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Hello Froggies! This weekend I finished reading Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens. When I started into the book as is most often the case with me because I like to just experience the book instead of being influenced by the back cover blurb or the introduction, I went into the book with absolutely no idea what Martin Chuzzlewit was about. You wouldn't do that would you? I do that all the time with classics. This one was no different. "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens is one of my favorites of all time. That one is about a long protracted estate type litigation which makes basically everyone miserable. I learned the word "deportment" from that book. What is your deportment like as you are reading this? Anyway, when I got into Martin Chuzzlewit I learned that it too was of a similar vane although without the litigation but instead a dying old wealthy man who then we find the family members coming out of the woodwork and scheming and plotting etc in order to get their hands on that fortune. Sadly, this is something that in my day job I see somewhat often. That did not detract from my enjoyment of the book, however. The characters were great, the "wit" in this one was better than in Bleak House or at least more pronounced. Both I see have been labled as satires. So the name Chuzzlewit was an appropriate name for this one. I liked all the various names and characters of the book. He came up with some fun and silly names for the characters and then exagerated some of their personality traits just the right amount I thought to make them interesting and somewhat comical. