false92283718532618239781853261824173Little Dorrit (Wordsworth Classics)http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179494148m/922837.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/922837.Little_Dorrit
239579Charles Dickens20410110701
Done. Read the review please.
02009-06-20T02:30:00-07:009114178482009-06-20T02:30:00-07:00
Almost there :)
02009-06-17T00:18:09-07:008977976642009-06-17T00:18:09-07:00
He's dead?!
02009-06-16T03:15:00-07:008931346272009-06-16T03:15:00-07:00
Clennam is <3
02009-06-14T17:48:42-07:008867826022009-06-14T17:48:42-07:00
Blandois? What is your intention?
02009-06-12T19:02:02-07:008800625122009-06-12T19:02:02-07:00
Dorrit Family is interesting O_o.
02009-06-11T22:07:17-07:008764734432009-06-11T22:07:17-07:00
Henry Gowan: are you evil or no?
02009-06-09T23:58:30-07:008675753142009-06-09T23:58:30-07:00
I could be faster than this :( damn work!
02009-06-08T07:34:06-07:008587492342009-06-08T07:34:06-07:00
I like Arthur Clennam :)
22009-06-06T20:41:12-07:008534512009-06-08T07:38:25-07:001792009-06-06T20:41:12-07:00
I think I like Arthur Clennam :)
02009-06-02T17:54:14-07:008359971372009-06-02T17:54:14-07:00
Life inside the prison.
02009-06-01T18:02:09-07:008313751002009-06-01T18:02:09-07:0036falseThu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon May 18 18:04:38 -0700 2009Sat Jun 20 02:33:23 -0700 2009
The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With its bleak atmosphere, it has brought me back to the world of Dickens. Finishing it, I wanted some more of Dickens. Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend then charmed me with their own significant way. However, Little Dorrit does not do the same thing to me. Nope, it is not a bad piece of writing. It’s just lack of spells to bewitch me.
Little Dorrit opens with such a dark scene, which is two people talking in a prison. From the very beginning, we are introduced to the villain of the novel, Blandois, and I kept asking what the hell this man’s gonna do. And that became my problem with the novel. Until the end of the novel, I didn’t find the clear answer of what Blandois has done and what the motive is. Perhaps I missed something in this case, so can anyone be so kind to explain it to me? From his appearance (his terrific moustache and nose), Blandois has the potential to be a remarkable villain, but since I do not clearly understand his motive, I cannot find him outstanding. Another thing that I do not understand is the function of Tattycoram to the whole plot. Yes she’s an emotional girl, then what does it have to do with the main plot?
Thankfully, readers, we have Arthur Clennam. After Pip and Nicholas Nickleby, he is the Dickens’ hero that I find adorable (Well, Bradley Headstone is unforgettable but not because he’s adorable, right?). As a 40 year old man coming home from China, Clennam feels quite isolated in England either culturally or personally. I like how Dickens delivers the personal conflict in Clennam’s heart: his distance with his mother, his supressed feeling for Pet, and finally his love to Little Dorrit. And yes, Orwell is right. He once wrote that once Dickens describes something, you will not forget it maybe for the rest of your life. A scene that is really memorable is when Clennam gives up Pet for another man. The paragraph goes like this:
When he walked on the river’s brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put his hand in his breast, and tenderly took out the handful of roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but certainly he went down on the shore, and gently launched them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them away
That happens when Clennam finds out that Pet is going to marry another man, and Dickens shows that Clennam is willing to let Pet go through the launching of roses to the river by Clennam. The roses, of course, are given by Pet before. Such a great symbolization.
How about our Little Dorrit? At first I thought that she’s the typical of an ideal Victorian woman (motherly and feminine), but as the story went, I started to consider her motherly characteristic as a strength, not as a sign of submissiveness. When her father and Clennam have to face the bad situation, it is Little Dorrit who becomes tough and can support the two men. She might be known as Little Dorrit, yet she got this HUGE character, I believe.
Oh, I also fall in love with Young John Chivery’s character. As Little Dorrit’s childhood friend, he’s been in love with her since then. What is interesting about Young John is that everytime he gets a new experience, either it is good or bad, he always imagines what’s gonna written on his tomb. His character may invite you to laugh but in the end, we’re going to see how this funny character has such a big heart. I cannot wait to see how Russel Tovey (The History Boys) portrays Young John’s character :).
With two strong main characters and other memorable characters, it is disappointing that Little Dorrit doesn’t really give me enough explanation about the major conflict. Or I may say, the web isn’t tangled really well. So, Chuck, I am sorry. Three stars, not more than that.
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