Ranking the Novels of Dickens

[Bick]

A Tale of Two Cities is pretty enjoyable. Like you, I was unsure how much I was going to enjoy it, going in, but it certainly has it's moments and I did like it. The confrontation between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge (toward the end) is simply wonderful. The opening chapter of the coach travelling down to Dover from London is a super start too.

I find I've enjoyed Dickens' villains most, and the best villains result in my favourite books.
Oliver Twist is great in large part because of Bill Sykes;
The Old Curiosity Shop is great in large part because of Quilp;
David Copperfield is enhanced by Uriah Heap, etc.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I’m not entirely sure of the correct definition without looking it up, so I’d certainly go with your definition.

I used the term (imprecisely) because I’ve heard it used as a pejorative for long sentences (which I’ve always been a fan of).

For me, it’s about meter/rhythm. If a sentence is ‘ergonomic’ in the reading, then it may be as long as it likes. I’ll check out Steinbeck’s skills on this regard someday.

ETA: @Bick my lack of enthusiasm for ATOTC is silly. It stems from childhood when there was a (BBC?) dramatisation on a Sunday my parents raved over and I found it boring. As an adult (and Francophile) I’m sure I’d like it.

 

[Extollager]

Phyrebrat, I attach a passage from The Grapes of Wrath that I used to use to teach the concepts I mentioned earlier today. The main point is that a mature writing style demonstrates variety in sentence structure and sentence length. And this is teachable and learnable. Teachers sometimes ask students to write more descriptively -- Steinbeck can help us to see how to do that. I realize I'm getting away from Dickens. Somewhere I used to have an analysis of a passage from Nicholas Nickleby that took a similar approach....

This is the "Christensen method" of writing instruction, if you want to dig into it (cf. A New Rhetoric, etc.). I found that it also helped one to be a better reader -- to see more clearly what writers were doing with language.

 

[Bick]

Phyrebrat, when you write "run-on sentences," do you mean long sentences?

My notion is that a run-on sentence is one sentence followed by another sentence without punctuation it's something like this.

But the term might be used in some places just to mean a long sentence, a sentence that "goes on" with perhaps lots of free modifiers or dependent clauses.

Blackberry vines had established themselves along the walls and spread across the boards, 2luxuriating in the sunlight beating down on them and the warmth of the wood, 2stimulated to unfold serrated, light green leaves and to open pinkish-white blossoms, 3the blossoms attracting honey bees and yellowjacket wasps.

That's a cumulative sentence, in which the main clause has been elaborated by two free modifiers (verbal phrases), and then the second free modifier has itself been elaborated by a free modifier (an absolute, i.e. a verbal phrase with its own subject). The main clause is at the first level of generality; the sentence becomes more specific with the two leverl-2 free modifiers, and it becomes even more specific with a level 3 free modifier, that is, a free modifier that modifies a level 2 free modifier.

Writers like Steinbeck could do wonderful things with these cumulative sentences. One could say that they "run on," but they are not what I understand as "run-on sentences."

You can take the Professor out of the University, but you can’t take the University out of the Professor.

 

[dneuschulz]

The Greater Seven and Lesser Seven are in synch with my opinion. Bleak House and Little Dorrit are the pinnacle for me, but I love sharp critiques of societal issues. I mean you'll find that everywhere in Dickens, but these two are -- more serious in their humor, if that turn of phrase makes any sense.

 

[Bick]

I’m enjoying my read through of NN. I’m not charging through it as I’ve had other stuff on the boil also, but it’s good stuff, and I’m about 300 pages in. Nicholas is currently in Portsmouth with Victor Crummles theatrical group. How do you say Crummles? Is it Crum-less, or is it Crum-als? Anyone know?

 

[Extollager]

I don’t know. I assume it’s like “crumbles” without the b-sound.

 

[Bick]

I don’t know. I assume it’s like “crumbles” without the b-sound.

Yes, I think that's what I'm mentally going with when I read it.

