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.