Charles Dickens

[poppyshake]

I think the Puffin Tale of Two Cities is abridged too, isn't it?

 

Oh bother!! I hadn't thought of that, but you're right I've just looked.

I will still read it though .. and if I like it I'll get hold of a copy of the unabridged version.

As the shelf is in the loo .. perhaps abridged versions are best .

Thanks for the warning Janet.

Edited March 29, 2010 by poppyshake

[Janet]

That's okay.

 

I wasn't sure because some of them aren't abridged but the copy on Amazon has the 'look inside' feature on it which said it is. I have to say I have bought and read the Puffin Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass because they have such pretty covers ( ), but they're both unabridged.

[poppyshake]

I love the covers .. the one for 'the Wizard of Oz' made me laugh .. I had to have it.

[Janet]

The one with a pair of red-and-white stripy legs poking out from under a building? That's ace!

 

I ought to read some - which Dickens (apart from A Christmas Carol) would you recommend I start with?

[poppyshake]

The one with a pair of red-and-white stripy legs poking out from under a building? That's ace!

 

Yes, that's the one .. great isn't it:)

 

I ought to read some - which Dickens (apart from A Christmas Carol) would you recommend I start with?

 

That's a toughie, I think I'd say either 'Great Expectations' or 'David Copperfield' .. probably 'Great Expectations' .. it has everything.

[Janet]

Thanks for the recommendations. I guess Great Expectations would be a good one to read, seeing as I've read Mister Pip.

[sirinrob]

'Great Expectations' is one of Dickens better books imo. As a journalist he spun his narrative out and to some extent sensationalist it. This is enjoyable.

[willoyd]

I enjoyed Great Expectations, but absolutely adored Bleak House. Possibly amongst my top 3 books ever. That opening chapter alone was worth the read!!

[frenkas]

I enjoyed Oliver Twist

[no-1-book-fan]

I love Great Expectations. It's a fantastic and at times dark relection on Victorian society that is still relevant today and I really like it. Mrs Havisham and Estella are so cruel to Pip!

[Booknutt]

What about "Little Dorrit" folks? That, and "Old Curiousity Shop" are among the "less popular" of the C.D. novels - but I enjoyed them both, and though I love all the T.V./film adaptions too, learned much more about all the characters by actually reading about them.

 

Yes - Dickens is delightfully "wordy" but descriptively, colourfully, wonderfully so! I can feel my mind (and vocabularly) expanding every time I have a nose-down into any of his novels. We don't use words enough, these days.

 

P.S. "Pickwick Papers" is a good and funny "read" too.

[Genevieve]

Charles Dickens totally fascinates me and because of some things in my life I can identify with certain characters. This gives me strenght and the courage, oui, to go on. And knowing that this man started off in life in uncertain and unkind circumstances and despite the odds became well known and admired in his own day is nothing short of miraculous, non?

Therefore his words have great dignity and meaning to me. I must admit that Great Expectations gave me depression for weeks after-the class snobbery, the cruelty of man against man, the woman who was so cruel , the old insane self pitying woman. As if any man who ditches you is worth ruining your life for in the end. I was both fascinated and repulsed by the book. Little Dorit was despairing as well to my mind and such but still such a great and marvellous piece of the life and times of a people at that time. You can read any of Dicken's books and be swept right back to the time and see how the top,middle, chattering and poor classes of the people lived. Amazing.

[Echo]

I agree with you, Genevieve. No one has ever been able to write characters as well as Dickens. I often get into a "Dickens mood", meaning I want to immerse myself in the world of his books. It's a huge urge and a wonderful feeling. I can get so swept up in his books!

[Fev]

I have just finished Great Expectations and, in the end, enjoyed it, though it was very hard going at first. I already knew how it started, which is possibly why I just wasn't gripped by the whole saga on the marshes, but it wasn't until (trying to think of a description that won't spoil it for any yet to read it) the arrival of Mr Provis that it seemed to engage my interest. Think I will give Dickens a rest for a while before returning to him though, not least because the language style demands too much concentration from my poor brain!

