Posted by Steven
on 16/6/2009, 15:27:54, in reply to "Re: The Crying of Lot 49 and what else I'm reading"
76.187.110.226
I just finished it. Mr. Pickwick is now my role model.
What is so fascinating about this book is that it began with Dickens, an unknown at the time, being hired on to write sketches to accompany a series of humorous cartoons. He must have been a very persuasive young man, because he convinced the publisher to change the theme and drop some of the cartoons to allow for more story. In time, as he boosted the circulation from 200 to 40,000, Dickens evolved the story into a more or less continuous narrative. In reading it you not only see how its form changed from chapter to chapter, but how Dickens began to develop the themes that would reappear in his later novels. There is, for example, a ghost story in one chapter that, with considerable modification, would become A Christmas Carol.
Aside from its historical importance, The Pickwick Papers is a fun story, if a bit sprawling and disjointed. There are beautiful and moving passages depicting life in the debtor's prison and on the streets of London and, in Mr. Pickwick and his servant Samuel Weller (a Victorian Sancho Panza), two very likeable and memorable characters.
--Previous Message--
: Pickwick is in my list for re-reading soon. I first had
: notice of it many years ago, when I read the
: "Little Women" series. Jo and her sisters,
: as well as Laurie the neighbor, used to play Pickwick
: Club. I read it in a fine Spanish translation when I
: was 11 or 12, and I simply loved it. It's there in my
: book shelf and I will read it again soon. Please let
: us know what you think of it after you're finished.
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