Dickens

[maxi]

Its really funny. its also got quite a few stories within the story told by various characters, like in don quixote. pickwick papers is basically an english don quixote in various ways, intentionally. And most of those mini stories are quite bleak and grim in a way that contrasts with the main story

 

[luka]

no one has read that!

 

[Benny Bunter]

No, not since the 19th century, but I'm going to. I smashed book 1 and going onto book 2 now, it's great.

 

[luka]

alright, alright i'll try it

 

[Benny Bunter]

Maxi makes it sound good. I never got round to finishing don quijote, read about 300 pages before I got distracted, but I was absolutely loving it

 

[shiels]

I will read what sir jenks tells me to

 

[Benny Bunter]

I was loving tristram shandy too, with all the mad digressions, but only managed about 100 pages before I get derailed by something else.

Pickwick Papers isn't all that long is it?

 

[maxi]

its 1000 pages

 

[Benny Bunter]

Oh fuck

 

[maxi]

 

[IdleRich]

Ha! We tried the book club. It wasn’t super successful. I remember really enjoying the Austerlitz read together but then they chose a truly awful book which was utterly unreadable. @IdleRich was always really good at posting in the book club.

But I do think reading Dickens is generally a good thing. I’ve read Great Expectations more times than almost any book I haven’t had to teach. I am torn between another re-read of it or a re-read of Pickwick.

Thank you, i guess I am a joiner-upper.
I haven't been on the board much lately, but if you do settle on a book and actually do this then I will try and get involved.

In disagreeing with Jenks after the generous statement above I feel almost as though I am stabbing him in the back, but personally i think if we read a book together then it's better to choose from that none of us has read... certainly there is limited value in something one of us has read countless times.

 

[jenks]

Thank you, i guess I am a joiner-upper.
I haven't been on the board much lately, but if you do settle on a book and actually do this then I will try and get involved.

In disagreeing with Jenks after the generous statement above I feel almost as though I am stabbing him in the back, but personally i think if we read a book together then it's better to choose from that none of us has read... certainly there is limited value in something one of us has read countless times.

Yeah
I am happy to read a new book - just that this was posted originally in the Dickens thread and i certainly don't want to run anything - i have enough difficulty sorting out 25 Y11 kids to actually do anything i tell them.

 

[luka]

I was loving tristram shandy too, with all the mad digressions, but only managed about 100 pages before I get derailed by something else.

Pickwick Papers isn't all that long is it?

its really long

 

[jenks]

I’m almost through my re-read of Dickens. Half of Nickleby to go - enjoying it more than last time.
I’ve said it elsewhere he is decidedly odder than the cuddly Tory version we are stereotypically given. There’s more freaks and oddities in Dickrns than in Dylan’s songbook.

 

[Corpsey]

Been trying David Copperfield again

I regret to say that despite a constant stream of brilliant writing and memorable characters, I'm getting a bit tired of it. Or have been today.

I find the plot a little dull so far, and once you spot Dickens bag of tricks it becomes slightly laborious to see him wheel them out for the umpteenth time

HOWEVER, I was extremely tired today and I think that turned me against it a little... Although I've had these qualms developing I've also been regularly impressed by the writing, the inventiveness and the acute insight into human behaviour, and into the psychology of a child. It made me think, regretfully, that I don't remember much of my childhood now.

Also the sheer length of it makes you feel weary. Ulysses of course was a whopper and full of parts that are almost impossible to read, but there's something extraordinary and surprising happening on almost every page.

I suppose what I'm getting at is Dickens has a clear formula and 800 pages of that formula might defeat me.

 

[Corpsey]

I'm up to the scene where he's informed his mother is dead. And then he admits afterwards to feeling a certain satisfaction in being seen as a pitiable figure in the school afterwards, there's a vanity of sorts even in mourning. That's very acute, and not at all sentimental, which Dickens is accused of and can be.

 

[Corpsey]

I returned to Copperfield tonight after catching about half of the BBCs version from 1999 with Daniel Radcliffe, Bob Hopkins, Maggie Smith and Rodney from Only Fools and Horses in it. (There's a funny bit where young DC looks with fear and disgust at Uriah Heep, who at this point has done nothing wrong except being a ginger--thats how it looks. BTW I saw a comment under a video of that ginger Kentish dancehall guy saying something about redheads being highly susceptible and skilled in the ways of Carribbean culture.)

Good line about Uriah's blue bag "vomiting papers".

 

[Corpsey]

Possibly the worst part of it so far is the sub-plot re: the headmaster's daughter having it off with some guy they sent to India

I've captured this subplot concisely and perfectly, there.

Presumably it develops in an interesting direction.

 

[Corpsey]

HOWEVER, I am enjoying it quite a lot—David's now grown up a bit and is a pretentious and naive young man (ala. Pip?) and being victimised by every other adult he meets. Which reminds me of that awkward age.

 

[Corpsey]

Joyce gets on my nerves. He's too cutesy for me.

I don't mean this to be a 'gotcha' in any way but in what way is Joyce 'custesy' that Dickens isn't? I suppose you mean the words he uses, rather than his portrayal of people.