Rating: 
Summary: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Review: I don't think I've ever read a novel half as entertaining as The Pickwick Papers. I agree with the reviewer who said that it was as if Dickens had a million jokes that he wanted to get off of his chest. And such wonderful characters! The last part of the book though is more about Mr. Pickwick himself than about the club. He also becomes less of a doofus and more of a lovealbe and sympathetic character as the novel progresses. If you are ever down and feeling depressed then this is the book to read.Sam Weller is one of Dickens greatest characters, the book really comes into its own when he becomes Mr.Pickwicks servent.
Rating: 
Summary: My brain must have changed
Review: I had this book in paperback and really loved it, so when I discovered it was missing from my library I bought the hardback and reread it when it arrived. Tastes change, I guess. Just seems a little too a) precocious b) preachy c) ponderous throughout. But, if you're a Dickens fan, you'll probably want to read it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and Most Fun
Review: I just finished my second reading of it.
I really cannot add much to the great reviews already written. I've always loved Dickens' way with words, and this book is a treasure in that department. The English, the Era, the characters, the countryside.... it got to the point where I couldn't wait for the evening to come so I could continue reading.
This also seems to me to be an important "cornerstone book" for other great English literature. The theme (though just a seed) for Scrooge in A Christmas Carol begins here, in a story called The Goblin Who Stole a Sexton, a story related during one of Pickwick's Christmastime visits to a friend in the country. When reading The Wind in the Willows or Tolkien's works, I cannot escape the feeling that they were also influenced by the charm, the sense of humor (okay, humour), duty to friends, and the simple but most important things in life which Dickens so impressively describes.
The only negative thing is that I discovered that it had an effect on me which made me wish that I was free from the drudgery of daily work, was retired (with ample monetary means, of course, like Pickwick himself), and could devote the remainder of my life to similar ramblings, adventures, and pursuits.
An excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: A matchmaker's dream come true
Review: If you don't believe a great book can have a happy ending this book will change your mind. One of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Immense In Size (Of Laughter)
Review: Immense in size, this early Dickens novel is just as large in providing pleasurable reading; I didn't want it to end. Dickens published it in 1837 when he was 25 years old; impressive. His range of characters, episodic plot, lively dialogue, humorous situations, never lags. Although not as weighty as that other great laughing satire, Don Quixote, Pickwick is in the same genre and should be read as a thematic companion to that great Spanish novel.Dickens loves the tale, I mean, telling the tale; it is all in the storytelling. Although it never dips into philosophy, science, morality, politics, or other pithy topics, Dicken's vast canvas ranges over the quixotic turns that happen in life. Pickwick, the title character, is completely lovable in his formality, politeness, and cordiality, making him a perrenially memorable character. Read this novel, friends, and give it to your friends who love to read. Or to anyone who loves the rich tapestry of mature storytelling, Dickens-style. This was the first novel to put him into popularity, and I see why.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Dickens with a sense of humor
Review: In college, I took a Dickens class. We read about a book a week. Needless to say I didn't get around to Bleak House. But I read Pickwick Papers, mainly because I was amazed at how funny it was. Dickens rivals Twain in his biting sarcasm and humor aimed late 19th Century society: The usual cast of slimebags appear; the criminal system, petty thieves, and lawyers, just to name a few. This book is a delight, and not all that laborious. It takes on all the political issues of other books, and leaves you with characters that are very real yet utterly fictitious; and since it was written in serial format originally; one can't wait to find out what happens next to these sheltered, naive, silly aristocratic characters who surely must have influenced Monty Python's Twit of the Year competition. Except Mr. Pickwick; the dignified President of the Pickwick Society. He's a twit, but one with moxy.
Rating:
Summary: Dickens' Best
Review: It's not often that I laugh out loud when reading, but Pickwick has many such moments. (See, for example, Mr. Winkle's equestrian adventure.) While Pickwick foreshadows some of Dickens' later work on social concerns, such as debtor's prisons and interminable estate litigation, mostly it is just a fun and funny book, with an endearingly aimless plotline and lovable characters. If you thought Dickens was all about darkness and tragedy, try this one. It's a real gem!
Rating:
Summary: Before there was Prozac, there was Pickwick
Review: Joyousness saturates this book. In a spare moment, you can grab it, read a page or two, and your whole day feels brighter. Slapstick comedy and wordplay and satire abound -- it's as if Dickens's chest must have been bursting with a thousand jokes, and this book gave him the opportunity. You come away feeling as if you'd spent a week in the country among friends, laughing.
Rating:
Summary: A Jovial Lighthearted Romp
Review: Pickwick Papers is a wonderful book, and no doubt much has been written about it in academic and literary circles. But from a layman's perspective, it is simply a fun read. One would almost think it the work of a great master approaching the end of a career, consciously deciding to lay down the heartache of Great Expectations or the martyrdom of A Tale of Two Cities to take a jovial and whimsical jaunt through the English language and the realm of imagination. Yet the bumbling and somehow delightful misadventures of the Pickwickians fall at the beginning of Dickens' career. Comic relief is offered well before Hard Times sets in. Take an independently wealthy, magnanimous old fellow and surround him with a group of close friends. Send them together on a journey of desire to explore the world about them, meet new people, and experience the fullness of life, and you essentially have the plot of Pickwick Papers. The plethora of characters Dickens introduces along the way add considerable color to the narrative, not only because they come from such a vast array of backgrounds, but because they themselves are colorful in their own right: The first and most obvious example might be that of Mr. Alfred Jingle, the loquacious vagabond rapscallion who rescues the Pickwickians from an altercation with a feisty coach driver. One of Mr. Pickwicks cohorts, Mr. Snodgrass, receives a blow to the eye during the incident, after which Mr. Jingle is pleased to suggest the most efficacious remedies: "Glasses round-brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty-eye damaged, sir? Waiter! Raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd, standing in the open street half an hour with your eye against a lamp-post-eh-very good-ha! ha!" While Pickwick reads the legend of Prince Bladud by candlelight, we find this description of King Hudibras: "A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, the famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mighty monarch. The earth shook when he walked-he was so very stout. His people basked in the light of his countenance-it was so red and glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference." The young surgeon, Benjamin Allen, is described as "a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short and a white face cut rather long [...] He presented altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas." Dickens notes that the casual visitor to the Insolvent Court "might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to the Genius of Seediness" and whose vapors are "like those of a fungus pit." Seated in this luxuriant ambience, we find an attorney, Mr. Solomon Pell, who "was a fat, flabby pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered." A final sample from a list of worthy characters too long to mention might be Mr. Smangle, the boisterous whiskered man whom Pickwick encounters in debtors prison: "This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places; they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about the stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them [...] There was a rakish vagabond smartness and a kind of boastful rascality about the whole man that was worth a mine of gold." The book itself is a goldmine full of textures, personas, venues, and idiosyncrasies of a bygone age. These are delight to behold, as the reader is thus invited to enjoy experience and descriptive beauty for their own sakes. Plot largely takes a backseat to the development of relationships, which can be seen as a myriad of subplots contributing to a never-ending story. Numerous vignettes which are incidental to the narrative add another level of richness, and it seems clear that Dickens offers them for an enjoyment all their own. There is something of "l'art pour l'art" throughout the whole work which expresses a love of language and a love of human nature. As Dickens might have summed it up, "All this was very snug and pleasant."
Rating:
Summary: A Jovial Lighthearted Romp
Review: Pickwick Papers is a wonderful book, and no doubt much has been written about it in academic and literary circles. But from a layman's perspective, it is simply a fun read. One would almost think it the work of a great master approaching the end of a career, consciously deciding to lay down the heartache of Great Expectations or the martyrdom of A Tale of Two Cities to take a jovial and whimsical jaunt through the English language and the realm of imagination. Yet the bumbling and somehow delightful misadventures of the Pickwickians fall at the beginning of Dickens' career. Comic relief is offered well before Hard Times sets in. Take an independently wealthy, magnanimous old fellow and surround him with a group of close friends. Send them together on a journey of desire to explore the world about them, meet new people, and experience the fullness of life, and you essentially have the plot of Pickwick Papers. The plethora of characters Dickens introduces along the way add considerable color to the narrative, not only because they come from such a vast array of backgrounds, but because they themselves are colorful in their own right: The first and most obvious example might be that of Mr. Alfred Jingle, the loquacious vagabond rapscallion who rescues the Pickwickians from an altercation with a feisty coach driver. One of Mr. Pickwicks cohorts, Mr. Snodgrass, receives a blow to the eye during the incident, after which Mr. Jingle is pleased to suggest the most efficacious remedies: "Glasses round-brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty-eye damaged, sir? Waiter! Raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd, standing in the open street half an hour with your eye against a lamp-post-eh-very good-ha! ha!" While Pickwick reads the legend of Prince Bladud by candlelight, we find this description of King Hudibras: "A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, the famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mighty monarch. The earth shook when he walked-he was so very stout. His people basked in the light of his countenance-it was so red and glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference." The young surgeon, Benjamin Allen, is described as "a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short and a white face cut rather long [...] He presented altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas." Dickens notes that the casual visitor to the Insolvent Court "might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to the Genius of Seediness" and whose vapors are "like those of a fungus pit." Seated in this luxuriant ambience, we find an attorney, Mr. Solomon Pell, who "was a fat, flabby pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered." A final sample from a list of worthy characters too long to mention might be Mr. Smangle, the boisterous whiskered man whom Pickwick encounters in debtors prison: "This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places; they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about the stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them [...] There was a rakish vagabond smartness and a kind of boastful rascality about the whole man that was worth a mine of gold." The book itself is a goldmine full of textures, personas, venues, and idiosyncrasies of a bygone age. These are delight to behold, as the reader is thus invited to enjoy experience and descriptive beauty for their own sakes. Plot largely takes a backseat to the development of relationships, which can be seen as a myriad of subplots contributing to a never-ending story. Numerous vignettes which are incidental to the narrative add another level of richness, and it seems clear that Dickens offers them for an enjoyment all their own. There is something of "l'art pour l'art" throughout the whole work which expresses a love of language and a love of human nature. As Dickens might have summed it up, "All this was very snug and pleasant."
|
