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Jean's Charles Dickens Challenge
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Bionic Jean
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Aug 17, 2021 02:06PM
I like this illustration, by Harry Furniss, from 1910:
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It would be hard to know how to top such a chapter, and yet he does, with chapter 50. Although it is mostly quiet action, the plot - and the tension - are nicely cranked up with Pip's certainty about (view spoiler) and his revelation of this to Herbert. Dickens keeps the drama and the tension going, and he resists his usual tendency to slip in a few absurd and whimsical cameos as light relief.
Chapter 51 and 52 have less impact, and less action. We're still recovering, as Pip himself is, from recent events. Pip "outing" Wemmick's home life to Jaggers bothered me a great deal. Pip seemed to betray Wemmick's confidence on a whim. I could see no reason for it, and thought that Dickens resolved this in a very mealy-mouthed way, by hinting that it had added an extra dimension to the relationship between Wemmick and Jaggers. Bad show Pip!
But then when Pip lost his appetite, and we had the internal thoughts:
"Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!"
I could have shouted for joy! At last! Hurrah for Pip who has shown some moral calibre at long last! Nice that it was someone from his childhood, Mr Pumblechook, whom he never rated anyway, who effected this transformation :)
I'm wondering about the name "Startop". I was surprised to see him re-entering the novel anyway. Where's he been? And how come the pair are so sure he's trustworthy?
Is he a "star" to help them out? Or is it a pun - "start-up" starting up their schemes, or (view spoiler)
It is hard to not just keep reading, as the story is just so gripping! I've found with Dickens though that I miss a lot if I just read for the story.Some people feel that (view spoiler) was hard to take; that seeing Pip so broken-hearted was a kind of epiphany for her. That it would not have had such an effect after she had been wallowing in grief and feelings of twisted revenge. That Dickens should have allowed more time for us all to feel some compassion. I can totally buy into it though. After all, time meant nothing to her. She lived continuously in that one moment from her past. Time had stood still.
Chapter 51, againIt occurs to me that our caravan is rather like Wemmick's little sanctuary, of a castle and drawbridge, at home!
"What's all this?" said Mr Jaggers. "You with an old father, and you with pleasant and playful ways?"
I couldn't at first understand the need for this breaking of trust by Pip - neither in terms of his evolving character, nor as a necessary plot device! But Dickens can't help himself seeing the good side of most people I think - except his out and out villains. So this shows another, kinder side to Jaggers, whom we now believe will eventually retire from all the dubious legal proceedings, and not need to keep literally washing his hands of the dirty business, like Lady Macbeth.
Also, it gives another spin to the incident (view spoiler)
Another quotation I love from Chapter 52:" I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen imposter Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe."
It's a truism, that we take our family for granted, and that we may never appreciate them fully until we are older, and have perhaps lost them. I think one of the saddest phrases in the English language is "It's too late". This passage makes me hold my breath for Pip, that he might at least see Joe once more.
I am stunned by Chapter 53. How could I have forgotten this so totally? The entire chapter came as a surprise!What a wonderfully evocative description Dickens uses, to set the scene. It's so full of ominous foreboding, packed with the pathetic fallacy he uses to such effect:
"It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud.
There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back."
And yet by the end, when everything is looking so much better, we have:
"The winking lights upon the bridges ... a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well."
Having forgotten the content of this chapter entirely, I had assumed that (view spoiler) I was also staggered to meet Trabb's boy again! Dickens does like his neatly tied ends, accounting for even minor characters. Even the adult Pip could not bring himself to be grateful though - he has to get a dig in at him, and thus we bid farewell to Trabb's boy, a likeable rogue I thought.
We still get glimpses of Pip's shallow self-centredness, which I confess made me smirk a little:
"The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death."
So when he thinks he is about to die, what bothers him most is how people remember him, fearing that they would only think of his bad qualities. Herbert would assume that he had deserted them, and Joe and Biddy that he would not have had the chance to say he was sorry for his past actions. Presumably he now regrets once sending Joe a barrel of oysters as a stand-in for himself, although if he did now die, people would no doubt remember him quite accurately and fairly for the person he has been up to now! Old habits die hard!
Because this is written in the first person, and in retrospect, we know that Pip survives to tell the tale, so can enjoy the thrilling events to the full. I love the way the tension builds:"I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life."
And here's a nod towards the newly developing analytical psychology, perhaps, with the character of:
(view spoiler)
Chapter 54, and I had not remembered how protracted the (view spoiler)It's worth reading this entire chapter for this paragraph alone, I think :) And this:
"But I reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man.”
reveals such perception and intuitive understanding of the man's character from the later Pip, that it gives us a lovely glow inside.
And Pip's assurances:
"I will never stir from your side ... Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me" show that he has at long last fully matured and developed his proper sense of ethics. (view spoiler)
And I thoroughly enjoyed the character of Jack, presumably put in for light relief, who wears:
"interesting relics that he had taken from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore."
Boots again! Boots are a recurring motif in this novel - all to do with status I expect.
And the sea. Dickens is very fond of mentioning the sea, often when various of his characters are dying. Here water is present throughout the book, and (view spoiler) That happened on a Christmas Eve, and was the first time Pip felt aware of guilt and sin.
There always seems to be Christian imagery and symbols if you look, in Dickens's novels. Here's some more Christian imagery, in a related pair of paintings by William Holman Hunt: "The Light of the World":
and "The Awakening Conscience":
There are many instances in Great Expectations of someone carrying a candle for light. William Holman Hunt's painting, which he worked on between 1851-53 signifies the fact that Christian values are failing. Dickens's readers will have been very familiar with this, as it was only a few years earlier, as Great Expectations was published in 1861.
Another parallel is at the beginning of the novel - the upright agencies of the law banging on the door of the forge.
William Holman Hunt wanted these two painting hung side by side. In his book, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he said that he had been inspired by David Copperfield - specifically Peggotty's search for Emily. This gave him the idea, and he began to visit "different haunts of fallen girls" for suitable settings, not intending to illustrate any particular scene from David Copperfield, but trying to capture something more general: "the loving seeker of the fallen girl coming upon the object of his search".
I've known these two paintings all my life! Loved the Pre-Raphelites, especially as a teenager, and a reproduction of "The Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt was on the wall of my Sunday School Primary. It is a very popular image for Christmas cards etc here. And I see the original painting "The Awakening Conscience" whenever I visit the Tate Gallery :)
Over time, Dickens changed his views about the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais' first masterpiece, Christ in the House of his Parents, did not meet with his approval:"The painting was immensely controversial when first exhibited because of its realistic depiction of a carpentry workshop, especially the dirt and detritus on the floor. This was in dramatic contrast to the familiar portrayal of Jesus, his family, and his apostles in costumes reminiscent of Roman togas. Charles Dickens accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks
...so hideous in her ugliness that ... she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.
Critics also objected to the portrayal of Jesus, one complaining that it was "painful" to see "the youthful Saviour" depicted as "a red-headed Jew boy". Dickens described him as a "wry-necked, blubbering red-headed boy in a bed-gown, who appears to have received a poke...playing in an adjacent gutter". Other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions. Because of the controversy, Queen Victoria asked for the painting to be taken to Buckingham Palace so that she could view it in private."
Chapter 57:I am finding very difficult to hold on to my emotions. This is such a roller-coaster of laughter and tears. The moral turning point in Pip is so very great, and so convincing; the simple, honest goodness of Joe, so steadfast and stalwart. The satisfaction of learning that (view spoiler), thereby cleverly dealing with both reprobates in one fell swoop, is such heart-warming fare. I wanted to burst into tears every time Joe spoke, and giggled at the wonderful description of him writing a letter:
"At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin, and when he did begin, he made every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but on the whole he got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction."
Surely only Dickens could write this?! It is so very funny :D But because we well know this character and how he had lived his life - the sacrifices and sheer hard work of his daily grind - and how difficult it would be to accomplish this unfamiliar task, we know that this is an affectionate and respectful portrait. Only when we know a person very well can we feel the right to poke fun at them, and this I feel is what Dickens is doing, and inviting us to do as well. We feel that Joe could even be in on the joke himself.
(view spoiler)
I enjoyed the humour of this paragraph very much, but what actually made me burst out in a great guffaw (I was in the garden, so sorry neighbours!) was this description:"and they took his till, and they took his cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out"
I think it was the "flowering annuals" that finally did for me! LOL!
