Kyle’s Reviews > Martin Chuzzlewit > Status Update

For the couple supposedly central to his eponymous tale, Martin and Mary are curiously absent from the four weddings and one major comeuppance that finishes off this wandering storyline. Even the now-childless neighbours from Eden make more of a narrative impact on Mark than any signs of the former emigrant reunited with his love. And Dickens leaves it up to Tom and his kindhearted sister to account for his concerns.

So close to the end, and so much new soil gets turned over, even characters seem to be overturned. Young Martin a bitter suitor, Mark Tapley less than his jolly self, Mrs Gamp being useful (at last) but her attachment to Mrs Harris brought into question, and Old Martin a shrewd judge of character! All these twists, but why was Tom Pinch brought so low as to shed a tear upon his book? Let's see "when rogues fall out"!

In Jasper Fforde's novel The Eyre Affair, the villain Acheron Hades kidnaps a minor character from Martin Chuzzlewit called Quaverley, who is killed and therefore never appears in Dickens' story. I wondered who this overlooked character might have been based upon, and the hen-pecked Moddle seems a close cousin to the extinguished Quaverley. Other characters like Tigg are done in, yet Gamp survives!

It is a race to the bottom between Jonas, Tigg and Pecksniff, and I cannot wait to see who loses the most from the Anglo-Bengalee flim-flam. Knowing that Tigg will soon be out of the running makes me keen to see how much worse it will get for his newly-acquired partners. If anyone deserves the worst, it would be the hypocrite for his disdainful treatment of Mark and Martin; even they seem to know how it will wrap up.

More from the domestic front with the Pinches, and some love blossoming between John and Ruth, as well as tips on how to make beef-steak pudding without suet. A strange circumstance at the docks brings Tom, Ruth, Tigg, Jonas and Gamp :-/ together – seriously, what is up with this woman, other than her loose grip on the English language? Romeo & Juliet gets alluded to, but another tragedy seems to be on Dickens' mind.

Tom Pinch pulls out of his post-Pecksniff funk with an amazing amount of humility and acumen; I could relate to his words spoken out in the defense of his sister Ruth, especially telling that brass-and-copper fat cat of 19th century London how bankrupt his rights really were. And it seems like Jonas now has a motive for his eventual murder, with Tigg Nadgetting his every waking moment, and profiting off Jonas' greed.

Martin and Mark's final days in Eden, as well as a wrap-up to their stint in the United States, was rushed and somewhat confused, similar to how most emigrants feel when they get to the point that they make plans to return home; never enough time to do what you want but plenty of time, it seems, for people like Pogram to expound upon a country you are determined to leave. Martin's new-found humility suits him better.

The emptying of the architect's house first occurs with his sharper-than-a-serpant's-tooth daughter, and later by his hitherto faithful pupil Pinch. Both leave because of Pecksniff's designs on Mary, and in a moment much resembling act one of Richard III, he hoodwinks old Martin and threatens to ruin young Martin unless Mary agrees to be his wife. Another strange coupling happens by the end of chapter 32 at Todger's.

The plot seems to have picked up, after a few chapters of colourful characters chatting about who-knows-what, and the fateful reunion of Jonas and Tigg will set the stage for more drama in the second half of the novel. The Anglo-Bengalee insurance company is exactly the kind of corporation Dickens could disclaim, no doubt a progenitor of Scrooge and Marley's firm. Even Shakespeare gets a less than auspicious mention.

After a longish gap between starting this number, with young Martin lost in the New World