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duffypratt 's review for:
The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens
This book caused a huge sensation when it first appeared in serialization. I'm at a loss. It makes me wonder whether people in Victorian England had anything to do.
I initially tried to read this along the serialization schedule, finishing several chapters a month. That didn't work out. Ordinarily, that plan fails because I can't wait to rush ahead. Here, the problem was that nothing was luring me back to this book, and I happily read other things I found more interesting and entertaining. But, I do want to read all of Dickens (albeit slowly), and here the best solution was to force myself through to the end. That's how I got through the last half.
I thought some of it was amusing. But for me, it never got much more than that. And I never got fully engaged with it. In some ways, reading this book reminded me of watching a somewhat dated sitcom from TV. There were some interesting episodes, but the characters never became more than paper thing, and there was pretty much no development at all along the way. Perhaps, when it came out, it served the same function as sitcoms did in the 60s and 70s. But, to me at least, Pickwick seems at least as dated as The Dick Van Dyke, and considerably less fun.
The amazing thing is that the Victorians were right about Dickens, and if this book skyrocketed his career, it can't be all bad. And it's really not all bad, or I should say that it's not bad at all. It's just not as fun as I expected.
I initially tried to read this along the serialization schedule, finishing several chapters a month. That didn't work out. Ordinarily, that plan fails because I can't wait to rush ahead. Here, the problem was that nothing was luring me back to this book, and I happily read other things I found more interesting and entertaining. But, I do want to read all of Dickens (albeit slowly), and here the best solution was to force myself through to the end. That's how I got through the last half.
I thought some of it was amusing. But for me, it never got much more than that. And I never got fully engaged with it. In some ways, reading this book reminded me of watching a somewhat dated sitcom from TV. There were some interesting episodes, but the characters never became more than paper thing, and there was pretty much no development at all along the way. Perhaps, when it came out, it served the same function as sitcoms did in the 60s and 70s. But, to me at least, Pickwick seems at least as dated as The Dick Van Dyke, and considerably less fun.
The amazing thing is that the Victorians were right about Dickens, and if this book skyrocketed his career, it can't be all bad. And it's really not all bad, or I should say that it's not bad at all. It's just not as fun as I expected.