What the Dickens is your Favourite?

If you look at the sidebar where I list what I'm reading, you can see that I've been digesting Dickens' Bleak House for quite some time now. And I'm sure it will be quite some time before I'm finished it. But I will finish it this time, dammit! Third time is a charm, right?

Twice before I have attempted to read Bleak House, and twice before I have failed. I confess I have little patience with reading books that are over 900 pages long. It's not that the story and characters aren't interesting, it's just that there's so damn much of it. And I guess it doesn't help that I find the main character, Esther, to be such a bloody pill. Does anyone else feel that way? Don't you notice that the nasty characters in Dickens' novels are just so much more fun to read about?

I also must confess that I haven't read nearly enough Dickens in my life. I hope to rectify that situation over time. Quite frankly, I find his life story to be much more interesting in some ways than the many stories and novels he wrote during his lifetime. Dickens was such a mass of contradictions. Great concern for the state of the poor, and very criticial of those who only valued the mighty dollar, yet so obsessed with making and having money himself (sometimes I think he based Scrooge on his own character). So critical of hypocrites and elitists in his novels, yet he himself was a great snob in many ways, and lived a priviate life in his later years that he desperatley tried to keep hidden (he pretty much left his wife for a much younger woman).

What I find even more interesting is that so much of this sense of injustice sprung from an event in his youth, which didn't even last that long, but marked him for life. That's the story of when he was forced to work in the blacking warehouse at the age of 12, putting labels on bottles, because his father (a man who could never handle money) had ended up in debter's prison. I had always assumed he stayed in that warehouse for years, but it was only a few months, but that's all it took to change Dickens forever. Who knows what went on during that time, for Dickens never shared the details of it, and in fact, kept that story of his childhood secret for a very long time. We get second-hand accounts of it, in a way, by reading novels like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.

Yes, I really must expand my reading of Dickens. So far I've read Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and all the Christmas Stories. Not much, really, when you think about how much the man produced. So far I think Oliver Twist is my favourite, because I find the nasty characters in that novel to be so delicious. Fagin and Bill Sykes make for great reading. And Nancy is quite an interesting woman, considering how overall I think Dickens' women are quite uninspiring.

So how many have you read? And what the Dickens is your favourite?

Comments

[Shelly]

I have an entire set of Dickens, small hardbacks that my father's family got as a movie theater giveaway way back when. I've read only one, for a college class, but I loved it: Our Mutual Friend. I haven't had interest in reading the others, but that one was wonderful. Full of angst. :)

[Julie]

I've only managed to finish one Dickens novel, and it was Bleak House. Not only did I finish it, I adored it, and went on to reread it a couple of times. I started Little Dorrit twice, but both times my interest flagged about halfway through and I never finished. And that's it for Dickens and me.

[Cipriano]

I really want to read a lot more Dickens stuff.
I've only read A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield. But on my shelf, I have so much Dickens' stuff that is just sitting there wanting to be read by me!
I loved both of the above novels, but David Copperfield moreso, I guess.
There is a really great book ABOUT Dickens and that whole time frame of the great Victorian novelists. It's called Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists.
Written by Daniel Pool.
Superb book!

[Emma]

I did intend on starting Bleak House earlier on in the month - but then the BBC decided to air a 16 part (I think) series, so now I'm watching that. And, must say Gillian Anderson as Lady Deadlock is spot on!

[Arethusa]

I've read all of the ones you've had and "Nicholas Nickelby" and...my favourite depends on my mood. Right now I'm in a "Great Expectations" state of mind.

Good on you for trying "Bleak House" again--I've long since decided that that may be one of the Dickens books I'll just never bother to read, as much as I like his work.

[ed]

A life without reading Dickens is a life without experiencing one of the finest meshings of entertaining characters, acute observational detail of the times, and colossal narratives.

If it makes you feel any better, Patricia, you're in good company. Oscar Wilde didn't care much for Dickens' sentimentalism and declared Little Nell from "The Old Curisoity Shop" to be the worst character ever devised for literature. And I partially agree with him. Of course, we also have the really great hunchback dwarf villain Quilp. So it's a toss-up.

If you need an entry point, I'd suggest starting with "The Pickwick Papers," which is quite a hilarious novel, once you get beyond Dickens' style. Plus, that novel has perhaps my favorite Dickens character ever: Alfred Jingle. I almost dressed up (and acted) as Jingle last Halloween.

[Scully]

I honestly do not think I've ever finished a Dickens novel. Although I love long novels, I have always found his books very hard to read.

So, I cheat, and watch the movies.

Masterpiece Theatre is putting on Bleak House with Gillian Anderson in January. I'll be watching that.

[Monica]

Posts like these are the ones that make a hole in my heart. As much as I love literature (and seeing that I study it and all), I need to confess that growing up in a Spanish-speaking country has left me with a huge void of English language classical lit. I mean, I always feel sadness that there are so many great Spanish-language books nobody has a clue about, but I feel the same pain when I realize there are tons of English stuff I don't know anything at all. Sad, sad fact. Guess you can't have it all...

[Anne]

I love the childhood stories so much. I read them in childhood and they are deep in my heart. About ten years ago, I read Little Dorritt and Our Mutual Friend in quick succession. I loved them both but can't tell them apart. In college, I had an obsession with heroines & I found ways to love Esther (I don't think I could now) but I also got through the book--Bleak House, that is--by thinking a lot about the form, how it's made and how he manages the switch between first and third person. Your post makes me want to try again--winter seems the right time to pick up one of my father's volumes of Dickens...

[Kate S.]

I've read "A Christmas Carol" and "Oliver Twist" but as for the others I have to confess that I'm not quite sure. Have I read "Great Expectations" and "David Copperfield," or have I just soaked up enough of them from the ether that I feel as if I have? Dickens strikes me as one of those authors whose creations so pervade the culture that it's difficult not to know something of his creations even if you've never cracked a book. Even with the books that I know I've read, I fear that my recollection of them is influenced more by movie versions than by the actual text (in particular the black and white Alistair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol"). Perhaps it's time I made a concerted effort to reclaim the text on these ones.

[Danielle]

I have several of Dickens' novels on my TBR pile just waiting for me, but I haven't gotten to any of them yet. You make them sound so fun that I think I will have to float one of them to the top. I have to agree with you though--I am reading Dickens contemporary--Wilkie Collins, and the nasty characters really do make for good reading! You dislike them or are shocked by them so much you just keep turning the pages!!

[Karie]

I'm rather fond of Great Expectations but otherwise Dickens leaves me cold, I'm afraid.

[Isabella]

I read Tale of Two Cities for grade 9 English and loved it. So then I decided to muddle through Bleak House, but in retrospect I'd have to say that was a little too ambitious and ultimately unsuccessful (I don't remember a thing). And I've read A Christmas Carol. That's it.

Recently I decided to fill my Dickensian lacuna. I haven't officially started reading David Copperfield, but it's sitting in one of the bathrooms, and I've read the introduction and the opening pages, and I can't wait to sink into it.

[Claire]

Dickens is one of my favourite authors. Like you, I've read Great Expectations (many times!), Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and all the Christmas Stories. And yet there are a few I can't seem to get through, such as Hard Times, Bleak House and Pickwick Papers. I don't really want to get through Pickwick Papers but I'd give Bleak House another chance and Little Dorrit is on my "to read" shelf. So in a way, Dickens is one of my most and least favourite authors. I think I just like stories about orphans or similar.

[Arnold Wagner]

I've read all of his novels, and some of his miscellany. I enjoy his "standard" works, but his more ambitious novels tend to irritate me. Like Twain, he should have stayed with his strengths, rather than attempt what he evidently considered to be books of greater literary value.

In my memory his standard novels tend to morph into a goulash of scenes and characters that are memorable, while the books themselves aren't.

I prefer Thackery, but the fact that he was also a successful cartoonist may color my judgement.

Oh what the heck, out of the closet all the way. I even hold the much maligned Bulwer Lytton on a par with Dickens. His long asides can be torture if you're not a history buff, but he knew his world far better than Dickens. He's an acquired taste, most find him unreadable.