[nursenblack]

I started reading Little Dorrit yesterday (my first doorstep sized book this year). I was a bit hesitant to pick Dickens up again after I trudged through Great Expectations last year, but Little Dorrit seems to be a favorite one of people who have actually read it. I watched the Masterpiece Theatre production with Matthew MacFayden and thought it was wonderful, so hopefully I'll find the book as enjoyable.

[Easy Reader]

I studied Great Expectations for my A Level english and did enjoy it (mostly the earlier bit we Pip was a boy) we were told be our teacher that we should read each of the books we were doing 6 times so we would know them inside and out. I managed to read this one and a half times (thats half a time more than I managed for James Joyce's Dubliners )

 

I am currently ploughing my way through Our Mutual Friend I am reading a chapter here and there which I am telling myself is in spirit of the original publications. The trouble is I just can't seem to work out what is going on. I know the basics but I can't keep up with it all I think for me its a bad combination of just too many characters and ye olde language. Also I can't decide if Dickens was being paid by the word and thats why he uses just so many of them or if its a case of I am completely misunderstanding his tone and that it is actually witty and clever, far too clever for me. I am to seek out one of those study guides for when I have finished reading it to see if I can make sense of it that way but feel I would have been better off reading the two together, literally one in each hand.

 

Saying that I will make it to the end and do plan on reading another. I fancy given Bleak House a go as I loved the mini series of that on TV (even though I didn't fully understand all the legaliest involved with the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce).

[DollysBroken]

I love Charles Dickens!

His writing is so rich my teacher once described it as swimming through chocolate pudding. Tough to do but very enjoyable.

 

I think my favorite is Great Expectations but there's something about Tale of Two cities that makes it a close second best.

[Leicesterliterature]

I love dickens but sometimes he over states things and goes into too much detail. None the less - A Christmas Carol comes out every December 1st and around the 12th I like to go to the Theatre Royal to see the musical version of Oliver Twist (cheesy I know, but it's so festive in the theatre and Dickens goes hand in hand with Christmas IMO!

 

James

 

LeicesterLiterature

[UCLGeogPhD]

I studied Great Expectations for my A Level english and did enjoy it (mostly the earlier bit we Pip was a boy) we were told be our teacher that we should read each of the books we were doing 6 times so we would know them inside and out. I managed to read this one and a half times (thats half a time more than I managed for James Joyce's Dubliners )

 

I am currently ploughing my way through Our Mutual Friend I am reading a chapter here and there which I am telling myself is in spirit of the original publications. The trouble is I just can't seem to work out what is going on. I know the basics but I can't keep up with it all I think for me its a bad combination of just too many characters and ye olde language. Also I can't decide if Dickens was being paid by the word and thats why he uses just so many of them or if its a case of I am completely misunderstanding his tone and that it is actually witty and clever, far too clever for me. I am to seek out one of those study guides for when I have finished reading it to see if I can make sense of it that way but feel I would have been better off reading the two together, literally one in each hand.

 

Saying that I will make it to the end and do plan on reading another. I fancy given Bleak House a go as I loved the mini series of that on TV (even though I didn't fully understand all the legaliest involved with the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce).

 

I think a lot of his work was originally serialized and then later combined into books. I have the same problem with some of his verboseness and occasionally repeating himself in a manner akin to US tv programs wherein we are instantly reminded of what happened after it just happened. This annoyed me when I did Oliver Twist at school. Don't regret having read it, but Dickens not for me.

[poppyshake]

I studied Great Expectations for my A Level english and did enjoy it (mostly the earlier bit we Pip was a boy) we were told be our teacher that we should read each of the books we were doing 6 times so we would know them inside and out. I managed to read this one and a half times (thats half a time more than I managed for James Joyce's Dubliners )

 

I am currently ploughing my way through Our Mutual Friend I am reading a chapter here and there which I am telling myself is in spirit of the original publications. The trouble is I just can't seem to work out what is going on. I know the basics but I can't keep up with it all I think for me its a bad combination of just too many characters and ye olde language. Also I can't decide if Dickens was being paid by the word and thats why he uses just so many of them or if its a case of I am completely misunderstanding his tone and that it is actually witty and clever, far too clever for me. I am to seek out one of those study guides for when I have finished reading it to see if I can make sense of it that way but feel I would have been better off reading the two together, literally one in each hand.

