CHARLES DICKENS

The book PICKWICK PAPERS was originally published in serial form. Perhaps that is the cause for it suddenly changing very subtly in nature at one point.

My favourite of his is Great Expectations, which is actually one of my favourite books, over all. Studied it once in High School and twice in college, right now as a matter of fact! I enjoy the humour and realism, and exploration of moral issues.

'The book PICKWICK PAPERS was originally published in serial form'

I think a lot, if not all, were serials first, no?

Lorna

Yes, Lorna, Great Expectations has always been my favorite Dickens novel too--I wrote a big paper on it in college. If I am not mistaken ALL of his novels were first published as serials, often in magazines that Dickens either owned or edited. PICKWICK PAPERS is very loose in form even for Dickens because it has no central plot--just a series of amusing incidents strung together, so far as I can tell at this point. What we call a "picaresque" novel.

OLIVER TWIST
Our book club recently read "Oliver Twist." Very enjoyable and highly entertaining. If you haven't read it, do! At times, Dickens' phrasing seems a bit winding and unwieldy, howsomever extremely intelligent and learnéd. Obviously, a well-educated man. Not much trivality in his stories. Although, I think it might be difficult to read one after another without a break to delve into another genre, style, etc. Which is exactly what our book club does: from Shakespeare to Dickens to Proulx to Roosevelt to Stout to ... Maybe we'll do another Dickens' book in the fall. "Pickwick Papers"?[/color]

I love Dickens' humanity. I don't have the time to elaborate but he was one of the most "human" writers ever.

A Christmas Carol is my all time favorite work of fiction for the reasons Craven has stated.

Huge Dickens fan here, especially of Great Expectations. I particularly like the ease with which he develops his characters -- fully realized without getting overly boorish with the detail and exposition. He is also a primary inspiration for John Irving, one of my favorite modern novelists.

What on earth does "getting overly boorish with the detail and exposition" mean? It is one of those sentences you staare at it, thinking because it is written in English it must mean something, but when you parse it you realize it is just words strung together without regard to their dictionary definition--a boorish use of our beautiful language, indeed.

Knitting while I read....

Ok, I loved Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, but most of all David Copperfield, which I read in long day's stretch when I was fifteen. I remember laughing through parts, but couldn't tell you now a thing about it.

Now, now, LR, you of all people should understand what it means to be "overly boorish".

I swear, it's like shooting critics in a barrel around here sometimes.

Muerte:

It is a sign of illiteracy to be unable to explain yourself when challenged. You are unable.

Dickens in his day was as close to a household name as any movie star is today. He experienced the freedom and importance that come with great popularity but he also discovered what our celebrities have to put up with today, a certain loss of freedom
that comes with the territory.

Dickens had a great sense of the grotesque and the anarchic, his playful language - seemingly transforming a city into a single breathing entity or a person into a mass of grotesque features.

My own personal favourites are Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, The Old Curiousity Shop and Oliver Twist.

Certainly Dickens was one of the first writers to become a huge celebrity. The other one in the same period who achieved that status was Dumas, in France. But Dickens courted celebrity with his readings and dramatic presentations. He wanted to be in the public eye, and he was, whatever misgivings he may have had about the price he later paiid for it.

Yes Larry, I think he was a bit intimidated during his tour of America and came back a changed man, a little overcome. He was not as popular as he would have liked to have been over there, I suspect.

I don't know about Dickens' trip to America except that he had a disagreeable impression of the US and wrote about it, I gather, rather negatively in his travel book. I do know that his novels were immensely popular here in Dickens' lifetime.

For anyone interested, Dickens is discussed from another angle in Parallel Lives, a book about several Victorian couples. Alas, it is not at hand so I can't give an immediate citation for author and publisher.

Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose
Random House (Paper), October 1984

That's it.

My absolute favorites are (and always have been) Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House. And then I move on to Trollope...