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bartlebybleaney's review against another edition
4.0
Add Fox "News" and you have today's American political milieu.
cboldwoman's review against another edition
5.0
This is supposedly Dicken's least read novel, which is surprising to me. As a historical novel I found it just as gripping & beautifully written as A Tale Of Two Cities. I knew absolutely nothing about the Gordon Riots, so I learned a lot, too.
metaphorosis's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
A tight knot of characters, including simple-minded Barnaby Rudge, are caught up in anti-Catholic riots in London.
Review
Charles Dickens famously wrote his books as serials - weekly or monthly installments, sometimes paid by the word. What I hadn't realized is that two of those books, including Barnaby Rudge, were published in his own magazine. Perhaps it's the coincidence of these things - the need to fill pages, and the lack of an outside editor, that cause this novel to ramble over quite so many pages without reaching much of a destination. It's also been suggested that this was intended as his first book, so perhaps he just hadn't developed his plotting skills very far, and didn't revise the story when he had.
Barnaby Rudge is about 700 pages long. Many of those pages are filled with excellent prose. There's also far, far too much of it. The novel starts out to be a Wilkie Collins style mystery, but Dickens quickly forgets what he's about, and gets caught up in telling the story of London's anti-Catholic riots of 1780. Or, just as likely, he set out to tell a story set in the riots, and wrapped a flimsy envelope of mystery around it. Either way, the result is unsatisfying.
While the prose is good, the characters as clever and humorous as Dickens' usual, the net is a long, dragging trudge with no clear destination in mind. Dickens wraps up the main character threads in the final chapters, but forgets most of the mystery entirely, or ties it off with peripheral characters who don't pay off the long wait. I'm a fan of Dickens, but this is among his least successful books that I've read.
Summary
A tight knot of characters, including simple-minded Barnaby Rudge, are caught up in anti-Catholic riots in London.
Review
Charles Dickens famously wrote his books as serials - weekly or monthly installments, sometimes paid by the word. What I hadn't realized is that two of those books, including Barnaby Rudge, were published in his own magazine. Perhaps it's the coincidence of these things - the need to fill pages, and the lack of an outside editor, that cause this novel to ramble over quite so many pages without reaching much of a destination. It's also been suggested that this was intended as his first book, so perhaps he just hadn't developed his plotting skills very far, and didn't revise the story when he had.
Barnaby Rudge is about 700 pages long. Many of those pages are filled with excellent prose. There's also far, far too much of it. The novel starts out to be a Wilkie Collins style mystery, but Dickens quickly forgets what he's about, and gets caught up in telling the story of London's anti-Catholic riots of 1780. Or, just as likely, he set out to tell a story set in the riots, and wrapped a flimsy envelope of mystery around it. Either way, the result is unsatisfying.
While the prose is good, the characters as clever and humorous as Dickens' usual, the net is a long, dragging trudge with no clear destination in mind. Dickens wraps up the main character threads in the final chapters, but forgets most of the mystery entirely, or ties it off with peripheral characters who don't pay off the long wait. I'm a fan of Dickens, but this is among his least successful books that I've read.
cspeet's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book. It felt classically Dickensian to me. A complex plot with a cast of characters whose lives are intertwined in interesting ways, mostly set in London, with typical social commentary. If you like Dickens, this is a decent choice.
kphilips42's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
taj58's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
ladydewinter's review against another edition
3.0
“Barnaby Rudge” is Charles Dickens’ other historical novel, set during the Gordon Riots in 1780, an event I literally knew nothing about before reading this book. It was a surprisingly quick read - certainly helped by the fact that it had a lot more illustrations than usual and me probably having got used to his writing.
What I think is interesting is that in his earlier writing he swung far more to one side of the pendulum - funny or serious- and in his later work was better at balancing the two. (Although “A Tale of Two Cities”, his better-known historical novel, isn’t particularly funny either.) There is satire here, but it’s more scattered and not as funny as I know his writing can be.
While there were characters I liked here as well, overall they remained much flatter than in his later books (something that makes me happy I chose such a random order to read them in, because it makes those contrasts more apparent). Surprisingly enough, there is no tear-jerker death in here, either. And as a modern reader, the “let’s tie everything up nearly” felt somewhat quaint. (Never mind the events of the second-to-last chapter, which felt too convenient.)
What I found chilling, and what I think makes it worth reading today, however, is the way he analyzes the build-up to the riots. Replace “Papists” with “Jews” or “Muslims”, and you realize how depressingly timeless something like this is. Dickens shows how prejudice is used by people who often don’t really care one way or other but find it convenient to direct a certain group’s attention one way or other. And the way he describes the mob marching through the town was disturbing and more than a little disconcerting.
Isn’t it great how mankind never learns?
Anyway. Three stars feel unnecessarily harsh somehow, but despite its merits it still falls in the bottom half of Dickens’ works for me, so there you go. That’s what you get for writing plenty of great novels, I guess.
What I think is interesting is that in his earlier writing he swung far more to one side of the pendulum - funny or serious- and in his later work was better at balancing the two. (Although “A Tale of Two Cities”, his better-known historical novel, isn’t particularly funny either.) There is satire here, but it’s more scattered and not as funny as I know his writing can be.
While there were characters I liked here as well, overall they remained much flatter than in his later books (something that makes me happy I chose such a random order to read them in, because it makes those contrasts more apparent). Surprisingly enough, there is no tear-jerker death in here, either. And as a modern reader, the “let’s tie everything up nearly” felt somewhat quaint. (Never mind the events of the second-to-last chapter, which felt too convenient.)
What I found chilling, and what I think makes it worth reading today, however, is the way he analyzes the build-up to the riots. Replace “Papists” with “Jews” or “Muslims”, and you realize how depressingly timeless something like this is. Dickens shows how prejudice is used by people who often don’t really care one way or other but find it convenient to direct a certain group’s attention one way or other. And the way he describes the mob marching through the town was disturbing and more than a little disconcerting.
Isn’t it great how mankind never learns?
Anyway. Three stars feel unnecessarily harsh somehow, but despite its merits it still falls in the bottom half of Dickens’ works for me, so there you go. That’s what you get for writing plenty of great novels, I guess.
lankylad9's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book quite difficult. The description of the riots is historically quite interesting but the storyline is poor and has even more coincidences than is usual even for Dickens. There are some amusing characters and observations but overall I found this book quite boring and disappointing.