 

[Bick]

I did finish Nicholas Nickleby, and I enjoyed it very much. I can see why it's considered a more minor work than some, partly because of its humour, and I felt the plotting was a touch on the slight side. The villains are good, but there are several of them, so perhaps their impact is diminished. At his peak, I feel Dickens would have somehow made more of the evil Wackford Squeers.

This was a thread for ranking Dickens' works, and I always give that some thought as I finish one. The problem I have is that, when I'd read only 3 or 4 books, it was quite easy to rank them 1-4, whereas now I've read quite a few it's becoming difficult (or unreasonable) to rank them 1-10. I'm slowly tending toward a categorisation wherein I put them in piles, as per Extollager's first post. But I think I can still place them three piles, which I'll try to elucidate here:

Category 1: Dickens' finest work, combining mature writing, exceptional characters and deep plots
Bleak House
Our Mutual Friend
Great Expectations

Category 2: Classic works, with great characters and highly memorable scenes, but flawed in some way
Dombey and Son (loss of a major character early on was a strange choice)
Hard Times (less 'Dickensian' than other books, otherwise great)
The Old Curiosity Shop (two story threads move apart for Nell's journey; but best Dicken's villain?)
David Copperfield (flabby middle is poorly paced and has a disjointed storyline; but first and last third are great)

Category 3: Lesser Dickens: good reads, and still recommended works, but not to be prioritised given their imperfections
Oliver Twist (coincidences abound; terrific characters but plot difficult to accept)
Nickolas Nickleby (somewhat light plot doesn't engage the reader as much as his best; lacks the eccentricity of his best works too)
A Tale of Two Cities (less rounded, 'Dickensian' plotting and less strong on character, but has its moments, certainly)

So that's 10 read, 4.5 to go. I'll have to see if the 'three piles' approach continues to work as I read through the remaining books over the next few years. I actually have a hankering to re-read Great Expectations, but I suppose I ought to wait at least until I've read Little Dorrit (given that is supposed to be one of his finest).

 

[Extollager]

You have ahead also what may be his comic masterpiece, Martin Chuzzlewit.

 

[Bick]

You have ahead also what may be his comic masterpiece, Martin Chuzzlewit.

Indeed, and I actually started it (only reading 10-20 pages) because I know you recommended it, but it didn't seem to get going, and wasn't jiving with my particular reading wishes at the time, so I switched to Nickleby, which more immediately seemed to get up a head of steam. But I will indeed read Chuzzlewit, as I intend to read them all. (I even bought Drood, recently, in the Everyman HB, so I have the complete HB set now).

 

[Extollager]

I’m reading Little Dorrit for the second time and am happy to be reading a Dickens again. I might start a second reading of Nickleby or Chuzzlewit soon after finishing Dorrit.

 

[Bick]

I’m reading Little Dorrit for the second time and am happy to be reading a Dickens again. I might start a second reading of Nickleby or Chuzzlewit soon after finishing Dorrit.

Well, I just read Nickleby, but the other two are queued up for next year in my Dickens reading. I only have maybe four to go now before I've read all his completed novels.

 

[Extollager]

I posted this list not quite five years ago, noting that Dombey and Son (1846-1848) was omitted from the complete list of Dickens novels since I hadn't yet read it. As of today, though, I would elevate Tale of Two Cities to the Greater Seven and demote Little Dorrit to the Lesser. I omit Drood; after all, it is unfinished. Having read Dombey, I would put it with the Lesser books. I would tentatively also elevate The Old Curiosity Shop to the upper group, for a new Greater Seven. It's not usually considered one of his best and yet it seems to stick in my thoughts as having got under my skin.

Greater Seven:
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)
Bleak House (1852-1853)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
Great Expectations (1860-1861)
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)
Edwin Drood (1870)

Lesser Seven:

Pickwick Papers (1836-1837)
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
Hard Times (1854)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)


REVISED:

Greater Seven:
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)*
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)*
Bleak House (1852-1853)*
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)*
Great Expectations (1860-1861)*
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)*

Lesser Seven:

Pickwick Papers (1836-1837)
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)*
Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
Dombey and Son (1846-1848)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)*
Hard Times (1854)

An asterisk (*) indicates novels I have read more than once.

