The GMG Pickwick Club

[Bogey]

Finished up The Chimes.....meh.  The first part was good, but the remaining three quarters did little for me. I can see why A Christmas Carol held up and this one did not carry on as well.

Now:

Started The Battle Of Life, another Christmas Book from Dickens as a club I joined on Good Reads is about to read it.  Already am enjoying much more so than The Chimes, but we'll see how it carries through to the end.

[vandermolen]

Hello, below there!

If you don't know it I strongly recommend the ghost story 'The Signalman' by Dickens (ideal for Christmas). There was a great BBC dramatisation with that fine actor Denholm Elliot which is on DVD. Apologies if I've mentioned it before.

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PS it seems a bit pricey on the U.S. Amazon site but cheaper on the UK one - also part of an inexpensive boxed set of BBC Dickens dramatisations. Alternatively you could read the short story. 

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OK - I now have a CUNNING PLAN!

Buy the DVD of Dombey and Son. It is much cheaper and comes with a freebie extra DVD of The Signalman:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dombey-and-Son-import/dp/B002P9UHD4/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1480268937&sr=1-2&keywords=dombey+and+son

[Jaakko Keskinen]

On the subject of Christmas books, not exactly a book but a Christmas story, named Wreck of the Golden Mary, is wonderful. If you ever have a chance, Bogey, do read it. It is a collaboration with Wilkie Collins and several less known authors. I admit that it sometimes gets less good when heading over to parts which Dickens himself did not write. Dickens wrote the beginning, "The Wreck".

One word of warning: I'm not sure if there is a single mention of Christmas in the whole thing. It is a Christmas story only in the sense of it being published in December 1856.

[Karl Henning]

I have (for a solid week now) at last returned in earnest to The Pickwick Club . . . Sam has just got himself busted so that he can remain at his master's side.

[aligreto]

Ah yes, good old Sam. One does not see such loyalty these days 

[Florestan]

On the subject of Christmas books, not exactly a book but a Christmas story, named Wreck of the Golden Mary, is wonderful. If you ever have a chance, Bogey, do read it. It is a collaboration with Wilkie Collins and several less known authors. I admit that it sometimes gets less good when heading over to parts which Dickens himself did not write. Dickens wrote the beginning, "The Wreck".

Ah yes, good old Sam. One does not see such loyalty these days 

Other people write well, but Dickens writes Weller.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

And nope, I still haven't read Pickwick. I've heard much positive about Weller, the character was actually what kickstarted his prosperous career. I've heard Weller compared to Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist, minus the criminality. And Dodger is uproariously funny.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Other people write well, but Dickens writes Weller.

Lol, nice pun. 

[aligreto]

Other people write well, but Dickens writes Weller.

Excellent 

[Karl Henning]

Okay, I can feel that the end is approaching (Pickwick Papers).  That feeling is to some measure, a relief:  the book has been a mix of delight, and exasperation at the wordiness.  There is ample good in the book, which is sufficient gratification;  but I am ready for it to be done.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Having last week or so finished Little Dorrit, I turn to re-reading Oliver Twist, in english of course. After that I'm probably gonna tackle David Copperfield, which I have only read in finnish twice and not yet in english. Cannot wait.

[Karl Henning]

Very nearly at the end with Pickwick!

[aligreto]

Very nearly at the end with Pickwick!

How long from initial start to completion?

[Karl Henning]

Years.  Well, at least a year.  I started, and then just neglected my Nook for months and months.


(No, definitely years:  because I started while I was still working part-time at the MFA shop . . . .)

[aligreto]

Yes, I though I had remembered you saying that it was a long time!!

[Karl Henning]

Part of the problem is on my side.  But I have also (much more than any other Dickens I've read) often found this one a real chore to read.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

exasperation at the wordiness.

I hear ya. Check out this opening sentence of Book 1 chapter 8, in Our Mutual Friend:

"Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers eminent solicitor."

Could he possibly have written in more verbose manner about something so simple?

[Karl Henning]

I hear ya. Check out this opening sentence of Book 1 chapter 8, in Our Mutual Friend:

"Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers eminent solicitor."

Could he possibly have written in more verbose manner about something so simple?

Well, but even that is more artful than many a passage in Pickwick, as he makes a repetition-joke of first dismal and then clerk.  I rather enjoy that sentence!

[aligreto]

I hear ya. Check out this opening sentence of Book 1 chapter 8, in Our Mutual Friend:

"Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers eminent solicitor."

Could he possibly have written in more verbose manner about something so simple?

I can see that being a problem for the twitterati.

[Florestan]

I hear ya. Check out this opening sentence of Book 1 chapter 8, in Our Mutual Friend:

"Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of this history, and had wandered disconsolate about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, erewhile called in the newspapers eminent solicitor."

Could he possibly have written in more verbose manner about something so simple?

I doubt the dismal boy-cum-clerk would have described his situation as "simple".