Great choice of person to be burgled! It fits right in with the idea of (view spoiler)
All that symbolic dream imagery! It seems to follow his journey to self-worth! Pip still has his selfish immature points. He is a bit of a fantasist, and has a rather good opinion of himself. But I think Dickens's portrait of him is spot on. What Pip is intending to do at the end of the chapter (view spoiler)is a nice touch. It shows that although Pip is trying to reform his ways, he still has some way to go. So I think that this is very subtle writing. It has veracity.
And finally here's my review of the wonderful novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Without question, I rate it ★★★★★This review's been burgeoning for a long time. I never wanted the book to end! And this time we actually have two endings!
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND This is Dickens's 14th novel, and the final completed one. His writing pace was slowing down, and he was beginning to feel ill as he wrote it.
Dickens reverted to just monthly instalments for this one, over 19 months, with the final one being double-length. Each issue had two illustrations by Marcus Stone, a new illustrator of his work I think. They're quite atmospheric, and the first ones to use woodcuts instead of steel plates.
Here's the original publishing schedule:
BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP
I – May 1864 (chapters 1–4)
II – June 1864 (chapters 5–7)
III – July 1864 (chapters 8–10)
IV – August 1864 (chapters 11–13)
V – September 1864 (chapters 14–17)
BOOK THE SECOND: BIRDS OF A FEATHER
VI – October 1864 (chapters 1–3)
VII – November 1864 (chapters 4–6)
VIII – December 1864 (chapters 7–10)
IX – January 1865 (chapters 11–13)
X – February 1865 (chapters 14–16)
BOOK THE THIRD: A LONG LANE
XI – March 1865 (chapters 1–4)
XII – April 1865 (chapters 5–7)
XIII – May 1865 (chapters 8–10)
XIV – June 1865 (chapters 11–14) *** the Staplehurst train accident happened now! Comments later.
XV – July 1865 (chapters 15–17)
BOOK THE FOURTH: A TURNING
XVI – August 1865 (chapters 1–4)
XVII – September 1865 (chapters 5–7)
XVIII – October 1865 (chapters 8–11)
XIX-XX – November 1865 [chapters 12–17 (Chapter the Last)
I've read the first three chapters and think it's his most grotesque beginning so far. Very dark! One more chapter to go before the end of the first instalment though. I'm wondering if this is influenced by his friend Edgar Allan Poe, with all that slime and ooze, the dirty foetid river Thames, with its dead and decaying bodies! I'm watching a cosy mystery on TV intermittently and it struck me how much grimmer and more morbid Dickens is in this novel! Gaffer Hexam scavenging the river at night to see what he could find? Finding a decomposing body in the first chapter?I'm also aware that when the police examine the bodies all the pockets are tuned out, and nothing of value in them. It seems to me that Gaffer Hexam may be not altogether straightforward here!
Dickens's view of London itself - not just the river - is very dark and bitter:
"The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe; down by where accumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds, like so much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight forced it over the bank and sunk it in the river."
I love the names as always ... the bird of prey, "Gaffer" Jesse Hexam and his daughter Lizzie and son Charley ... Mortimer Lightwood the lawyer, and his friend Eugene Wrayburn the barrister ... the Podsnaps (apparently Podsnap is based Dickens's friend and biographer, John Forster) and the Twemlows - oh and those wonderful social climbers, the Veneerings with everything "bran new"!! LOL! That's such a lovely descriptive name, and reminds me of an earlier character, Miss Prism, the governess with her insistence on "polish" who was hired to "finish" Little Dorrit and her sister's education.
Of course he was in the early stages of his final illness. So perhaps he gauged the balance badly to start with, and that's why it didn't sell very well. I think his fans might have liked his amusing cameos more!
Ah, now with chapter 4 he's giving us lots of ridiculous humorous cameos with the numerous Wilfers. The cherubic-faced father:"So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that his old schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable to withstand the temptation of caning him on the spot,"
and martyred mother with her:
"It is as you think; not as I do."
The eldest daughter still living with them, Bella Wilfer, is insufferably vain and coquettish. But we're getting a good mystery here - I've a feeling the new lodger is important. And is Dickens dropping broad hints about something here?
"On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stress—and might have laid greater, had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had a twin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man.”
How that coquette Belle reminds me of Mercy Pecksniff. The martyred mother reminds me of several Dickens females.
Altogether there is a wealth of detail in the first four chapters. I had thought that I'd read this, but it has a lot of episodes where the descriptions and metaphorical characters, such as Tremlow, are new to me. I have a facsimile of the first edition - bought years ago from a shop in Hay-on-Wye (famous for antiquarian bookshops) called "Boz" :) I looked at an original, and some of the original magazines in a box file, but they were all a bit pricey so I just bought the facsimile.
I've just been sitting in the doctor's waiting room splitting my sides at chapter 5! There Noddy Boffin with his "diseased (deceased) governor", asking Silas Wegg:"‘How did you get your wooden leg?’
Mr Wegg replied, (tartly to this personal inquiry), ‘In an accident.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Well! I haven’t got to keep it warm,’ Mr Wegg made answer, in a sort of desperation occasioned by the singularity of the question."
And this:
"You are provided with the needful implement—a book, sir?’
‘Bought him at a sale,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off. Do you know him?’
‘The book’s name, sir?’ inquired Silas.
‘I thought you might have know’d him without it,’ said Mr Boffin slightly disappointed."
Then with the misremembering of "Roman Empire" as "Rooshan Empire" and all the consequent misunderstandings .... Oh my, I was like a limp rag when I finally went in to see the doctor! Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother reading anybody else - Dickens has such an eye for the absurd!
There's one edition with 40 illustrations by Marcus Stone. The illustrations compendium I mentioned before has 58 by J. Mahoney.I particularly like the very first illustration by Marcus Stone:
and its description "The Bird of Prey". I thought the reaction of Lizzie's reaction to her father's trade was very powerful throughout:
She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch of dread or horror."
This sort of job is one nobody would want to do, but if someone doesn't do this, the bodies would remain in the river. On the other hand, this illustration is very revealing.
Gaffer Hexam doesn't do this out of any sense of community spirit, whether it is his job or not! I think Gaffer Hexam is in it for what he can get; he's a scavenging bird of prey, an image which both Dickens and Marcus Stone put into our minds.
He seems to me like a rather disreputable version of a beachcomber, abiding by the law insofar as he reports any bodies he finds (after pinching the contents of their pockets, we are led to believe), and not doing it in an official capacity.
There were similar (and possibly worse) ways of scraping a living in Victorian London, such a Mudlark, who was usually a child between the age of about 8 and 14, who dredged the banks of the Thames River when the tide was out, wading through raw sewage (and sometimes even dead bodies) to find any small treasures they could sell, and there's a Tosher who, sometimes along with his family, scavenged in the London sewers, also looking for small things to sell. All horrid ways to earn a living though, I agree :(
In chapter 6, we see a reference to mudlarks:
"A knot of those amphibious human-creatures who appear to have some mysterious power of extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were gathered together about the causeway." (view spoiler)
"The Grapes" on the banks of the Thames:
was the inspiration for Dickens's "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters", described as:
"A tavern of dropsical appearance... long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. It had outlasted many a sprucer public house, indeed the whole house impended over the water but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver, who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all."
You can still visit this inn, by the way, and have a meal and a tipple or two! But hopefully not bump into Silas Wegg and his cronies ;)
The first instalment (chapters 1-4) had so many milieux, characters, and the start of multiple plot-lines. One friend has said it is like a crime novel, with clues hidden amongst the wonderful, sly, humour, dialogue and descriptions. And links between the groups too :)I love Twemlow, like "an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors." He is a cousin of Lord Snigsworth’s (fabulous names, both!) He never knows whether he's the Veneering’s oldest or newest friend. Twemlow, like the table leaf used as a metaphor for him. Twemlow is in a state of confusion as to his social status and his friendship with the Veneerings because he's constantly being shuffled around. If its only a small gathering, the leaves are not opened out, so he's close to the Veneerings. But with a larger party, the leaves are added, and the seating arrangement changes. Twemlow finds himself:
"further from the centre, and the nearer to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at the other."
His sense of self-worth seems to depend on how far away he was from his hosts and the main diners.
And the Veneerings themselves:
"And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings—the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.”
In other words, what the Veneerings have to conceal is probably the fact that they don't actually have anything to hide at all! Except that they are obviously social climbers, keen on giving dinner parties and making new acquaintances. They are completely shallow, so the more people they know, the less obvious it will be that they are quite new to this social circle.
And "veiled" Mrs. Veneering always hiding behind her husband's pretentiousness.
There are lots of mysteries already :)It's struck me just how important to Dickens the river Thames is. His preceding novel, Great Expectations had two crucial scenes there, at the beginning and ending of the book, and river imagery, water, and waves, and the sea, permeate all of them; often when someone is dying, or to indicate the passage of time, or a long journey either literal or metaphoric. I think for Dickens, the river was "alive".
He is very connected to the river, as the life of the city is connected to it. It both gives and takes life away, as well.
This is the opening of chapter 6, about the inn "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters", which is now called "The Grapes" (post 574):"The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all ...
The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors and doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, seemed in its old age fraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it had become gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots started out of it; and here and there it seemed to twist itself into some likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an air of being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not without reason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters, that when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and particularly upon an old corner cupboard of walnut-wood in the bar, you might trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, in full umbrageous leaf."
I've missed out the middle paragraph, about the back view. The entire description continues about the interior, for about the same length again. I love this writing. Dickens always imbues his buildings with as much personality as his grotesque cameos :)
chapter 7 introduces another character: Mr Venus, (view spoiler). Such grotesque black humour here, with My Venus's answer to "‘Where am I?’ asks Mr Wegg." But I'm beginning to realise that this book is about money, and specifically, money from refuse and remains.
Mr. Venus has heaps of body parts and stuffed creatures in his dimly-lit store, and (view spoiler). Silas Wegg has a stand comprising
"a grim little heap"
of assorted items for sale. He is envied his ability to read by Boffin. Boffin lives in
"an enclosed place where certain tall dark mounds rose high against the sky",
ie he already has heaps of refuse, which is easily converted into cash, which Wegg is greedy to obtain with all his bargaining (entertaining though it is!) Gaffer Hexam drags the river for rubbish which he can sell - (view spoiler)
All these characters are making their living in the world from human leftovers and cast-offs - sometimes even to the very bodies of humans themselves.
There are yet more mysteries at the end of the second instalment - end of chapter 7. And some great indications for us to mull over ...Venus says: "I took an interest in that discovery in the river," says Venus. "(She hadn't written her cutting refusal at that time.) I've got up there ---never mind, though."
And:
"The old gentleman was well known all around here. There used to be stories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dust mounds ..."
The threads are being woven into a veritable spider's web! I wonder which big fat spiders we are going to find in the middle!
Chapters 8 and 9 I know the Boffins are probably supposed to be naive and unworldly, but I do like them a lot! They are so optimistic, and know that having a lot of money does not always mean someone will be happy! Old Harmon was, according to Mr Boffin, “a awful Tartar” obsessed with his fortune, but he “found it a great lot to take care of”. Mrs Boffin is very soft-hearted, having nightmares about the little boy. And the way they want to do their best, and share their good fortunes with others (view spoiler)is so essentially good-natured. A great contrast to the Veneerings!
I like this:
"These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far on in their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and desire to do right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detected in the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in the breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and sordid nature that had wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days, for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never been so warped but that it knew their moral straightness and respected it. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it had done so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never."
And just laughed out loud at Eugene Wrayburn's indignation, when he was told he should work harder at the Law. He strongly objected to being given the bee as an example:
"‘Ye-es,’ returned Eugene, disparagingly, ‘they work; but don’t you think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need—they make so much more than they can eat—they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them—that don’t you think they overdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don’t? Mr Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for you.’”
Lavinia Wilfer's view of George Sampson: "Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in his mental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite application to any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness that made his eyes water”
put me in mind of Amy Dorrit's elder sister Fanny's view of her equally dim beau, Mrs. Merdle's son "Sparkler", whose highest accolade was always that a female had "no dashed nonsense about her"!
But actually what made me prick up my ears most about this chapter, with the Reverend Milvey and his wife trying to think of a suitable candidate for the Boffins' beneficence, was that it's the first time we've heard mention of the book's title Our Mutual Friend. Now we have it confirmed that it refer to the Wilfers' lodger, whom they seems to dislike and mistrust, and who certainly seems to be very mysterious to us too. Can we trust him?
I like the Boffins very much. As a friend said, they have goodness that comes from the best place. They are also likely to be taken advantage of, but it is that very vulnerability that makes them so attractive. They are unlikely to be spoiled by a windfall, and are just the kind of people we like to see come into some money.I also like Eugene Wrayburn's wit! There is so much wordplay and humour in this novel, but we need it, to offset the desperation at the core of it.
chapter 10 - perhaps I was in the wrong mood for this, or perhaps time has just moved on so that the Veneerings' wedding preparations for "the two mature young people", just seemed to me a a bit self-indulgent and overwritten. Yes, it's social satire, but I'm afraid I wanted to get on with the story!I did enjoy the portrait of Lady Tippins though, of whom:
"you could easily buy all you see [of her], in Bond Street”
Oh Dickens you rascal!
But when we got on to what actually happened between these two I was riveted again. Sophronia and and Alfred Lammle are ... not happy! LOL! It's just so ironic and entertaining! How well they deserved each other! Simply Divine justice, or serendipity, or karma, or whatever you will :)
I must admit to being all agog now to learn what will come of their joint scheming too!
Money money money! This whole novel seems riddled with it in all its forms. It's there from the "Old Tartar"'s saving a few pennies at the expense of a child to Mr Boffin willing to spend thousands of pounds in an attempt to secure justice. The Veneerings, nouveau riches, pretending to a social position they are unused, and the Lammles (view spoiler). We have dust heaps and rags - yet even the dust heap are a source of great wealth. Mortimer says "Mr. Boffin, everything wears to rags". So over time, everything wastes away to nothing and has no value. And what is the central mystery. Who is this Rokesmith. Is that to do with money too? It seems more than likely!
Just about everyone in this novel seems to be motivated by greed, envy, jealousy, false pretences and hypocrisy - except for my friends the Boffinses :) But I must admit to sitting up every time Silas Wegg enters the scene - he's just such a crazy character altogether that his greed seems almost endearing!
Here's Boffin's describing Wegg to a rather confused Rokesmith:
"I have in my employment a literary man - with a wooden leg -as I have no thoughts of parting from ...Professionally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry."
It just brings the original side-splitting scene right back again!
My sides will not recover until the end of the novel, I fear! What about the wonderfully-named "dismal boy, whose appropriate name was Blight" going through the Appointments Diary, inventing a list of ridiculously similar-sounding names, to give the impression that he is run off his feet! A rather inefficient business therefore looks a healthy one, and so everyone ends up happy - not least this reader :)
I'm not sure about Eugene Wrayburn. He's mysterious, but I don't know if he's actually sinister. Perhaps Dickens is teasing us! This seems a very familiar device of his, to introduce a "stranger" or someone who has two identities. Little Dorrit has the (view spoiler) character, A Tale of Two Cities has the (view spoiler) duo. Most novels have twins or doppelgängers in some form, sometimes as minor characters, and sometimes as a hero - or sometimes a villain.
The Boffin/Milvey plot lthread, with Rokesmith as lodger and putative secretary. Their idea of adopting a boy is a surprise! Well, The only slightly worrying thing I found about it was the idea that Mrs Boffin would dispense with a carriage to enable it! It made me wonder how responsible they would be! Otherwise they can't put a foot wrong in my book. Mr Boffin wants to improve himself, and learn, ridiculous though his solution is! And I think the Marcus Stone illustration of them is spot on :)Then we finish with the comic Veneerings/Lammles chapter which is hilarious. The Lammles' honeymoon by the seaside illustration is really good. But what is their relevance to the main plot - or are they just in for comic relief, like the wonderful, typical throwaway cameo of Blight. I think we'll probably see a lot more of the Lammles, and the chaos they might cause. Or they could be a plot device like the Veneerings, and a comic way of introducing yet more characters!
Lightwood and Wrayburn are present in all the threads so far.
