The Old Curiosity Club discussion
Martin Chuzzlewit
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MC Chapters 9-10
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I have to admit, I laughed when Pecksniff was told to get off the grass! But poor Ruth. She and Tom are too nice to have such unappreciative employers. I don't find Mrs. Todgers nearly as endearing as Mrs. Lupin, and I'm getting all the gentlemen lodgers mixed up.
Like you, Peter, I found this chapter entirely too long. I was listening, and zoned out quite a few times during this week's chapters. I'm sure I missed many of the finer points, but I just couldn't bring myself to go back over them. :-(
Mod
I don't find Mrs. Todgers nearly as endeari..."
Hi Mary Lou
I too would be much happier in the snug of Mrs Lupin’s Blue Dragon rather than the confines of Todgers.
Do you think Mark Tapley could work his magic in Todgers?
Peter wrote: "What are your first impressions of Ruth Pinch? Do you think Dickens might continue to develop her character as the novel progresses? Why?"I imagine he wouldn't have taken so much time over her if he didn't intend to marry her off to someone. My first thought was that young Martin could have her and Tom Pinch could have Mary, but I don't think either of the Pinch siblings really measures up to Dickensian hero/heroine-level beauty or manliness, so I expect someone else gets her... which would further explain Westlock's devotion to Pinch. Hmm.
Mod
All
I imagine he wouldn't have taken so much t..."
Hi Julie
I both love and agree with your reasoning about the possible futures of the Pinch siblings. Dickens does create patterns of behaviour for characters that are either rewarded or punished later in his novels. Sometimes the joy of reading him comes in how he brings all the parts together.
Peter wrote: "Sometimes the joy of reading him comes in how he brings all the parts together."Like a little plot puzzle each time!
Something I came across yesterday: Chuzzlewit was the last of Dickens' "picaresque" novels.
I'm just laughing my a** off at the description of Todgers: you can see it, but no one can find how to get to it. This fits Washington DC. to a T. Hilarious. Just what you want for your business.My goodness but you can get lost trying to find a place in D.C.. You are driving down the correct street, the street signs tell you you are, then without warning or notice, the street sign changes, and you are on a different street. The one you were on, the one you need to be on, ended without notice, but picked up again somewhere else going in a different direction. Meanwhile the street you are still on is taking you into the bowels of a city, a place from which you may never return.
Then there are the times you just need to go over there, a block away. You can see the place, a simple right, then a left, and you are there. But you can't do that because one-way streets are in the way. So you have to go around . . . all the way around . . . and before you know it you are hopelessly lost again never to return.
I should add that I think Dickens' contemporaries would have immediately recognized that description of the maze in the same way I did all these years later.
Mrs. Todgers "warming herself in a gentlemanly manner at the fire."An interesting description.
My, oh my, but what mercy Mercy shows -- A Miss Pinch "presuming to exist at all . . ." and Dickens finishes it up by describing Mercy as a charming girl.
I am amazed how easily Dickens, by using comedy and exaggeration, can make us hate someone with just the turn of one or two sentences. This time it's the whole Pecksniff family. He makes their "caressing the pupil" sound like they are petting a dog.
"Keep Off the Grass!" The pecking order. I love this chapter.
Oh my, what a character Benjamin is.
I thought the chapter long but the humor everywhere. As to Pecksniff's drunken plea for students, I found it completely realistic. From his stammering, his obnoxiousness, and his refusal to stay in bed, much like a drunk's refusal to turn over the keys to his car, everything about Pecksniff the drunk rang true to me.
I thought the young man who left for London in the first chapter and remains friends with Tom might meet and marry his sister.
Mod
Yes. I laughed at the inaccessibility of Todgers and of your description of Washington, DC, and then recalled that Toronto has a couple of places that you can see but can’t actually reach either. Perhaps a city can’t be properly called a city without at least one seemingly inaccessible location.
You are spot on when you comment that Dickens only needs a couple of sentences to slice a character or establish an idea that permanently settles in a reader’s mind.
As to the fate of Tom’s sister we will have to wait longer, but I do think she will be an ongoing part of the story.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I'm just laughing my a** off at the description of Todgers: you can see it, but no one can find how to get to it. This fits Washington DC. to a T. Hilarious. Just what you want for your business...."
Ah. I seem to recall reading that Washington D.C. was one of those cities built to a plan, not just arising out of chaos.
Planners are so very clever.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I thought the young man who left for London in the first chapter and remains friends with Tom might meet and marry his sister."Yes, my candidate too!
Julie wrote: "Ah. I seem to recall reading that Washington D.C. was one of those cities built to a plan, not just arising out of chaos.Planners are so very clever."
The tale I have heard is they planned and built the streets perfectly. Then some genius decided they needed more streets, and wouldn't it be great if they surrounded the center of the city in concentric circles. That turned the right-turn/left-turn approach to navigating into a disaster.
Used to be you could take a right-turn and then a left-turn to get on the street you wanted. Simple. Now, if the right-turn puts you on one of the concentric circle streets, you're screwed because you're circling away from your turn and can't get off until the next exit that isn't a one way street going in the wrong direction. And once you get off you are lost.
If you don't know what you are doing, you can literally never get there.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I'm just laughing my a** off at the description of Todgers: you can see it, but no one can find how to get to it. This fits Washington DC. to a T. Hilarious. ..."Too true, but I had the "pleasure" of driving around DC last weekend and it's too soon to see the humor. Thank God for GPS! But as bad as the roads can be, the lack of parking and the other drivers are much, much worse! This is why people in cities - in the 1800s and today - spend their evenings in bars!
Mod
Mark would probably not stay very long at Mrs. Todgers's because with such an inventive and funny boy like Young Bailey around, he would find that there's not much of a merit in being jolly.
Mod
I don't find Mrs. Todgers nearly as endeari..."
By the way, it struck me that Ruth's employers were so unappreciative that I couldn't help thinking that Dickens was exaggerating a lot here. The house alone made it obvious that the people living there must be cold-hearted and proud, and the behaviour of the girl was so nasty - her way of thinking so twisted - that I always felt the author was putting it on quite a lot.
The same can be said of Ruth's bursting into tears and her pretty answers and her throwing herself on her bed, crying, afterwards. Has ever a person, male or female, beyond teenage age (maybe even beneath) actually, really and truly, thrown him- or herself on a bed, crying? Outside cheap novels, or cut-and-dried telenovelas?
Mod
I imagine he wouldn't have taken so much t..."
I think that Tom Pinch is, like Newman Noggs, some sort of predestined bachelor. But let's wait and see.
Mod
Too tru..."
I thought that most cities in the U.S. have streets following a chessboard pattern? I always like that kind of thing in Argentina because it is quite easy to know your bearings and to find a particular address: the first block has numbers 1-10, the second numbers 11-20, the third 21-30, even if there are not enough houses in that block. But that way you always know how many blocks you have to walk, if walk is what you want to do.
In our European cities, mostly the streets follow any pattern they like, because those cities grew from medieval towns, and it is impossible to know, simply by the numbers of a house, how far the house is away from you. I remember once when I started my military service and wanted to walk to the barracks from the station, seeing that its number was 27 Yada Yada Road, or something. I started from the house in 1 Yada Yada Road and walked up to 15 Yada Yada Road, but soon I had left town and found the road go through forest. Miles of forest as it turned out, and no sign of house no 17. Luckily, I saw a military jeep appraoch and upon a sign from me they picked me up. It still was a ten minute drive to 27 Yada Yada Road, there being no houses for a while after 15 Yada Yada Road.
There you go: You don't know how lucky you are on the other side of the Atlantic. Keep that in mind as we are reading on Martin Chuzzlewit!
Tristram wrote: "Mark would probably not stay very long at Mrs. Todgers's because with such an inventive and funny boy like Young Bailey around, he would find that there's not much of a merit in being jolly."Ha!
Young Bailey is jolly in the face of .... ummm .... errrr .... ear pulling. He's got it all over Mark. Young Bailey is a jolly fellow, is he not?
Tristram wrote: "Has ever a person, male or female, beyond teenage age (maybe even beneath) actually, really and truly, thrown him- or herself on a bed, crying? Outside cheap novels, or cut-and-dried telenovelas? ..."Um, me. Sorry.
If you're going to throw yourself, might as well pick a soft place to land.
Mod
You are right, Julie, but I, as a fully-grown man, a portly one, as I may add, would run a danger, in throwing myself upon a bed, of making that bed collapse under me - and if I did that while crying, would that not be an example of bathos?
Mod
Tristram wrote: "Julie wrote: "but I, as a fully-grown man, a portly one, as I may add, would run a danger, in throwing myself upon a bed, of making that bed collapse under me - and if I did that while crying, would that not be an example of bathos?"1) I'm in full agreement that this would change the picture and the rhetorical affect considerably.
2) Surely Dickens must have written throws-self-on-furniture-and-it-collapses somewhere?
Mod
Tristram wrote: "As to your hypothesis under 2), I'd look in the Sketches as the most likely place to find something hilarious like that."Someday I'm just going to spend a lot of time on the Sketches.
Hello Curiosities
This is a long chapter, a very long chapter. At times, the description of Todgers’s seemed excessive to me. It read almost like it came from Sketches of Boz. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Dickens begins the chapter by telling us that in all the world there was not another place like Todgers’s. We learn that you cannot simply walk about in Todgers’s neighbourhood but must grope your way “for an hour through lanes and bye-ways, and courtyards, and passages.” We are told that more than once people who tried to navigate their way through Todgers’s simply gave up and returned to their own homes. There are many inhabitants of the area who were born, live, and will die in the region. Todgers’s itself is a commercial boarding house in the neighbourhood. It is a place with one window that has not been opened for at least 100 years. Its cellar is mysterious and the top of the house is worthy of notice if for no other reason than you could see the shadow of the Monument and a great variety of belfries, steeples, masts of ships and the like.
We learn that Mrs Todgers had once received the attentions of Mr Pecksniff. Mrs Todgers tells Mercy and Grace Pecksniff how difficult her life has been and the young ladies form the conclusion that Mrs Todgers struggles in life are similar to their father’s trials with Tom Pinch. This leap of logic was astonishing to me, but I’m learning to deal with the Pecksniffian surprises as best I can. The daughters launch into a condemnation of Tom Pinch and extend their condemnation to Tom’s sister who by her “presuming to exist at all is sufficient to kill one, but to see her - oh my stars!” Nothing like a healthy dose of pre-judgement. Pecksniff himself enters the room and we learn that he and his daughters are going to see Tom Pinch's sister. During this meeting, Mr Pecksniff’s arm manages to make it around Mrs Todgers’s waist. Hmmm?
Thoughts
Did you, like me, find the description of Todgers’s and the surrounding area excessive, or did you find it folded into the chapter effectively?
How might this description suggest or foreshadow events that might occur?
What is your impression of Mrs Todgers? What lead you to that decision?
We learn that Tom Pinch’s sister is a governess in a “lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founders’ family known to mankind.” Along with one “big” and one “giant’s” Dickens uses the word “great” eight times in one paragraph to describe the house. Mr Pecksniff, Mrs Todgers, Mercy and Charity make their way to this mansion and meet with Miss Pinch who turns out to be nothing like the Pecksniff’s assumed. Ruth Pinch has a pleasant face, a little figure, and is neat. Like her brother, Ruth has a gentle manner and is far from being the fright predicted by the Pecksniff sisters. Pecksniff introduces himself to Miss Pinch with his usual pompous fake humility and we learn from Miss Pinch’s speech to him that her brother speaks well of Pecksniff and his daughters and she thanks them for their kindness to her brother. Ruth Pinch, like her brother Tom, seem to share a common trait of always looking on the best side of everything. Pecksniff, his daughters, and Mrs Todgers cannot help but lavish praise on Ruth’s student and Pecksniff makes sure he gives a footman one of his cards. Mrs Todgers, not to be outdone, hands one of her cards to the footman as well. As Pecksniff and his entourage leave the mansion he comments on its architecture. Pecksniff is, of course, because of his students, an expert in his own mind on architecture. Outside Pecksniff spots a man looking out a window, assumes it is the proprietor of the house, only to be told to “come off the grass.”
Thoughts
What are your first impressions of Ruth Pinch? Do you think Dickens might continue to develop her character as the novel progresses? Why?
Do we learn anything more about Pecksniff and Todgers from this short visit to Ruth?
How could this visit be important later in the novel?
Sadly, this visit has created some problems for Ruth as her pupil has complained to “headquarters” about the visit. It is evident that Ruth Pinch may have a job in this wealthy home, but she is nevertheless in a very strict home where she is not appreciated. She, like her brother, share two common traits. First, they are both cheerful, albeit perhaps naive people, and second, their place of work or education is horrid.
Back at Todgers’s, it’s Saturday evening, a time it seems for people to expend energy and seek enjoyment. Key among the people was the boy Bailey who worked at Todgers’s. It seems that his purpose in the chapter is to create some humour. It will be interesting to see if Dickens brings Bailey back into our plot as he did Trabb’s boy or Joe the fat boy. We shall see.
Sunday dinner at Todgers’s is exciting as well. Pecksniff’s two daughters are to be in attendance with the gentleman borders. Mercy and Charity are introduced and it becomes a splendid occasion. Mr Jenkins as the senior and highly respected border gets to play the role of senior inhabitant and escort. The remainder of the residents at Todgers’s get into the spirit and we have quite the parade of people in the banquet hall of Todgers’s. What follows next is a lengthy dinner where each of the characters seem to parody the rich. To sum up, Dickens, with gentle but still a mocking tone, comments “Oh, Todgers’s could do it when it chose! Mind that.” At this point, I think Dickens for the second time slips into a Sketches by Boz mode and we have an extended description of the residents of Todgers’s drinking, making speeches, breaking glasses and the like. Slightly inebriated, the men bumble around the women. As for Pecksniff, he finds himself with Mrs Todgers and explains that he is rather somber since he is thinking of his beautiful departed wife who had “a small property” and his daughters and reveals to Mrs Todgers that he has a chronic medical issue. The issue seems to be that Mrs Todgers reminds Pecksniff of his former wife. He begins to squeeze her very tightly, and she asks him to stop. To that, Pecksniff replies that Mrs Todgers is very much like his wife. At this point it seems that Dickens has slipped into a rather theatrical mode of comedy or even farce. Pecksniff says he is lonely and Todgers says he is a gentleman. Again, hmmm. Is anything brewing here?
Overcome with emotion, Pecksniff gives his pitch for more architecture students to Mrs Todgers. Can he be that drunk? Well, after this speech he does fall into the fire-place only to be immediately rescued by a young border. Pecksniff is carried upstairs to bed but he reappears to talk some more. He is put to bed once more and gets up once more. Funny I imagine in a theatrical farce, but annoying to me in prose. The chapter ends with Pecksniff being locked in his room.
Thoughts
Oh my, but I found this chapter annoying. True, there were elements of humour concerning the Sunday supper but its aftermath seemed to spin out of control. What are your thoughts about the last few pages of this chapter?