Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens

[Milo MInderbinder]

Martin Chuzzlewit is only the second of Dickens books I have read. I read The Old Curiosity Shop last year which I enjoyed but this time because I was aware of Dickens style it made this less of a challenge and more of a familiar experience.

 

With most reviews you would expect a few words about storyline from your reviewer. I don’t actually think with Dickens that I need include any. From my first forays into the works of Charles Dickens it seems in each book that his modus operandi is to take his readers on vast sprawling journeys of plot, insights into the idiosyncrasies of human behaviour, and vivid descriptions of locations in cities and country settings.

 

In MC from page one Dickens drops the reader into a sleepy Wiltshire village, and then changes the backdrop to London and then on to the United States with seamless ease. On the way Dickens introduces you* to the good, the bad, and the ugly of his tale. The fantastically named Seth Pecksniff, Poll Sweedlepipe, Tom Pinch, Jonas Chuzzlewit, and Sairy Gamp to name but a few. Told with the wit and suspense that seems to be a trademark of Charles Dickens I would wholly recommend this book.

 

Discovering Dickens quite late in my life as a reader I feel the same buzz I felt at fifteen when I first discovered Stephen King’s books, and the icing on the cake for me is there are so many of them to go at. It seems to me that old CD, if you’ll excuse the pun, wrote the book with regard to plot twists, characterisation, and what makes a great novel and I can’t wait to read the rest of them. Next up for me is Bleak House.

 

*I recently saw a Dickens Biographer on tv describing how Dickens style makes you feel he’s sat at the side of you telling the story to you and you alone. I couldn’t agree more.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Milo MInderbinder