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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I read this for my classic lit book club. I had been wanting to read Dickens for a while, so I was glad when somebody picked this. I had only ever read Great Expectations in high school. I didn't like it then, but I was hoping age and maturity would make a difference in reading Dickens now. Nope. Not with Nicholas Nickleby anyway. I really suffered through it. Dickens is just way too wordy for my liking. I don't care for authors who take a whole page to make a point that could have been done in a few sentences. My other big complaint about this book, and apparently this is common in all Dickens books, is the ridiculous number of characters. I felt like three new characters were introduced in each chapter! But for real, there were about 60 characters in this book. That is crazy. Who can keep track of that many characters?
I think I am starting to realize that I really don't care for novels that were originally written as a serial. They just don't "flow" like normal novels. You can tell they are really more like mini stories all put together. I especially disliked the flow of Nicholas Nickleby. The story was very linear, going from one storyline onto the next and they didn't really relate to each other that much.
I really struggled thr0ugh this one and am not looking forward to reading more Dickens. He's just not for me.
I think I am starting to realize that I really don't care for novels that were originally written as a serial. They just don't "flow" like normal novels. You can tell they are really more like mini stories all put together. I especially disliked the flow of Nicholas Nickleby. The story was very linear, going from one storyline onto the next and they didn't really relate to each other that much.
I really struggled thr0ugh this one and am not looking forward to reading more Dickens. He's just not for me.
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This one was a grind. Dickens is hit-or-miss for me, and Nicholas Nickleby was definitely the latter. At 777 pages, it contains a stunning amount of filler. Dickens pauses the narrative at one point to have a character tell a couple of pointless stories just to have enough material to fill out the rest of his monthly installment. (The endnote even admits this!) Characters have long, pointless conversations. Entire chapters of inessential material interrupt the narrative. Key characters are introduced more than two-thirds of the way through the novel without proper development, as if Dickens just decided to change direction at the last moment. At one point, Dickens forgets that John Browdie encountered Nicholas, not Smike, earlier in the novel, leading to Browdie treating Smike like an old friend, even though they had never met previously. The readers can feel Dickens stretching and stretching to fill out installments like a student desperately trying to reach a word count requirement for a research paper. I’m baffled that so many people, including scholars, think this is credible writing. Mark Ford mentions in the introduction that the “successive episodes unfold almost without reference to each other,” and then connects this to Chesterton’s comment about the novel being “a carnival of liberty.” Why don’t we just give an honest assessment and call this what it is: poor plotting.
The best I can say about Nickleby is that it was a fairly entertaining way to pass a few weeks (I usually don’t take that long to read a novel, even of this length), and I’m sure audiences appreciated it at the time. But by any objective account, this is a long, sloppy mishmash of a novel. It's not as funny as [b:The Pickwick Papers|229432|The Pickwick Papers|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360795072l/229432._SY75_.jpg|3315230], nor as socially conscious as Dickens’ later novels, no matter how much people try to read the Squeers chapters as some sort of legitimate social commentary rather than just a comic situation exploited for the sake of easy laughs. Throw in the usual Dickens elements of cartoonish caricatures and ridiculously contrived plot coincidences, and you have all the trappings of a clunker.
The best I can say about Nickleby is that it was a fairly entertaining way to pass a few weeks (I usually don’t take that long to read a novel, even of this length), and I’m sure audiences appreciated it at the time. But by any objective account, this is a long, sloppy mishmash of a novel. It's not as funny as [b:The Pickwick Papers|229432|The Pickwick Papers|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360795072l/229432._SY75_.jpg|3315230], nor as socially conscious as Dickens’ later novels, no matter how much people try to read the Squeers chapters as some sort of legitimate social commentary rather than just a comic situation exploited for the sake of easy laughs. Throw in the usual Dickens elements of cartoonish caricatures and ridiculously contrived plot coincidences, and you have all the trappings of a clunker.
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
funny
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This must be the funniest classic I've ever read. I've chuckled a lot while reading this, and sometimes even laughed out loud. Dickens is a master of criticizing his society in a humorous and lighthearted way. Lots of irony, sarcasm, all the good stuff. Some of the characters are outrageously ridiculous. And there are LOTS of characters and a lot of random stuff happens in the book, it doesn't really have a plot in a sense, but is more of a depiction of some random dudes life and all the ups and downs.
emotional
funny
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated