The Old Curiosity Club discussion
General Discussion
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Please Introduce Yourself
John wrote: "Jane wrote: "Thank you, John. The high desert here in Albuquerque doesn't speak to me, but the alpine scenery in northern NM is a wonder to behold.Thank you again for the warm welcome!"
I wish I..."
Maybe you'll get another chance, John! You could always take a non-golf tourist trip. :)
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Welcome to the Old Curiosity Club! Like Jean, I'm another minority here, coming from Germany, which is unfortunately not a very Dickens-aware country. I am all the happier, though, for having hit on this group and have spent the past few years merrily discussing various Dickens works with our group members, learning a lot - not only about Dickens but also about the importance of Christmas decorations, wooden legs, and various ways of clearing snow from your drive. I hope you'll become a regular here!
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Hi Jane, and welcome!! Do join us for the OMF discussion. Most if not all of us read new comments wherever they occur. Meanwhile (two years?), I'll be holding down the East Coast for you (Florida).
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No, it shouldn't. But you had to know elementary physics to know that.
Tristram wrote: "Hi Jane,Welcome to the Old Curiosity Club! Like Jean, I'm another minority here, coming from Germany, which is unfortunately not a very Dickens-aware country. I am all the happier, though, for ha..."
Thank you, Tristram! I am overwhelmed by so many people stopping by to welcome me. I was "made" in Germany, but "exported" for delivery, so I've always wished I could visit that beautiful country. I do hope to be a regular contributor. Thank you again!
LindaH wrote: "Hi Jane, and welcome!! Do join us for the OMF discussion. Most if not all of us read new comments wherever they occur. Meanwhile (two years?), I'll be holding down the East Coast for you (Florida)."Thanks so much for the welcome, Linda! Keep holding onto Florida for me; I'll get there as soon as I can. (2-5 years, I hope, preferably sooner!)
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Welcome to the Old Curiosity Club! Like Jean, I'm another minority here, coming from Germany, which is unfortunately not a very Dickens-aware country. I am all the happie..."
If you ever come to Germany, make sure it's Christmas because then you could experience our wonderful Weihnachtsmärkte.
Tristram wrote: "Jane wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Hi Jane,... If you ever come to Germany, make sure it's Christmas ..."
I shall, Tristram! I think Christmas in Germany would be absolutely magical.
Hello everyone, I'm Judy from Ipswich in England - a good Dickens location, since we have the Great White Horse of Pickwick Papers fame here (sadly long since closed). Pleased to meet everyone.I started reading Dickens as a 10-year-old, when I was given the soundtrack LP from Oliver! and went on to read the whole novel in a huge school library hardback, complete with Cruikshank's illustrations.
Since then I've read all the novels multiple times, and many other works (including the complete letters - luckily for me my local libraries had all 12 volumes). More recently I enjoyed Grimaldi's Memoirs "edited by Boz" and was interested to see that there are numerous episodes which are just like outtakes from Pickwick!
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This is a brilliant place to be, Judy! Welcome to the group. :)
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Hi, Judy. You're a true Dickens fan! Sounds like you'll be able to jump right in to our discussion on Our Mutual Friend. I look forward to your comments!
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Welcome. But sad to hear that the Great White Horse is closed. I can understand it might have been getting loved to death, but when I was over there lo these many decades ago my sister and I loved going up to it and walking lonely around the outside of the horse. (Stonehenge was also very open to visit back then, too, and we lay on the stones as Tess did.)
Oh well. Popularity breeds decay.
Well, anyhow, welcome to the group. It's nice to have another Brit to help interpret some of the language and customs that bewilder non-Brits.
Still quite early in the OMF reading, so you should be able to catch up easily enough. Do let us hear your thoughts -- a fresh voice!
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That popularity breeds decay line is true. I've never thought of it that way before.
Many thanks for all the warm welcomes. :)I think the Great White Horse found it hard to compete with modern hotels, due to all the winding corridors described in Pickwick and the lack of car parking etc. But when I once stayed there (on my wedding night before going on honeymoon, so many years ago now!) I'm happy to say we had a much better meal than the ones described by Dickens in PP.
I've been looking through the threads here and am wondering where is the best place to post any items such as news of CD-related exhibitions or publications.
For instance I just spotted news of an exhibition of drawings by John Leech the other day, with some lovely illustrations. Should they go in Mr Jaggers' office?
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You can put them here for now, I might move them someday to another thread, but for now this place is fine. Oh, it is awful that your wedding night inn closed. I suppose everything closes eventually, most of our hometown restaurants are closed now, our tiny stores where everyone knew everyone (rather annoying at times), most are gone. But we now have Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway, who could ask for more.
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Let me wish you, belatedly, a warm welcome to this group! I hope you will join us in our group readings, on a regular basis, or now and then, and share your opinions with us!
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So..."
Welcome Kathleen. Since you enjoy Dickens and your favourite book is Our Mutual Friend you joining now is perfect. Find your copy and join our discussion.
Judy wrote: "Hello everyone, I'm Judy from Ipswich in England - a good Dickens location, since we have the Great White Horse of Pickwick Papers fame here (sadly long since closed). Pleased to meet everyone.I ..."
Hi Judy! Happy to see you here. We met discussing mysteries, and our next read is a mystery, too.
Kathleen wrote: "Hello, I am Kathleen. Cindy from the group Victorians! suggested I join the group after mentioning my favorite Victorian book is Our Mutual Friend and mentioned it is the group read right now. So..."
Welcome, Kathleen. Woolf and Trollope are my favorites too.
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Kathleen wrote: "Hello, I am Kathleen. Cindy from the group Victorians! suggested I join the group after mentioning my favorite Victorian book is Our Mutual Friend and mentioned it is the group read right now. So..."
Welcome Kathleen. Your mention here of William Gass among the authors you listed is so interesting -- and it made me want to pull out my old paperback copy of In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. It's been many years, but a story might be good.
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Welcome to the Old Curiosity Club! If you want to try Trollope, you will have a lot of good reading before you :-) I like how he creates his characters, the women especially, and how he almost always manages to infuse his stories with some humour.
Thanks for the welcomes, Tristram and Linda, and welcome to Kathleen. I also love Trollope and have read all his novels with the Barsetshire novels being my favourites.
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So..."
A belated welcome (belated because our Internet went out yesterday morning and didn't come back until this morning, so I was bereft of the Old Curiosity Club for the day. Ah, rural America!)
Nice to see another Vic friend here. But sorry to see you have to lay Middlemarch aside to refresh OMF. Middlemarch is such a wonderful book. But I'm sure OMF will become wonderful soon, though so far I'm finding a bit of a slog.
Kim wrote: "Hi Judy, You can put them here for now, I might move them someday to another thread, but for now this place is fine. Oh, it is awful that your wedding night inn closed... But we now have Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway, who could ask for more.
"
Thanks, Kim, I'll look out the link for the Leech exhibition and post it in a minute.
Funny you should mention coffee shops etc, because there is a Starbucks in part of the Great White Horse! The main building is being turned into a business centre, I believe - but it will still keep its frontage.
Kathleen wrote: "I think I will ... start Our Mutual Friend again after a year of being away from such dear friends...."What a lovely way to put it. So many of Dickens' characters do feel like old, dear friends, don't they?
Here are the details of an exhibition featuring schoolboy sketches by John Leech, illustrator of A Christmas Carol - the sketches were found by accident in another pupil's book! Many of his later illustrations are also in the exhibition. The second link has a lot of drawings and biographical info.I won't be able to go as it is in Leicester which is too far away.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-...
http://leicester.omeka.net/exhibits/s...
Kathleen wrote: "I am ashamed to admit that I have only read two books by Dickens..."Then I envy you the new discovery of so many new friends that await you in your future - both between the pages and in this group. :-)
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I clearly misunderstood you. The Great White Horse is a pub? I was thinking of the White Horse of Chesterton fame!
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No need to hurry to read Great Expectations. We'll get around to it again in, oh, three or four years -- we're reading all the novels in sequence, when we've finished OMF and Drood, we'll start back with Pickwick again. So after a couple of years here you will have painlessly and even enjoyably (if you don't mind grumps and their accusers, that is) read through the entire canon.
Everyman wrote: "Judy wrote: "Funny you should mention coffee shops etc, because there is a Starbucks in part of the Great White Horse!"I clearly misunderstood you. The Great White Horse is a pub? I was thinking ..."
It's a ramshackle old hotel/coaching inn where Mr Pickwick stays on his visit to Ipswich, and has some comic misadventures. It's said the owners at the time almost sued Dickens because of his unflattering descriptions of their food, drink, decor etc, but then realised that featuring in the book might be a selling point!
