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A review by erickibler4
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
4.0
I’ve read that Dombey and Son was the first of Dickens’ novels that was meticulously planned out from the beginning. That doesn’t seem true, given that a few of the characters who are given promising subplots are returned to almost as afterthoughts in the resolution. The Browns, Alice and her mother, seem destined to intersect in a big way with James Carker, possibly being the means of his fall from grace. But this never happens. Edith Dombey leaves the stage after her confrontation with Carker in Dijon, seeming prepared to finally take charge of her own life, but she is forgotten until a final emotional scene with Florence. Rob the Grinder never gets a significant part to play, nor do any of the Toodle family, although they are introduced with great fanfare in the beginning of the book.
Mr. Dombey’s happy ending seems undeserved. He brings nothing but misery to the other characters and has nothing to redeem him. I think he is only rehabilitated in order to show how saintly Florence is. Dombey is similar to Ebenezer Scrooge in a way, but with Scrooge, you follow every step of his conversion by the ghosts, and you buy it. With Dombey, there are any number of points where he could have woken up to the disastrous course his pride was taking him, but he never did. I’d have been completely satisfied with him living out his life in despair.
But all this having been said, there is some beautiful writing in this book, hitting on some real and complex emotional states, and Captain Ned Cuttle is one of Dickens’ most lovable and entertaining characters, as is Toots.
For all that this book has shipping and sea voyages as a background, I would have liked Dickens to take a real try at writing a story, or t least a subplot, about life aboard a ship. But I guess that would have been outside his literary bailiwick.
Mr. Dombey’s happy ending seems undeserved. He brings nothing but misery to the other characters and has nothing to redeem him. I think he is only rehabilitated in order to show how saintly Florence is. Dombey is similar to Ebenezer Scrooge in a way, but with Scrooge, you follow every step of his conversion by the ghosts, and you buy it. With Dombey, there are any number of points where he could have woken up to the disastrous course his pride was taking him, but he never did. I’d have been completely satisfied with him living out his life in despair.
But all this having been said, there is some beautiful writing in this book, hitting on some real and complex emotional states, and Captain Ned Cuttle is one of Dickens’ most lovable and entertaining characters, as is Toots.
For all that this book has shipping and sea voyages as a background, I would have liked Dickens to take a real try at writing a story, or t least a subplot, about life aboard a ship. But I guess that would have been outside his literary bailiwick.