We haven't seen Lizzie and Charley Hexham since ch 6, so I hope they come back into the actions soon :) We have a brother and sister combination again. And funny how characters called "Charley" are always good. It reminds me of Charley in Bleak House worked so hard to look after her little brothers and sisters.
Installment 4 (or chapters 11-13, as we know it). Chapter 11
I like the description of Mr Podsnap very much. He was:
"conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself".
"Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion."
"Mr Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically"
What an oaf!! But of course it's led to "Podsnappery", which we still use. The dictionary defines it as "smug self-satisfaction and a lack of interest in the affairs of others". It was nice to meet the original for it!
We met the original character on whom "Pecksniffian" was based: Seth Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit. The dictionary defines "Pecksniffian" as "hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles", but I like "Podsnappery" just as much :)
A "Scrooge" as meaning a skinflint, has passed into our vernacular, and I think "Pickwickian" has too, but these two are a little less well known, perhaps.
So now we have no less than three "charming" families, all concerned above all else with their social standing - the Lammles, the Veneerings and the Podsnaps. Yet they are all so different, and all in blissful ignorance of the others' true natures.
I do feel rather sorry for the innocent Georgiana:
"Miss Podsnap's life had been, from her first appearance on this planet, altogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap's young person was likely to get little good out of association with other young persons, and had therefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older persons, and with massive furniture."
even though that last clause made me guffaw a bit! But after all that dire early experience, and being such a shy little mouse, she now appears to be (view spoiler).
So Podsnap was probably based on based on John Forster - increasingly staid and intensely respectable. Michael Slater suggested this in his bio in 2009. It seems more than likely - but what a picture to draw of a friend!
Chapters 12-13Love this description:
“That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when the wind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence can it come, whither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, is caught flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at every pump, cowers at every grating, shudders upon every plot of grass, seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails."
and this one even more:
"The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their many hands, bemoaning that they had been over-persuaded by the sun to bud; the young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early marriages, like men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not in floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled and pinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled."
And so we meet Rogue Riderhood - not a very attractive man with the appearance of a dead drowned cat on his head ... and I laughed and laughed at "Alfred David", as I had quite fixed the name in my mind as being another new character Dickens had introduced!
Oh oh oh - Dickens's marriage to Catherine was in tatters. Is this really a reference to the Lammleses, or is it a dig at poor Catherine?
"the sparrows repented of their early marriages, like men and women... "
and even this one:
"Such a black shrill city, combining the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife "
though perhaps he would have written that one at any time.
Eugene Wrayburn is becoming increasingly sinister to my mind.
And this section ends on a real cliffhanger!
Is Eugene Wrayburn attracted to Lizzie?
I've been searching for more evidence that John Forster was the satirical model for Podsnap. I do have Michael Slater's biography of Dickens, but not to hand as I'm in the caravan, so can't have a look! Aaargh! It does seem to be a view shared by several critics, but Charles Dickens himself denied it, presumably wanting to keep the friendship!! From Wiki, for what it's worth:
"Dickens insisted he only used some of Forster's mannerisms for this character, who was in no way to represent his closest friend. Forster, like Dickens, rose with difficulty from an impoverished middle-class background. The character of Podsnap was used to represent the views of "Society,"..."
and the rest of the sentence is spoilerish, so don't look at the entry if you don't know the novel!
I have support from fellow Dickensian friends, ie chapter and verse, in my isolation here!At home I have Jane Smiley's excellent biography, and have been told it contains these words:
"Tradition has it that Podsnap was based on none other than John Forster, as Harold Skimpole had been based upon Leigh Hunt, and once again Dickens managed to betray a friend and portray a characteristic at the same time, though tradition also has it that he got away with it and that Forster never revealed whether or not he realized what Dickens had done."
which is a little different from the Wiki article, which I thought rather implied that Forster was well aware of it.
And a biography of John Forster himself, by James A. Davies, entitled John Forster: A Literary Life, contains references to several pieces of Forster's writing, which are uncannily similar to speeches by Podsnap. Davies also refers to another biography by Edgar Johnson, which says:
"All Forster's acquaintances recognized his mannerisms embedded in Podsnap - the indignant flush, the sweeping gesture of dismissal."
