Brian E’s Comments (group member since Jul 25, 2017)

Brian E’s comments from the Reading the Chunksters group.

After the last section ending, I had expected the story to turn more toward the point of view of Rokesmith/Harmon/Handford but he is not seen and only referred to in the last chapter on the Wilfers. Also, no Lizzie love triangle, another prime plot part. Instead we get more, except for the Bella chapter, focused on side characters like Fledgeby, Riah and Wren. As Jess point out, the Riderhood episode was a bit fun though.
I guess I have to expect such passages between sections of any particular plot point when there is the amount of characters operating in this book.

I've only read 9 and most were from the shorter end of the Chunkster spectrum. I didn't read any of the selections over 900 pages. As I age I'm getting less inclined for the more experimental contemporary Chunksters like Infinite Jest that I planned to read someday when I was younger. I'm more apt to read ones like the last I read in this group, A Fine Balance, that carry the contemporary Dickens designation. I noticed a few of the books in this list do too.

I also agree that Dickens use of so many similar names with 2 distinct syllables made the early reading a bit confusing, especially as the characters often went many chapters before appearing again:
---Names such as:
Hand ford &
Head stone
--- then
Roke smith &
Rider hood
--- and even
Wray burn &
Light wood (burn-wood?)
---left me double-checking at times as to who was who, although it usually became apparent from the text. I do have the hang of the characters now.

Jess wrote: "I think a lot of the satire is going over my head."

It does for me too and I'm glad that others such as Xan are able to point it out for me, although I still missed it at first read.
There was so much anti-Semitism accepted in society of the time that you run into it in much of the literature, like Trollope. I thought that Dickens was reflecting the reality of the time but without sympathy to the anti-Semitism as he instead portrays Riah with sympathy.

Hugh, I thought the split was perfect as the unresolved questions left this section with a mysterious cliffhanger type feel and that Chapter 13 was a great way to start the next phase of the story.

Linda wrote: " Also, for some reason I had pictured Lightwood and Wrayburn as being much older than the illustration in my book depicted them, ."

I also initailly pictured them as older but then got the more accurate picture later on.

Boy, I thought we had enough characters and now we get another young woman character in Pleasant Riderhood and the mysterious sailor. However, I did like the dialogue in that chapter, and it made me feel anxious to read on, something I hadn't felt before.
I also have a better handle on the Sloppy character - Dickens and his names! The handling of young Johnny's death was a bit odd to me as Johnny never seemed like a real child just a replaceable object. But that could have been Dickens' intent.
Finally, while I sometimes either miss or don't appreciate Dickens humor, as a lawyer, I still smile every time I read about Alfred David.

I had a different reaction to Charley's confrontation with Wrayburn. I thought his attitude toward his sister was more self-centered and that Dickens intended to present both Headstone and Charley in an unfavorable light. In contrast, Wrayburn, while also appearing arrogant and self-centered, somehow came off as more of a positive force in the novel. However, as I have had some difficulty visualizing scenes and getting a proper read of the characters here, I could easily be wrong about Charley and Wrayburn.
I do agree about Bella though. She is a complicated figure with both good and bad traits, more multidimensional than usual for a Dickens female. I also like her self-awareness and expect to root for her character, although I never did take to Lily Bart.

Thanks Hugh. I had been holding off finishing the Week 6 chapters until you opened the thread so having this extra week's chapters to discuss will help me get back in the groove of OMF.

I don't quite understand the desire to let people nominate more than one book. Some enthusiastic nominator might nominate 4 books. I don't see having a poll of books consisting of books nominated by only 2 enthusiastic readers as being a good thing, especially as it would likely be the same nominators. Such a system could work if you rotated who is allowed to nominate.
However, since most here seem to feel like allowing more than one nom, I would suggest having Amanda's limit of 2 nominations or at least some limit. However, I don't mind a moderator nominating more than one or even ruling some out as they definitely have to read the darn book.

As to page length, I agree we should keep to true Chunksters but agree with Hugh that this could include a book series. This group did read Kristin Lavransdatter as 3 separate novels at about a month for each novel, and it worked well.

I also agree with Jen's opinion on having an early vote - it helps with planning.

In this section, I enjoyed the Lammies scene the most. They may turn out to act as a lightly connected and slightly humorous sideshow to the activity operating on the main stage. Trollope also often has such characters in his longer novels.

Amanda is right. Hugh made Week 4 consist of 5 chapters rather than the usual 4 since Chapter 17 is the last chapter of Book One and it made more sense to include it here than next week - it's also a very short chapter. See Hugh's message 1 summary.

