The GMG Pickwick Club

[Elgarian]

And I will mark part of this Christmas Day as remembering that I finished with Bleak House between dinner and desert.  A wonderful read for sure.

Congratulations! May I pass you the port and nuts?

[Karl Henning]

Congratulations! May I pass you the port and nuts?

Allow me to assist, dear fellow.

[Bogey]

Congratulations! May I pass you the port and nuts?

Allow me to assist, dear fellow.

Thank you, gents!

[The new erato]

Congratulations! May I pass you the port and nuts?

Stilton with port! But that may be a post for the nitpick club?

[Bogey]

Stilton with port! But that may be a post for the nitpick club?

Did we invite Miss Pross as well.  

(Google Stilton and Miss Pross together as I did.)

[Elgarian]

Stilton with port! But that may be a post for the nitpick club?

Stilton most welcome - either instead of, or as well as nuts. Just pass 'em all along the table to Bill (via Karl).

[Elgarian]

Did we invite Miss Pross as well.  

(Google Stilton and Miss Pross together as I did.)

A timely warning! We must all take care not to put cheese on our heads by mistake ...

[Karl Henning]

A timely warning! We must all take care not to put cheese on our heads by mistake ...

I don't always put cheese on my head; but when I do, 'tis no mistake.

[Elgarian]

I don't always put cheese on my head; but when I do, 'tis no mistake.

Glad to hear it Karl. It's sometimes the only sensible thing to do: but we're in agreement that whenever we take such a step, we have to mean it.

[Karl Henning]

The intentionality is all.

[Brian]

It's time for my annual Dickens read! The question is: which one should I choose next? GMGers, help me decide!

Over the last three years I've read Bleak House, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations. Did A Tale of Two Cities quite a many years ago.

[aligreto]

It's time for my annual Dickens read! The question is: which one should I choose next? GMGers, help me decide!

Over the last three years I've read Bleak House, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations. Did A Tale of Two Cities quite a many years ago.

Have you read Pickwick Papers?

[Bogey]

It's time for my annual Dickens read! The question is: which one should I choose next? GMGers, help me decide!

Over the last three years I've read Bleak House, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations. Did A Tale of Two Cities quite a many years ago.

Possibly Oliver Twist?  I believe my next round will be The Old Curiosity Shop.  Probably will start it in the spring.  More importantly, Brian, welcome to the Pickwick Club. 

Raise your glasses, folks!

[aligreto]

Raise your glasses, folks!

Glass raised to our latest member 

[Elgarian]

It's time for my annual Dickens read! The question is: which one should I choose next? GMGers, help me decide!

Well Brian this is the Pickwick Club, and you seem to me to be a man who would warm to a deeper understanding of the theory of tittlebats ... so my tip would be The Pickwick Papers. But it is like no other Dickens. In a category of its own, one might say. Still, the companionship of Sam Weller, Tupman, Snodgrass and Winkle is something not to be without.

A hearty welcome to the Club!

[Karl Henning]

I am in the agreeable throes of finishing at last the Papers of the Pickwickians. Join in, Brian!

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Read either Little Dorrit or Our Mutual Friend (or both), Brian. OMF requires more patience from the reader but the stuff that is good is astonishingly good. Little Dorrit is superb in most parts, except for

a) one rather moustache-twirling villain (literally) who has one of the most unlikely ends ever, even by Dickens's standards.

b) The big "secret" that is so convoluted that Wagner's essays start to feel like books made for children.

c) The title character.

And I guess at times the satire in both novels hammers the point in bit too much.

From early novels I would probably pick Old Curiosity Shop. Kind of a guilty pleasure to me.

And welcome aboard!

[zamyrabyrd]

Read either Little Dorrit or Our Mutual Friend (or both), Brian. OMF requires more patience from the reader but the stuff that is good is astonishingly good.

Just winding up Our Mutual Friend. The end was worth waiting for, almost too neat, but gratifying to know that the good guys prevail in the end. Dickens is a virtuoso word artist in any case.

[aligreto]

I have just started to read Master Humphrey's Clock.

[Karl Henning]

I am in the agreeable throes of finishing at last the Papers of the Pickwickians. Join in, Brian!

Oops! (In my partial defense, my Nook™ died, and I needed to replace the device . . . that said, I must have done so before that last post . . . .)