Nicholas Nickleby: Intro comments and Chapters 1 - 10

[Werner]

Thanks for the background on Dame Sybil, Jean! (I'd never heard of her before reading her name in the book.)

[Ruth]

It made me sad to see how Mrs. Nickleby was so quick to let Ralph's words change her mind about her husband. She let his words taint even the good memories
It seems like she means well, but she has a problem with pride. If she would consider carefully rather than jumping to whatever her brain comes up with first and stubbornly sticking to that, she'd see the world a lot more accurately.

[Werner]

Well said, Ruth!

[Bonnie]

Jim wrote: "Looking back a bit, Peter wrote "I laughed at Nicholas being called Knuckleboy, but then paused. Dickens loves to assign cratylic names to his characters."
I cannot recall the last time I encountered that wonderful word cratylic (of intriguing Roman origin)!"

I looked up cratylic.
comes from Plato’s dialogues with Cratylus about the truthfulness or nature of names.
...
Fixed characteristics / convey something about the character's character / tell something about the character / reveal something essential about the character / correspond to the nature of the thing named

Names in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

What Kind of Name Is That? in The Paris Review:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Ah Ruth - Mrs Nickleby really is a bit of a conundrum isn't she? We're never quite sure how much she is aware of what is happening, but she is certainly very self-involved 🙄

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Bonnie - Thank you so much for sharing those interesting links 😊John Mullan, the author of the first article, has written many books on English Literature including The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist in 2020, which is very good!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Here is another Link to the next thread.

Please make sure you tick the "notify me when people comment" box to get updates from it. Thanks!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That's good to hear, Stephen!