ch. 47 here, where Jonah does a murder, is one of the best in the book. Classic Dickens, totally captivating suspense.

No. XVIII (Chs. 48-50)
Okay, lots of boring stuff... FUCK ME, THE ELDER MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT HAS BEEN FAKING IT THIS ENTIRE TIME!? AND HE'S THE SECRET BENEFACTOR OF TOM PINCH??!? You do occasionally know how to hit a home run, Charles.

This is the seventh in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment no. xix. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
3. Nos. V–VII (chs. 11-17)
4. No. VIII (chs. 18-20)
5. No. IX (chs. 21-23)
6. Nos. X–XII (chs. 24-32)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Nos. X–XII (Chs. 24-32)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

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

No. X (Chs. 24-26)
I read this installment over a week ago and forgot to write it up. I seem to have blanked it all from my memory.

No. XI (Chs. 27-29)
"Pip's our mutual friend." One future Dickens protagonist and one future Dickens title, both in one line of dialogue.

No. XII (Chs. 30-32)
FOR GOD'S SAKE CUT BACK TO THE AMERICA PLOTLINE, CHARLES, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. WHY OH WHY WOULD YOU HAVE THREE WHOLE INSTALLMENTS OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT WITH NO MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT!?

This is the sixth in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment nos. xiii–xviii. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
3. Nos. V–VII (chs. 11-17)
4. No. VIII (chs. 18-20)
5. No. IX (chs. 21-23)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, No. IX (Chs. 21-23)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1843-44
Acquired: December 2023
Installment read: February 2024

No. IX (Chs. 21-23)
Back to Martin in America for these three parts, which are less funny than the previous American ones and thus also less interesting; mostly they are about Martin getting caught up in a land speculation scheme. There are some jokes but they are much less densely packed in, and the book is back to feeling flabby and slow; you always get the point of a scene long before it is over. The satire about the racist, anti-emancipation Americans was pretty potent, though:

It was hastily resolved that a piece of plate should be presented to a certain constitutional Judge, who had laid down from the Bench the noble principle that it was lawful for any white mob to murder any black man; and that another piece of plate, of similar value should be presented to a certain Patriot, who had declared from his high place in the Legislature, that he and his friends would hang without trial, any Abolitionist who might pay them a visit. For the surplus, it was agreed that it should be devoted to aiding the enforcement of those free and equal laws, which render it incalculably more criminal and dangerous to teach a negro to read and write than to roast him alive in a public city.

Alas, it had little to do with Martin.

This is the fifth in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment nos. x–xii. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
3. Nos. V–VII (chs. 11-17)
4. No. VIII (chs. 18-20)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, No. VIII (Chs. 18-20)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

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

No. VIII (Chs. 18-20)
I'm not sure sure I believe the "Charles Dickens sent Martin Chuzzlewit to America because sales weren't what he hoped for and he wanted to inject some life into the novel" theory. Because if Charles Dickens knew what he was doing wasn't working, why would he immediately subject us to three whole chapters of SODDING PECKSNIFF!? I mean, I knew we'd have to cut back to England at some point, but A WHOLE INSTALLMENT OF PECKSNIFF is just asking me to drop my subscription, Charles.

This is the fourth in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment no. ix. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
3. Nos. V–VII (chs. 11-17)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Nos. V–VII (Chs. 11-17)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

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

No. V (Chs. 11-12)
The only thing less interesting than reading about Pecksniff is reading about his daughters. Like, what have I even been given to latch onto here? Who cares about them? It was only during chapter 11 that I realized their name wasn't spelled "Pecksnif," which is maybe a good barometer of how much I care... as is the fact I have no inclination to go back and fix the spelling in my earlier posts!

Chapter 12 does give us some of Tom and Martin, the faint bright light in this morass. I did quite like this line about Tom: "To say that Tom had no idea of playing first fiddle in any social orchestra, but was always quite satisfied to be set down for the hundred and fiftieth violin in the band, or thereabouts, is to express his modesty in very inadequate terms." A good Dickensian metaphor. At the end of this chapter, things fall apart between Martin and Pecksniff, and Martin loses his position.

‘And where?’ cried Tom. ‘Oh where will you go?’
     ‘I don’t know,’ he said. – ‘Yes, I do. I’ll go to America!’
     ‘No, no,’ cried Tom, in a kind of agony. ‘Don’t go there. Pray don’t. Think better of it. Don’t be so dreadfully regardless of yourself. Don’t go to America!’
     ‘My mind is made up,’ he said. ‘Your friend was right. I’ll go to America. God bless you, Pinch!’

I seem to recall that Dickens packed Martin off to America as what we might call a ratings gambit, because sales of the novel's installments weren't what was hoped for, sort of akin to doing a soft reboot of your tv show's premise. I didn't realize that happened only five installments in. The decision to go to America is pretty random, and Tom's reaction pretty funny; I am not even sure what Martin means by "Your friend was right." Well, we'll see if it saves the novel. Certainly, if Martin's the character who actually goes to America, he'll actually have to be in the book! I have a bad feeling we'll keep cutting away to Pecksniff, though.

No. VI (Chs. 13-15)
What's this? Three whole chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit about... Martin Chuzzlewit!? These chapters see Martin put his plan to go to America into action. More importantly, I think, we get a sense of Martin as a character, as someone who tends to be impatient and quick to judge; there's this whole bit where he negotiates passage to London assuming the other guy doesn't want to give him something he actually does want to give him. He comes across as overly cynical about other people but also overly naïve about himself; when he advertises that he'll work for passage, he excepts tons of offers but gets none.

He ends up hooking up with some guy from the earlier chapters, Mark, who agrees to serve as his valet, and then (after a really boring conversation with Martin's sort of fiancée), they are off. I like Mark; Martin is making himself not too great, but I guess that's the point of a bildungsroman. Some good funny stuff from Mark complaining about the sea voyage. Is Dickens's soft reboot of the book going to pay off? We shall see.

No. VII (Chs. 16-17)
With the sixteenth chapter, Dickens is on much firmer footing. That is to say, he's doing jokes. I don't know why this book that was initially about a family vying for an inheritance is now all about jokes at the expense of the American newspaper market, but it's an effective transition—in that I am enjoying it much more. "Here’s the Sewer’s exposure of the Wall Street Gang, and the Sewer’s exposure of the Washington Gang, and the Sewer’s exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight years old; now communicated, at a great expense, by his own nurse." Lots of fun stuff.

The next chapter is less funny but still fun enough, and somewhat more purposeful, though I still don't know that I have a strong sense of what Martin wants in life beyond a vague desire to strike it rich. So far, though, maybe the transition to America is working.

This is the third in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment no. viii. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
2. No. IV (chs. 9-10)
   

Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, No. IV (Chs. 9-10)

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

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

No. IV (Chs. 9-10)
I was complaining to a friend that Martin Chuzzlewit had appeared precious little 150 pages into the book Martin Chuzzlewit. "Your beloved George Eliot," she said, "waits until two hundred pages of Daniel Deronda to introduce Daniel Deronda." Okay, sure, but the difference here is that I am happy to read about Gwendolen Harleth, but I am much less happy to be reading about Pecksnif. There was a good Dickensian descriptive passage about finding Todger's inn but other than that there's not very much of the Dickens that I enjoy here. More Pecksnif tedium. (I just realized that he's on the cover for some reason. Is he the main character and the title just some kind of feint? God, I hope not.)

This is the second in a series of posts about Martin Chuzzlewit. The next covers installment nos. v-vii. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Nos. I–III (chs. 1-8)
   

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.