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A review by savaging
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
3.0
Oh Chuck, you ur-father of Content Creation, you. Giving us over 800 pages of a fun-but-prudish telenovela and then wrapping up the plot like it's the 8th season of Game of Thrones (why are people acting this way? oh, because the plot outline says they have to).
Like prestige tv, Dickens abides by all the conventions of a beloved genre, but does everything a little bit better than he has to. I'm pulled in to this world, even though I always see the author's thumb on the scales. I know all 'wickedness' will be punished and all 'virtue' rewarded, and you can tell who's wicked because they sneer.
Dickens's true love is the grotesque and bizarre. That's where he really shines. That's when this book becomes truly laugh-out-loud funny. When he writes about good-pure-innocent-beautiful characters, it's like Milton writing God. So dull.
Dull like Amy Dorrit, who wants her fatherly lover to refer to her only as Little(?). Dear sweet Little Dorrit has an immense martyrdom complex. She has no boundaries and is unable to ever stick up for herself. As I look at the family dynamic, I see her persistent self-sacrifice as complicity in the continuing cruelty and bad behavior of her family, to the point that everyone who gets close to her winds up likewise exploited by her family. I don't blame Little Dorrit for these patterns, because this is all she's known. But I do blame Dickens for holding her up to us as the paragon of right-living.
On the other side, there's the Wicked Woman. Miss Wade is pissed that people mistreat her because of her lack of class status. She doesn't want to coddle people, she wants justice. She meets Harriet, an orphan who has been taken in as free child labor by some jolly good capitalists, forced to be a servant for their beloved shiny daughter. They've changed her name to Tattycorum, a name she hates, and repeat again and again that she must 'count to five-and-twenty Tattycorum' if she ever gets angry about her situation.
Miss Wade and Harriet see each other as kindred spirits and take off together. What if they could have been forever free adventurers, learning together who they really are outside of the roles set out for them, creating a home for other deviants? (Has anyone written this fan-fiction?)
But Dickens makes them pay severely. They hate each other because they are hate-filled women, until Harriet runs back 'home' and promises she'll be the most obedient and grateful Tattycorum forever after.
This example clarifies that even though Dickens can show that the world is unfair and oppression is so sad, he ultimately wants mercy, not justice. Good comes from a benevolent philanthropist or an act of God. Any time someone wants real equality, you can tell they're going to be punished as a villain. Dickens wants people to instead abase themselves until someone mercifully lifts them up.
This works well with the central bourgeois politics that permeates the book. The ruling class is full of idiots and frauds. The poor are wacky and befuddled. But the middle class is industrious and helpful and we must get out of their enterprising way. Dickens can see that capitalism and industrialization are creating problems, but he ultimately believes the solution is capitalism and industrialization -- though it should also be lubricated by the milk of human kindness.
(Though also has anyone noticed that Dickens doesn't have any idea what engineers and inventors and businessmen actually do? He just makes vague hand-waves toward their work: there's some sort of invention-or-other that could really be good for us all if only those bureaucrats would get out of the way. Dickens can describe a kidney pie or style of bonnet in great detail, but when it comes to an invention that is central to the plot, we only get abstractions -- not even a hint about whether it's a weapon or a machine for producing something or what.)
In conclusion: I had fun, but if anybody wants to jump on the Dickens train I would recommend trying elsewhere.
Like prestige tv, Dickens abides by all the conventions of a beloved genre, but does everything a little bit better than he has to. I'm pulled in to this world, even though I always see the author's thumb on the scales. I know all 'wickedness' will be punished and all 'virtue' rewarded, and you can tell who's wicked because they sneer.
Dickens's true love is the grotesque and bizarre. That's where he really shines. That's when this book becomes truly laugh-out-loud funny. When he writes about good-pure-innocent-beautiful characters, it's like Milton writing God. So dull.
Dull like Amy Dorrit, who wants her fatherly lover to refer to her only as Little(?). Dear sweet Little Dorrit has an immense martyrdom complex. She has no boundaries and is unable to ever stick up for herself. As I look at the family dynamic, I see her persistent self-sacrifice as complicity in the continuing cruelty and bad behavior of her family, to the point that everyone who gets close to her winds up likewise exploited by her family. I don't blame Little Dorrit for these patterns, because this is all she's known. But I do blame Dickens for holding her up to us as the paragon of right-living.
On the other side, there's the Wicked Woman. Miss Wade is pissed that people mistreat her because of her lack of class status. She doesn't want to coddle people, she wants justice. She meets Harriet, an orphan who has been taken in as free child labor by some jolly good capitalists, forced to be a servant for their beloved shiny daughter. They've changed her name to Tattycorum, a name she hates, and repeat again and again that she must 'count to five-and-twenty Tattycorum' if she ever gets angry about her situation.
Miss Wade and Harriet see each other as kindred spirits and take off together. What if they could have been forever free adventurers, learning together who they really are outside of the roles set out for them, creating a home for other deviants? (Has anyone written this fan-fiction?)
But Dickens makes them pay severely. They hate each other because they are hate-filled women, until Harriet runs back 'home' and promises she'll be the most obedient and grateful Tattycorum forever after.
This example clarifies that even though Dickens can show that the world is unfair and oppression is so sad, he ultimately wants mercy, not justice. Good comes from a benevolent philanthropist or an act of God. Any time someone wants real equality, you can tell they're going to be punished as a villain. Dickens wants people to instead abase themselves until someone mercifully lifts them up.
This works well with the central bourgeois politics that permeates the book. The ruling class is full of idiots and frauds. The poor are wacky and befuddled. But the middle class is industrious and helpful and we must get out of their enterprising way. Dickens can see that capitalism and industrialization are creating problems, but he ultimately believes the solution is capitalism and industrialization -- though it should also be lubricated by the milk of human kindness.
(Though also has anyone noticed that Dickens doesn't have any idea what engineers and inventors and businessmen actually do? He just makes vague hand-waves toward their work: there's some sort of invention-or-other that could really be good for us all if only those bureaucrats would get out of the way. Dickens can describe a kidney pie or style of bonnet in great detail, but when it comes to an invention that is central to the plot, we only get abstractions -- not even a hint about whether it's a weapon or a machine for producing something or what.)
In conclusion: I had fun, but if anybody wants to jump on the Dickens train I would recommend trying elsewhere.