EDIT: I too first came to this thread after reading Chapter 16 thinking I was done and then stopped when I saw Hugh's message one stating that this week's reading was chapters 13 to 17. i was too much into a routine.

Thanks, Hugh. I appreciate the encouragement. I'm keeping at it and understand I may like it better as it goes on.
Another GR friend gave it 5 stars and said this book employs more plots and characters and literary devices than most Dickens' and that "in the beginning, this made the thread a little harder to keep untangled, but in the end, it served his purposes beautifully."
I didn't comment in the last section and after 2 sections without having anything to add to the discussion I felt like making a comment that I'm still hanging in there. (Also, I have to comment to get notices of other comments in this thread)

Its about 200+ pages and a quarter through the book and I am still not engrossed in the plot. So far, I agree with those 1860s critics who, Wikipedia reports, "found the plot both too complex and not well laid out. The Times of London found the first few chapters did not draw the reader into the characters." and that "at that early stage the reader was more perplexed than pleased."
Hopefully, the plot will become better laid out so I can appreciate and value this novel as most of the 21st century critics do. Reading the comments here do help me feel less perplexed so thanks.

Still reading, still a bit baffled about where the story is going and still getting some needed clarity from the posts on here. However, this is because, even after 100 pages, we are still in the set-up phase. Just have to keep all the characters straight.

Interesting that my kindle books both have an opening picture that is very similar in both style and content yet not identical to the one Xan posted of Lizzie and her Dad.

While I have read a few by Dickens (Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times, The Signal-Man and David Copperfield) only David Copperfield could be considered a true Chunkster. From watching the Bleak House miniseries I knew that Dickens could explore various plotlines in his Chunksters. Yet, I still was a bit disoriented by the introduction of so many different characters and different scenes through the first few chapters. I felt like I wouldn't remember all the characters or know who or what would remain important.
But this is the advantage of reading with a group as, after reading the comments by XS, Hugh, Jonathan and Amanda, I felt that I understood what I should understand and should stop worrying, relax and just let Dickens unravel his lengthy story. The comments also helped me more clearly understand the revealed plot elements, although i may re-read chapter 2.

Nicola wrote: "Best of luck with the revival of this group! "

While I'm sorry you won't be participating, it's good to hear your positive opinion of the book.

I plan to join too. I'm not a great Dickens fan but have read Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Signalman short story. I recently passed up reading The Old Curiosity Shop in a Victorians group because I wasn't interested in reading that Dickens novel.

The Dickens I do want to read are Bleak House, Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend. While it might have been 3rd on the list, as I've previously seen the TV miniseries of the first 2 books, Our Mutual Friend is actually a better choice, And, I own a copy of the 1998 miniseries of the book, as yet unwatched, on DVD to watch upon finishing the book.

I see that an 80 page max would be the consensus and also reflects what is typical of most GR Group reads with weekly discussion threads. I bow to this and withdraw my request for a 60 to 90 page range and suggest either a 60 to 80 page range or 50 to 80 page range.

My desire for a higher page amount per week was a totally self-centered one. I am now reading about 500 pages a week. If I participate in several GR Group book discussions at a time, I find I need to have at least 5 or 6 books going at a time to feed my reading habit,
My problem is that, unlike Laurel, I'm not skilled at juggling so many. Since joining GR in 2014, I have been proud that I now always have 3 books going at a time and can successfully juggle 4 at a time. Unfortunately, that is not good enough if I want to join several GR groups at a time. I have to either become a better juggler, read less, or read less with GR groups.

My experience on here is with more than the 50 to 75 page range for a weekly read. I participated in 2 reads Kristin Lavransdatter which worked well and A Fine Balance which did not..
The "Kristin" group read worked well because we did 3 books of the trilogy in 3 months. I checked the discussion thread and the first thread started August 1st and the last post was October 31, and that was in a thread started earlier in October. Essentially we read about 1100 pages in 12 to 13 weeks or over 80 pages a week. I also participated in another group’s successful read of Trollope novels where we averaged about 80 pages per week.
While I would personally prefer to average more than 100 pages a week, I understand most prefer a much slower pace. So I suggest the parameters to be the following:

"The weekly range will be 70 to 90 pages per week."

This allows for a discussion leader to average a 70 page a week read if felt appropriate. This is a group for people who are willing to tackle Chunksters. I think a weekly range of 50 to 69 pages a week is too small a portion of that chunk for such a group.