The book sounds insteresting. I'll try to read it in the future. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
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The book sounds insteresting. I'll try to read it in the future. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
I really recommend A Christmas Carol. Mal's idea of reading them all in sequence is lovely, but they are long and life is short!
I keep on meaning to give my thought on Little Dorrit, which I'd rate as good as Bleak House and better than David Copperfield. Briefly, it is all to do with prisons. The opening scene is the prison in Marseilles, then you have the quarantine at Marseille, then Mrs Clenam imprisoned through her infirmity and possibly her own selfishness and finally the Marshellsea itself where Amy Dorrit is born.
Dickens keeps on mentioning "the prison taint": characters need to justify themselves being imprisoned by denying their situation and being selfish. Mr Dorrit is the most obvious example, but it occurs repeatedly. And their are lots of characters "imprisoned": the Plornishes and the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard by their poverty, Affery through her fear of Mrs Clenam, the whole of society through the power of the Circumlocution Office, Tattycoram through both the sentimental care of the Meagles and the manipulation of Miss Wade, Miss Wade herself in her bitterness.
It is a fascinating book.
The one character who utterly transcends the prison taint is the one who was born in prison: Amy Dorrit, the Daughter of the Marshellsea herself.
Yes, it's fascinanting. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
When I re-read Little Dorrit last I was struck by the way in which the four opening scenes are all prisons of one sort or another - and as in Bleak House a number of different scenes are described without any obvious connection as far as the story goes. There's the prison at Marseilles, then the quarantine also at Marseilles in which the Meagles, Arthur and Miss Wade have been detained, then Arthur's visit to his mother who appears to be housebound and equally imprisons Affery and Arthur when a child, and finally we are introduced to Mr Dorrit in the Marshellsea.
I'm about to finish Book The First of Little Dorrit.
I really liked the characters of this Book. For instance: Mr. Pancks, the Gypsy, fortune-telling made me laugh. :) And Flora, I like Flora, she seems so tender, and made me laugh and smile sometimes, too.
Good on, you, Carmilla, particularly if English is not your first language.
Pancks and Flora are interesting in so far as they are comic characters, but basically kind hearted. Dickens has a whole range of comic selfish characters by contrast. And there is a whole range of selfishness in Little Dorrit.
For me the climax comes when Mrs Clenam and Amy Dorrit confront each other, but I don't want to give too much away and spoil your discovery.
Thank you. No, English is not my first language, but I read everything in English and I speak in English with my mum everyday. Almost all the music I listen to is in English. I'm an anglophile into the bargain. :D To tell you the truth, I don't like Spanish in the least.Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
Thanks for not giving too much away. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
Hello everyone!
Yesterday I finished reading 'Little Dorrit;' it's a masterpiece! I enjoyed it so much.
If you haven't read 'Little Dorrit' don't read the following sentence.
I was rather shocked when I discovered Mrs. Clennam was not Arthur's mother! :)
Ah! Spoiler! :) Just kidding, I've read it, too. My favorite parts were the Merdle business, which paralleled a notorious Wall Street case in our own times; and Flora Finching, who has to be one of the funniest characters Dickens (or anyone else) ever created. As usual with Dickens, the best of novels is also the worst of novels, but I overlook his sentimentality in the face of his amazing talent and power as a writer. Little Dorrit is indeed a masterpiece.
On another subject, I added a review to the thread you started on Joseph Conrad's Victory: An Island Tale, about the time you slipped from view (just in case you're interested). Nice to see you back in any case.
Hello Pompey Bum!
I hadn't realised that I was giving away the plot!! Now I've changed my post. :) Thanks!
Congratulations! I don't find it as off puttingly sentimental as much else in Dickens. Amy Dorrit herself has backbone. I find Pet Meagles a bore, but she is seen through the sentimental and possessive eyes of Mr Meagles. No wonder she wants to escape her father with an arrogant bully. (Feminists don't like to admit it, but lots of woman find arrogant men, like Henry Gowan, sexy. He's still a ****, as is his ghastly mother.)
Yes, Amy Dorrit has a backbone, but to the point of being long suffering at times. Ironically, the real feminist character in a modern sense is the dangerously independent (to Dickens' view) Miss Wade, who leads the susceptible Tattycoram away from the Meagles' paternalistic grip, until she realizes how much she misses that sort of thing and returns like a good little dog.
Donna Tartt apparently said that Esther Summerson was the first unreliable narrator in English literature, but I suspect it was really Miss Wade. Wade narrates (subjectively) a chapter called The History of a Self-tormenter, in which she is portrayed in crypto-lesbian terms and her defiance as a pathological perversion from childhood. She is shown to be a will-o-the wisp, leading Tattycoram into shabby middle class misery--and worse. Why not stay with your rich masters and at least live in a nice place?
In Little Dorrit, Amy is a hero and Miss Wade is a villain. But the contradiction with modern feminism makes me wonder which one of them we should reassess. Which way are we headed in the 21st century? Which way should we be headed?
From Mrs Gowan's point of view, the Meagles are irredeemably middle class.
I'm rather charmed that a word beginning with sh... is here blocked out while on a Christian messageboard I sometime use the f word is frequently used.Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanB
PS Mr Meagle's patriarchy is nothing like as toxic as Mrs Clenam's matriarchy. The Dorrit family's problem is that Mr Dorrit just fails in his responsibilities as a father.