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jlmb 's review for:
The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens
What an absolute joy to read! I'm slowly making my way through Dicken's major novels and this is my favorite so far. I now understand why this book made him so famous and successful. It's a very impressive first work.
You can definitely see in this book certain themes he'd end up covering in his later works. The chapters dealing with the courts recall Bleak House, the ghost stories recall A Christmas Carol, the coincidences and repeating minor characters recall....all his works!
I enjoyed the meandering non-plot of the book. At the beginning, I was strongly reminded of Canterbury Tales. Wonder if that was an inspiration for him? The stories within stories were great fun. Towards the second half, it turned into a more conventional storyline but that's ok. It was still a pleasure to read.
I was surprised at how funny I found this book to be. Humor tends to not age well and this book was written 182 years ago. The humor in it, though, is still fresh and amusing. It's not often I laugh out loud while reading but in this instance I did. Not that the book is like a stand up comedian; it's not a laugh a minute but there are occasional zingers that really stand out.
I also enjoyed learning random facts and words while reading this novel. My new-ish reading goal is to look up anything I don't understand in a book I am reading. I mean, I've got a handheld computer in my pocket with all the information in the world available at my fingertips - I might as well take advantage of it. The downside of googling words was that sometimes they have a different meaning than what they used to. I searched for a picture of a buff jerkin - I knew it was an article of clothing but wasn't sure what it looked like. The first few results were indeed images of a tan, long vest men wore. Unfortunately the majority of the subsequent images were of a buff (naked muscled guy) "jerking". Oh my. Haha. Not the vibe I was into at the moment.
It's not that this book is difficult to read with a bunch of highfalutin vocabulary. Rather, since it was written almost 200 years ago, there are words and people that I'm not familiar with - the audience at the time would have known immediately all the references. Here are some of my favorite bits of random knowledge I learned from Professor Google.
Heeltap - the dregs of a wine glass
Alexander Selkirk - a Scottish navy man who was castaway on a South Pacific island for 4 years and the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe
cheval de frise - a defensive obstacle consisting of a portable frame covered with projecting long iron or wooden spikes
bagman - a traveling salesman
pettifogging - quibbling over something petty
calomel - a white tasteless powder used as a purgative
negus - a hot drink made of port, sugar, lemon & spices
George Barnwell - a character in the 1731 play The London Merchant, one of the most popular 18th century plays that used middle class & working class characters as the leads instead of the usual upper class
So not only was this novel entertaining and humorous, but I learned a bunch of random factoids! It's a win-win.
You can definitely see in this book certain themes he'd end up covering in his later works. The chapters dealing with the courts recall Bleak House, the ghost stories recall A Christmas Carol, the coincidences and repeating minor characters recall....all his works!
I enjoyed the meandering non-plot of the book. At the beginning, I was strongly reminded of Canterbury Tales. Wonder if that was an inspiration for him? The stories within stories were great fun. Towards the second half, it turned into a more conventional storyline but that's ok. It was still a pleasure to read.
I was surprised at how funny I found this book to be. Humor tends to not age well and this book was written 182 years ago. The humor in it, though, is still fresh and amusing. It's not often I laugh out loud while reading but in this instance I did. Not that the book is like a stand up comedian; it's not a laugh a minute but there are occasional zingers that really stand out.
I also enjoyed learning random facts and words while reading this novel. My new-ish reading goal is to look up anything I don't understand in a book I am reading. I mean, I've got a handheld computer in my pocket with all the information in the world available at my fingertips - I might as well take advantage of it. The downside of googling words was that sometimes they have a different meaning than what they used to. I searched for a picture of a buff jerkin - I knew it was an article of clothing but wasn't sure what it looked like. The first few results were indeed images of a tan, long vest men wore. Unfortunately the majority of the subsequent images were of a buff (naked muscled guy) "jerking". Oh my. Haha. Not the vibe I was into at the moment.
It's not that this book is difficult to read with a bunch of highfalutin vocabulary. Rather, since it was written almost 200 years ago, there are words and people that I'm not familiar with - the audience at the time would have known immediately all the references. Here are some of my favorite bits of random knowledge I learned from Professor Google.
Heeltap - the dregs of a wine glass
Alexander Selkirk - a Scottish navy man who was castaway on a South Pacific island for 4 years and the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe
cheval de frise - a defensive obstacle consisting of a portable frame covered with projecting long iron or wooden spikes
bagman - a traveling salesman
pettifogging - quibbling over something petty
calomel - a white tasteless powder used as a purgative
negus - a hot drink made of port, sugar, lemon & spices
George Barnwell - a character in the 1731 play The London Merchant, one of the most popular 18th century plays that used middle class & working class characters as the leads instead of the usual upper class
So not only was this novel entertaining and humorous, but I learned a bunch of random factoids! It's a win-win.