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Summary: Martin Chuzzlewit is funny, memorable, and insightful.
Review: Martin Chuzzlewit is a funny, memorable, and insightful book. The engravings in the Oxford Illustrated edition are a charming addition to this story of hypocrisy, family intrigue, selfishness, loyalty, and friendship. Dickens's use of language is precise and often stinging. The book is laced with humor in the service of more profound goals. If you buy the Oxford Illustrated edition, skip the critical essay at the start of the volume, as it gives away some plot elements best left for the reader to discover. (Read the essay AFTER you have finished the book, if you like, or just ignore it.) My 9 rating reflects the combination of humor, satire, memorable characters (most especially the resolutely jolly Mark Tapley and the hypocritical Mr. Pecksniff), and a thoroughly entertaining plot.
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Summary: A pure pleasure
Review: Martin Chuzzlewit is full of those wonderful characters that Dickens excels at writing. His characters, both the odious and the virtuous, literally seep into your consciousness and feel like people you know (in fact, people you are certain you've met). With Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens gives us some truly awful examples of humanity and the all too common selfishness and false piety that so many demonstrate in their daily lives.We stand beside the poor, woefully abused Tom Pinch and cheer at his every minor victory, and watch the machinations of Mr Pecksniff and his daughters, Charity and Mercy, with despair. In fact, every character feels like a true individual with a complete life of his or her own. Dickens succeeds brilliantly at making his characters come to life. It is, indeed, these characters, far more than the overall plot, which makes this a wonderful read. We are drawn, literally, into their lives and we actually feel an emotional connection with them. That while some are caricatures of 'good and bad', they are so fully realised, it makes little difference. This is not to say the entire novel works - as with much writing of this period, the style might frustrate modern readers who are used to straightforward writing that 'cuts to the chase' - Dickens certainly liked the written word and he uses it liberally, as an artist might cover a canvas with thick, colourful paint. Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel you don't (and shouldn't) sit down to all at once. It's something to be savoured and enjoyed over time (as the original readers would have done, anxiously waiting for each chapter to be printed). This world is simply too detailed to skim through. If you're an American, you might question the inclusion of the American section. While it ultimately brings about a characters transformation, its sarcastic, and at times scathing, humour of 1800's Americans is undoubtedly too much for some in the mainstream American audience. It's a pity that more people don't seem to have a great sense-of-humour about themselves - probably one reason this wonderful book has never enjoyed the success of other Dickens classics in the US (though it's still very popular). My suggestion (rather than another reviewer who shamefully said to just skip the US bit) is to simply look at this new world through an outsiders eyes (remember that this was 100 years ago) and understand they won't always see things with rose-coloured glasses - and lets admit it, nowhere is perfect. Just remember, for all of Dickens' criticism of the US, it is tame compared to his observations of life in England; unfortunately some Americans seem to forget that. So, if you're looking for a wonderfully funny story of how truly good people are tormented by those who feign to be good, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Just waiting for everyone's comeuppance is worth it. Once you get into it, you won't want to finish.
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Summary: Martin Chuzzlewit
Review: Martin Chuzzlewit one of Dickens's more obscure work, met me with great expectations of works that I had previously read, I dove into this book in earnest. However the long-windedness ultimately resulted in a bit of disappointment. Though one ought not dismiss Dickens' lesser-known works; this is one that could be skipped.
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Summary: Great Cathartic Read for problems with $ and Family
Review: Martin Chuzzlewit the elder is dying and all the family has designs on gaining their inheritance. His grandson seems the odds on favorite but young Martin, the grandson has fallen madly in love with the elder Martin's altruistic nurse, Mary Graham. Why the elder Martin finds this terrifying is puzzling. Does he really think Mary's interest in Martin the younger will compromise the quality of her job? Oh, oh...I've done it, I've caught Dickens capturing the foibles of humanity again!!!
These characters sometimes make me scream. I'd like to be face to face with them, vigourously attempting to argue them out of their other-destructive behavior...Of course it would be totally useless as far as they're concerned, but hopefully cathartic for me.
The PBS video is 6 hours long and it is the way I became familiar with this story. After viewing the video I plan to grab the book to see just what did happen to young Martin in America. From all indications, Dickens appears to offer a marked contrast to his near contemporary Alexis deTocqueville's. Where Tocqueville sees free association and high community spirit in his Democracy in America, Dickens saw flim-flam and greed everywhere. -Evidently, the trip over the Atlantic to `seek his fortune was symbolic here of exposing young Martin to the ills of selfishness by extreme overexposure. Other reviewers have commented on Pecksniff , Mrs. Gump, Jonas Chuzzlewit and Tom Pinch. Oh there are Dickensian characters in this book. The rivalry between Mercy and Charity Pecksniff results in this case, in alarming tragedies of self-centeredness. Then if you cna shift gears, if you can believe in a humorous wheeler dealer, keep your eye on Montigue Tigg (Tigg Montigue) He is every bit the operator vis a vis Mr. Merdle of Dicken's Little Dorritt. Rest assured, as Dickens torments the reader with the trials of his characters, this is one of those tales where just desserts are served in the end.
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Summary: wanders
Review: this book suffers from the lack of a central character to carry the story. young martin chuzzlewit, the book's namesake, only appears in about a quarter of the book. old martin chuzzlewit appears in even less. seth pecksniff and sairey gamp are both amusing, but their characters are not central to the story. jonas chuzzlewit is central to the story, but he doesn't show up until halfway through. without a character to draw the reader's interest, a character the reader can follow the fortunes of, the book wanders. it's not a surprise that the installments of this novel didn't sell well. the prose is gorgeous, as usual, but the story drags. worth a read, but not if you're new to dickens. best to start off with nicholas nickleby which doesn't suffer from the same defect.