Note that, again, I haven't attempted to rank favorites other than what's implied by putting a novel in one or the other of the two groupings. The novels are listed in chronological order.

I have just finished a second reading of Little Dorrit. This is an impressive novel, no doubt one of the greatest of the century, but yet Orwell's comment that it is "a dull book in a way” seems fair much of the time. The two protagonists, Amy Dorrit and Arthur Clennam, are admirable people, but only an author with particular gifts could probably make them a great pleasure to read about. (It is said that, for example, Charles Williams was unusually gifted in the portrayal of very good people.) Arthur's bitter old mother is a bit of a Miss Havisham, but mentioning her is to throw Mrs. Clennam greatly into the shade. The villainous Rigaud is just too stagey even for Dickens, who so often can create great literary "theater." It's not a big deal, but Dickens seems to have no idea about what Doyce's great invention is. Flora Casby eventually became tedious rather than funny. So my view is that Little Dorrit is not a failure, but it is a much less winsome novel than usual for Dickens. It shouldn't be the first, nay shouldn't be the sixth, novel of his that you read.

I started a second reading of Hard Times some months ago and confess, for what my experience is worth, that it didn't hold my interest. Being much the shortest of Dickens's novels, and possibly known as being regarded by F. R. Leavis as a masterpiece, it might be the Dickens novel that someone would pick first to give him a try. Someone else's experience might be better than mine! But I fear that that would be a mistake.

Clearly I favor the later novels, but I acknowledge that there are readers -- I believe Chesterton was one -- who favored the earlier ones. I will probably start a second reading of Nicholas Nickleby or Martin Chuzzlewit before long. I've already put the latter in with the greater ones. If I feel that Nickleby belongs with the greater books, my neat 7 + 7 arrangement might have to be let go.

 

[Extollager]

I've started a second reading of Martin Chuzzlewit. The first chapter, with the family background of the Chuzzlewits, might strike some readers as somewhat laborious irony, but this is followed by the beginning of the story proper. This has a wonderful sequence describing the effects of wind rushing through the autumnal landscape, quite a word-picture -- which culminates in the wind slamming the door in Pecksniff's face and knocking him flat.

 

[Extollager]

Pecksniff uses wads of words to help him keep his conscience stupefied and to keep unwelcome light from others dark, and Little Dorrit's father behaved in much the same way. Happily for us, nobody does that in real life.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I've challenged myself to read three Charles Dickens novels next year.

Little Dorrit.
Nicholas Nickleby.
Martin Chuzzlewit.

 

[worldofmutes]

I’ve never finished a Dickens.
But I have read some of Bleak House.
I have a lot of his books and always feel quite good about their description, I just put it off. I don’t want to get my heart broken.

Recently I read HG Parry’s book, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. It was quite fantastic, and gave me some insight into Dickens and Doyle from a New Zealander’s point of view. It was nothing amazing, but quite fun.

I’m thinking next year I’m going to read
Bleak House and David Copperfield.

I have a huge volume of short Christmas stories written by Dickens, including A Christmas Carol, sitting next to me. However, I’ve been saving that for a more cheerful time. Haha… it’s so huge I’m just not ready for it yet.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Our Mutual Friend.
The pace is quite plodding to start with, however I am enjoying it without overdoing the reading. I read a couple of chapters then do or read something else. At over a 1000 pages you've got to take it easy.

 

[Extollager]

I'm currently reading Our Mutual Friend.
The pace is quite plodding to start with, however I am enjoying it without overdoing the reading. I read a couple of chapters then do or read something else. At over a 1000 pages you've got to take it easy.

If that works well for you, great! I used to "make" my students read about 150-200 pages a week. That's how I was counseled years ago when I took a Dickens course myself & it worked well for me.