So not as romantic as the white horse you were thinking of, Everyman, but still a landmark and a link with Dickens.
Hello Pamela, thank you for the welcome. :)
Kathleen wrote: "John wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Hello, I am Kathleen. Cindy from the group Victorians! suggested I join the group after mentioning my favorite Victorian book is Our Mutual Friend and mentioned it is ..."Kathleen, if unavailable at your bookstore, try:
www.alibris.com
I believe this is where I purchased my Gass a number of years back.
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In our city, there's a Starbucks in part of nearly every building, or so it seems to me.
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That's right, Mary Lou! Many of them do, but some, whose grandfathers run old curiosity shops, don't ;-)
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I clearly misunderstood you. The Great White Horse is a pub..."
When you come to think of it, it was quite daring of Dickens to use a real-life pub as the setting of an episode in his novel and then to describe its food in not too flattering terms. At the time he wrote Pickwick Papers he was probably anything but financially at ease and being sued could have ruined him very quickly. I wonder if he just did not care about such dangers then, or if the thought that there might be problems did not occur to him.
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No need to hurry to read Great Expectations. We'll get around to it again in, oh, three or four ye..."
It's unbelievable that we have nearly fininshed all the novels, and that at our rather leisurely pace. But it's been an interesting journey, and I'm happy to line up for the second Dickens cruise.
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I'm not sure there was much danger then. I doubt that commercial disparagement was a tort in those days.
Hello everyone, my name is Leila (Where did my Mother find that name!) and I live on the North East coast of England. I have been a widow for fourteen years and I live alone with the exception of my cats. I love animals and we have always had dogs in our family and still do, but for me I can no longer exercise them so I chose cats and have never regretted it. I have three cats, all of them ladies and all of them in charge. Two of them are rescue cats. I lost another rescue cat, a sister of the other two some months ago and she is sadly missed. Yes, as others have mentioned they do tend to rule the home but I love them to bits.Before retirement due to ill health I was a Primary school teacher for many years, teaching from reception to ten/eleven year olds and loved it.
I have three sons all married and eight grandchildren plus one great grandchild.
I have always loved to read and my first book ever was bought for me during the war when books were almost impossible to purchase. It's title was 'Babar the Elephant' and I was entranced. Since then I have tried and enjoyed many genres including the classics.
Charles Dickens has been a long term favourite author along with Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. It is going to be good to begin reading them all over again in the company of those who also love his books. I am looking forward to meeting new friends to read along with. It took awhile but I found your group Jean.
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A Hearty Welcome to the Old Curiosity Club! If you want to read the Dickens books all over again, then this is definitely the very place to be for you. We have nearly finished the circle but we will start again after Drood, and so you are welcome to join in. The reading pace is gentle, and discussions are led in a Pickwickian manner.
What I am also delighted to hear is that with you we have got another teacher in the group :-)
Hello Tristan, thank you so much for your kind welcome. Am I right in saying 'Our Mutual Friend is the book everyone is reading at this time? If so that is where I will begin.I like the fact that this is a fairly small group as you can tend to get lost in some of the bigger ones. I also like that the pace is gentle. The older you get, the less you want to rush about!
Do you have a lot of teachers or are we a rare commodity? LOL.
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As I am a teacher myself, I'd say there can never be enough teachers. Would all the teachers here please raise their hands? :-)
Thank you Tristan I will have a look for the correct folder with my hand raised of course. I am retired so I hope that still qualifies me! What age are you teaching and do you specialise?
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The Old Curiosity Club
Books mentioned in this topic
A Christmas Carol (other topics)A Christmas Carol (other topics)
The Pickwick Papers (other topics)
The Pickwick Papers (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles Dickens (other topics)Bryan Kozlowski (other topics)
Thomas Hardy (other topics)
Thomas Hardy (other topics)
Hi Kim, thank you for the warm welcome! I'm really happy to be a part of this group. The high desert/central plateau (Albuquerque, surrounding area, and south) is desperately barren and relentlessly hot. As you go north, however, the scenery is a lot like Colorado: the temperatures drop drastically and there are pine trees, verdant greenery, rivers and streams, and meadows that stretch for miles. Nevertheless, it's back to the east coast and the ocean for me as soon as I can manage; dry heat is terrible for me, but I can manage warm and moist heat.
Thanks again!