The rest of the final installment. ch 15-17 and we have yet more of Dickens's moods and more new characters!! I think this has the most characters yet in a Dickens novel at this stage, and many of them do not seem to be connected, if they ever will. On the other hand, I don't propose to take notes (other than these musings) as it's all immensely entertaining and his cameos are a delight! In a way, the discursiveness reminds me of right at the beginning of his career, and The Pickwick Papers.Other aspects, such as Bette Higden's dread and horror of the workhouse, and Dickens's own diatribes against schools, and against bogus charity seekers, are familiar territory.
Betty Higden may have been based on a real person, apparently. In 1973 Harland S. Nelson claimed that Dickens's inspiration for two of the novel's working class characters, Gaffer Hexam and Betty Higden, were real London working class people, whom Henry Mayhew had interviewed in the 1840s for his nonfiction work London Labour and the London Poor. Some of Dickens's contemporaries had thought all the characters in Our Mutual Friend were unrealistic representations of actual Victorian people, but Nelson asserted that London's nineteenth-century working class was authentically depicted through characters such as Gaffer Hexam and Betty Higden.
More from ch 14-17.The writing is so enjoyable in these chapters whether it's descriptive, or Dickens giving one of his hectoring over-the-top scathing satires. I do love his lively language, and the way he imbues building and furniture with their own personalities:
"Black with wet, and altered to the eye with white patches of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked lower than usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk with the cold."
It's interesting that Dickens always seem to have the utmost respect for the police. Inspector Bucket in Bleak House was a very sympathetic portrayal, and and a very early incarnation of a detective in fiction. Here's another:
"It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted Mr Inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt on a summer evening by some soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain minutes, and a few directions to the rest to ‘ease her a little for’ard,’ and ‘now ease her a trifle aft,’ and the like, he said composedly, ‘All clear!’ and the line and the boat came free together."
So restrained, Dickens? Not even one sarcastic adjective?
And the chapter of the Boffinses was hugely enjoyable, as ever. I sit up when there's a bit about them. As I do with Silas Wegg - although my feelings toward that character are very different ... (view spoiler)
The episode with Bette Higden, and the orphans as potential adoptees, I thought hugely funny! It did ring true as well. I remember my grandmother saying that there was a general fear of being sent to the workhouse, and the sense of being poor but proud, and not accepting "charity", still prevailed This Mr Rokesmith does not have a sense of presence to me yet, even though he is the title character. This little bit is, I think the first time we have gained any insight at all into his personality:
(view spoiler)
So, the title of this book? "The Cup and the Lip". How does the proverb go? "There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip." And I'm wondering now about the title of the entire book. We've been given to understand it's Mr Rokesmith, but there's so much about money, and the parallels between money and dust/rubbish, and how impermanent they both are, plus the various ways of acquiring it, good and bad, that I'm wondering if "money" is "our mutual friend".It's a phrase used in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë too!
Such contrasts. I love the Boffins and feel conflicted about Bella. I find Silas Wegg the most disgustingly dishonest character in the book! He seems completely out for his own ends, twisting others round his little finger ... but SO entertaining :DThe Boffinses remind me of the Cheeryble brothers in Nicholas Nickleby. They were based on real life: a pair of twin brothers who were well-known benefactors, and whom Dickens much admired and wanted to immortalise in print. It's certainly a similarly affectionate portrait :) Nicholas Nickleby is such a wonderful romp of a ride :) I think it has everything Dickens does best!
But Our Mutual Friend has so many characters, mysteries and divergent story lines - and yet Charles Dickens will doubtless tie everything together for us by the end. I know there's so much more to come in Our Mutual Friend, but I am really enjoying the complexity of it. There are so many characters I'd completely forgotten! And they're still coming in Book 2!
Please reserve this thread for my personal use, until I have transferred all my notes. (I'm doing it bit by bit!) Thank you!
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Books mentioned in this topic
Our Mutual Friend (other topics)Nicholas Nickleby (other topics)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
The Pickwick Papers (other topics)
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Charles Dickens (other topics)Anne Brontë (other topics)
Henry Mayhew (other topics)
Harland S. Nelson (other topics)
John Forster (other topics)
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