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A review by loyaultemelie
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
This book is a difficult one for me to review. Because despite the fact that I highly enjoyed it, found the prose engaging, and the plot enjoyable, it took me forever to read this book. Moby Dick, for comparison, took me two weeks to read. This one took me a month.
I also have to admit, this is not Dicken's best work, as much as I enjoyed it. Moreso than the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, this book exhibits the difficulties of serialization. The biggest example of this to me isKate Nickleby's and Madeline Bray's almost identical plot points. It's a little funny to me that as soon as Madeline enters the fray Kate's lecherous suitor is promptly dispatched so that Nicholas might rescue Madeline from her own lecherous suitor. Both of these suitors, of course, are in concert with Ralph Nickleby, which makes it even more ridiculous. I really do think in this case Dickens would have been better focusing on Kate for the plot involving press-ganging into marriage. Madeline could have simply been a poor girl looking for work whom the Brothers Cheeryble helped, and with whom Nicholas fell in love. There isn't even a question as to Nicholas' poverty, since he becomes a partner of the Cheerybles. Really, I think this was a time when Dicken's youth was on show. The lack of foresight in this kind of plotting is funny, but also is distinctly a shortcoming.
There were other things too. This book is a sort of combination of the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, and this really shows in the loose nature of plot points, fighting against a larger story. There are certain parts of this book which obviously had a lot of forethought put into it. But other parts feel a little, incongruous, and some of the larger themes of the book itself are shunted in favor of Nicholas' various adventure. This meant for me a lull period in the middle, when I was reading maybe 50 pages a day instead of my usual 100.
You may be wondering - okay, if this is all true, why are you rating this book so high? Because it's Dickens! Because Dickens is a master prose writer, and even when things are going slowly, the reader is still being carried by a love, very evocative writing style. And because when the plot kicked in and Dickens wants to make it count, it really does count. Both in terms of moments of drama, and in more general terms. I've read a lot of books with creepy men in them, but rarely have I been so uncomfortable as when reading Mulberry Hawk and Arthur Gride's dialogue about the respective women they harass. This book so far of all the ones I've read reminded me the most of why Dostoevsky was so inspired by and affected by Dickens. In the more serious parts, Nicholas Nickleby makes for a rather devastating read.
If I had to rate this book solely based on skill it would likely be 3/5. But because I did enjoy it so much, I'm giving it a rating hike. I probably won't read another Dickens for a couple of months - I still have some Christmas stories to get through, and I probably won't read another novel of his for about a year like last time - but I look forward to the next with as much pleasure as I started this book with.
I also have to admit, this is not Dicken's best work, as much as I enjoyed it. Moreso than the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, this book exhibits the difficulties of serialization. The biggest example of this to me is
There were other things too. This book is a sort of combination of the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, and this really shows in the loose nature of plot points, fighting against a larger story. There are certain parts of this book which obviously had a lot of forethought put into it. But other parts feel a little, incongruous, and some of the larger themes of the book itself are shunted in favor of Nicholas' various adventure. This meant for me a lull period in the middle, when I was reading maybe 50 pages a day instead of my usual 100.
You may be wondering - okay, if this is all true, why are you rating this book so high? Because it's Dickens! Because Dickens is a master prose writer, and even when things are going slowly, the reader is still being carried by a love, very evocative writing style. And because when the plot kicked in and Dickens wants to make it count, it really does count. Both in terms of moments of drama, and in more general terms. I've read a lot of books with creepy men in them, but rarely have I been so uncomfortable as when reading Mulberry Hawk and Arthur Gride's dialogue about the respective women they harass. This book so far of all the ones I've read reminded me the most of why Dostoevsky was so inspired by and affected by Dickens. In the more serious parts, Nicholas Nickleby makes for a rather devastating read.
If I had to rate this book solely based on skill it would likely be 3/5. But because I did enjoy it so much, I'm giving it a rating hike. I probably won't read another Dickens for a couple of months - I still have some Christmas stories to get through, and I probably won't read another novel of his for about a year like last time - but I look forward to the next with as much pleasure as I started this book with.