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Summary: a novel that too often reads like a lecture
Review: This is Dickens' book (and some would say lecture) on the theme of selfishness. Martin Chuzzlewit is structured around the three variations on this theme: personal selfishness in all its many manisfestations, institutional selfishness by way of an insurance scam, and national selfishness in the form of hypocrisy served up American-style. To illustrate the theme of personal selfishness, Dickens' parades his usual circus of colorful characters before us, each representing some aspect of the theme. There is hypocrisy appearing in the persons of Pecksniff and Mrs Gamp, thoughtlessness dressed up as young Martin Chuzzlewit and Mercy Pecksniff, suspiciousness and distrust disguised as old Martin Chuzzlewit, greed and villainy personified by Jonas Chuzzlewit and Tigg Montague (or Montague Tigg), and so on. There are also the usual cast of good characters to set off the bad. The American interlude takes young Martin and his sidekick, jolly Mark Tapley, to the U-nited States where they meet various members of the American establishment: media moguls, literary luminaries, the American aristocracy, multifarious military men. One and all, they extol the virtues of Democracy and Freedom, American style. Unfortunately, the young travellers' experiences don't quite live up to the advertising. Not to give the story away, but let's just say they find themselves going up a river without the proverbial paddle. The insurance scam illustrates the idea selfishness when it grows in stature to encompass more than those in one's immediate environs. It's dreamt up by Tigg Montague, but quickly takes on a life of its own and swallows up the likes of Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit. On the whole, these themes are convincingly illustrated. The problem with the book is not the structure, but the tone of the narrative, or how Dickens tells the tale. When dealing with personal selfishness, Dickens takes a caustic, condemnatory tone, frequently obtruding in the narrative to rain insults on his poor characters. Pecksniff, in particular, is the unhappy recipient of a lot of this authorial abuse. By contrast, when Dickens narrates the American episode, he takes a combative, indignant tone, and far from obtruding, he is happy to hold his pen and let his characters incriminate themselves. It's this inconsistency in the narrative that mars this book, particularly Dickens' habit of interjecting his moral imprecations. Indeed, the narrative is sometimes so earnestly didactic that it feels like a lecture. A more artistic way to get your points across is to let your characters make them. After all, that's what they're for. Not a bad book, especially the American episode, but clearly the work of a still maturing Dickens. If you are new to Dickens and are looking for a place to start, look elsewhere. Come back to MC when you've read two or three of his other books.
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Summary: self
Review: This is Dickens' tale (and some would say lecture) about selfishness. Dickens' presents characters that embody different aspects of this vice, from the hypocrisy of Pecksniff and Mrs Gamp, to the thoughtlessness of young Martin Chuzzlewit and Mercy Pecksniff, the suspiciousness of old Martin Chuzzlewit, to the vengefulness of Charity Pecksniff, from the villainy of Jonas Chuzzlewit, to the duplicity of Tigg Montague. But Dickens doesn't stop here: the book also explores this theme on the larger institutional and national scales, as well. The American detour can be seen as a condemnation of the hypocrisy of the U-nited States of the early 1800's. And the Life Assurance Co scam is clearly an indictment of selfishness when its ambitions grow to encompass those beyond one's immediate circle. To his credit, Dickens doesn't lay these latter evils at the abstract feet of 'countries' and 'companies', but shows that even in these suprapersonal entities, the original sin lies with individuals.
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Summary: Humorous Peek into Aspects of Human Nature
Review: This is still, next to DAVID COPPERFIELD, my favorite Dickens' story! It is also quite highly ranked among my all-time favorite novels! Dickens addresses so much of human nature -its passions, quirks & ironies - here in flawless eloquence! The story is long - but you come to know the characters so well that reading sessions become like a delve into an hour-to-hour, day-to-day existence with them! In this graceful novel, Dickens attacks hypocrisy, greed, and cruelty with a vengeance. And addresses, as like, what comes from loyalty, friendship, and generosity. None of the personages in this colorful story could be classified as good or bad --- they all have their various shades. I loved this novel -- as it painted a wonderful alternate world - in prettily-prismed Victorian England - that gave me great escape from my own, often spiritually-consuming, surroundings!
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Summary: One of Dicken's Best
Review: Who am I to argue with Dickens? One of the greatest authors of all times and I still didn't know about this book. Maybe size puts people off or maybe it's just overshadowed by the ones everyone has to read in highschool, but Martin Chuzzlewit is one of the best by Dickens. Sly wit and sarcasm prevade the book, making it still an interesting read even in modern times. A little confusing sometimes, yes, but it was well worth the read. This was the first book I'd ever read where I orginally hated a character then began to like them after the reformed. I think this book is truly under rated. Thick as it is, this book is one of the best Dicken's novels I've ever read.
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Summary: A Major Milestone for Dickens
Review: With this novel, Dickens left behind the shallow characters that sometimes marred his early works, and developed full-fledged people. Pecksniff and his daughters are marvelous creations that make one cringe with embarassment while laughing at their incredible selfishness. Tom Pinch is another character in a distinguished line of "too good to be true" Dickensian personalities, but he is shown to suffer and grow into a believable human being. The American episodes are biting in their satire, but overall they are on the money. Dickens' contempt for American armchair philosophers and "freedom-loving" slave owners fueled some of his most pointed social commentary. As always, there is a happy ending, but the plot is more complex than anything Dickens had written before. I have read Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiousity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, and Martin Chuzzlewit ranks right up there with his best.
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