 

Saying that I will make it to the end and do plan on reading another. I fancy given Bleak House a go as I loved the mini series of that on TV (even though I didn't fully understand all the legaliest involved with the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce).

 

Have you seen the mini series of 'Our Mutual Friend'? (Steven MacIntosh, Anna Friel, Keely Hawes & Paul McGann) .. I thought it was one of the best and it will definitely help you get a handle on the book. I read the book afterwards and loved it but how I would have got on with it without the help of the TV series I don't know.

[Easy Reader]

Have you seen the mini series of 'Our Mutual Friend'? (Steven MacIntosh, Anna Friel, Keely Hawes & Paul McGann) .. I thought it was one of the best and it will definitely help you get a handle on the book. I read the book afterwards and loved it but how I would have got on with it without the help of the TV series I don't know.

Funny you should ask I got the first disc through lovefilm on Thursday. I played the first episode but fell asleep towards the end . but I will watch it back again I am determined to get to grips with it. What I did see seem to stick faithfully to the book and I was reconising lots of it so perhaps I understood more than I thought I did .

[poppyshake]

Funny you should ask I got the first disc through lovefilm on Thursday. I played the first episode but fell asleep towards the end . but I will watch it back again I am determined to get to grips with it. What I did see seem to stick faithfully to the book and I was reconising lots of it so perhaps I understood more than I thought I did .

.. that's not the greatest of recommendations is it? .. but like all Dickens's work, the starts are incredibly slow, there's so much build up and multiple plotlines to grasp hold off that you can wander off. Stick with it, David Morrisey's portrayal of Bradley Headstone is just amazing and I loved the romance between Eugene and Lizzie .. especially as it builds .. and I just love Steven MacIntosh full stop I promise you, it will get better.

[willoyd]

Also I can't decide if Dickens was being paid by the word and thats why he uses just so many of them or if its a case of I am completely misunderstanding his tone and that it is actually witty and clever, far too clever for me.

Verbosity was very much the nineteenth century style - Eliot, Gaskell, Trollope, Thackeray, none of them are exactly lean and mean. Having said that, Dickens was pretty big on words even by their standards. I find with Dickens (indeed all nineteenth century writers) that you've just got to be prepared to immerse yourself in the books and language and let it wash over you. After all, they were written at a time when reading was increasingly becoming one of the main leisure activities, with no TV or computers to distract.

 

I fancy given Bleak House a go as I loved the mini series of that on TV (even though I didn't fully understand all the legaliest involved with the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce).

Nor did I, but Bleak House is, for me, the best - one of my all-time top three or four classics.

[Mashunja]

I really like Charles Dickens. Not too many descriptions, not too many philosophical thoughts. Everything is moderately good. And I like his "rough reality" style. I have to finish Oliver Twist and then I'm going to read Christmas Carols.

[Booknutt]

In this 200th anniversary year of this fantastic author - do we have any special "Dickens" plans folks?

 

I'm going to make an effort to read a couple of his novels I haven't ventured into before - the Mystery of Edwin Drood for one. I've never bothered with this before, as it seemed pointless to me to start a novel which had no ending(!) - but the Christmas T.V. version of the story so fascinated me that I'm willing to give it a try, now ... Anyone like this particular novel?

 

Or - what about encouraging any younger readers in your circle to give Dickens a try? According to the news recently, youngsters aren't being educated - in reading - with the attention span capable of managing a Dickens novel. That'll surely apply to the other classic-classics too, and it's a huge shame.

 

Let's band together my brothers and sisters - and fly the Flag for these splendid examples of the skill of the wordsmith. They shall go forth to entertain a new generation!!