The Pickwick Club discussion
Nicholas Nickleby
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Nickleby, Chapters 21-26
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Jonathan
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Aug 21, 2013 11:01PM
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It is definitely better than OT, but to me not as good as his later, darker works, which would mean 4 stars.
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Nah, definitely A Christmas Carol, then Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, David Copperfield, Dombey & Son, The Old Curiosity Shop, Little Dorrit. It would be slightly easier to name my least favorite; it's between Hard Times, Pictures From Italy or American Notes.
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I haven't read Hard Times. I started it and the first few pages were rather amusing. My least favorite was Oliver Twist. After reading it again with the group, I still feel the same way.
Is it just me or does anyone else find Mrs Nickleby so excruciatingly annoying? Apparently some of her characteristics are based on Dickens' mother. Dickens was quite bitter with his mother, especially when she sent him back to the blacking factory after the family was released from prison. So I wonder which elements of Mrs Nickleby's are hers?
Kate,I think the major similarity between Mrs. Dickens and Mrs. Nickleby must have been that she fails to protect her children. Just as Mrs. Dickens sent her son to the blacking factory without thinking a lot about it - at that time it must have been quite normal practice, which I do not say to excuse it -, so Mrs. Nickleby is taken in by Ralph and his two lickspittles Pyke and Pluck, and she actually sends her daughter into the lion's lair.
We should note, however, that she does not do it deliberately, out of spite, but as a result of her thoughtlessness, which is, of course, based on a certain amount of egoism. This might have been what Dickens also thought of his mother.
Kate wrote: "Is it just me or does anyone else find Mrs Nickleby so excruciatingly annoying? Apparently some of her characteristics are based on Dickens' mother. Dickens was quite bitter with his mother, espe..."Not me, I love her. She's one of my favorite characters. Although I wouldn't want to live with her. As for who she is based on here is one of the things I've read:
Dickens’s own mother, Elizabeth Dickens, was the model for the always confused, comic Mrs. Nickleby. Luckily for Charles she didn’t recognize herself in the character. In fact she asked someone if they “really believed there ever was such a woman”. By the early 1850s Elizabeth Dickens had grown into a stout matriarch 'with some affectations of youthfulness, particularly [in] the "juvenility of her dress" and her semicomic confusions of speech'. Her son described her wardrobe as 'the attempt "of middle-aged mutton to dress itself lamb fashion"'.
She was also the model for Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield.
I agree that the theatre scenes are likely to appeal to lovers of "The Pickwick Papers." The humour there is very similar and I was guffawing a lot ;)I'm not sure why everybody is taking such issue with Nicholas though. Yes, he's feckless, doesn't stick at an one idea etc - but don't we all know young men and women like this? Isn't it actually more the "norm" to not know exactly what you want out of life at that age? It strikes me that in this way part of the book is a "rites of passage" tale.
Jean wrote: "I agree that the theatre scenes are likely to appeal to lovers of "The Pickwick Papers." The humour there is very similar and I was guffawing a lot ;)I'm not sure why everybody is taking such iss..."
I remember that I did not like Nick's patronizing, condescending attitude at the time. He always kept up the notion that his birth elevated him above the status of these itinerant actors and that he was actually somehow degrading himself a bit by travelling with them. Let's face it: Nicholas has been raised for nothing in particular, he does not really know any trade and he is - as Wolf Larsen, from the glorious The Sea-Wolf would put it - "standing on the feet of a dead man". Only he does not succeed because his father's feet seem to have been made from clay.
In short, it's his arrogance that put me off Nicholas at that stage of the plot.
Right. Perhaps he has not had very good role-models. Except that the angelic Kate seems to have turned out alright... Of course there are many examples of this in real life too. Also his age would make him appear - and perhaps be - arrogant and overconfident, or at perhaps pretending to be to cover up his youthful inexperience.
It's strange how unappealing the heroes of Dickens's first 2 "proper" novels are, isn't it!? In many ways I suppose they are reactive and not fully developed, but just serving to move the plot on.
Yes, both Oliver and Nicholas are not too appealing - but they are harmless, and even likeable, in comparison to Little Nell ;-)Yet, there seems to be a difference between Oliver and Nick to my mind: Whereas Oliver is too good, and too colourless, to be true, just a pathetic plot device, Nick has his rough edges, e.g. that kind of arrogance and his irascibility. So you may come to dislike him, at times, but you would never really feel bored by him. His manner of speaking, however, is absolutely histrionic - even when he is off-stage.
Tristram wrote: "Yes, both Oliver and Nicholas are not too appealing - but they are harmless, and even likeable, in comparison to Little Nell ;-)Yet, there seems to be a difference between Oliver and Nick to my m..."
For some reason I feel like I'm about to repeat myself, but here goes......
Grump.
Yes, Kim, I have the feeling you might have already mentioned that ;-)
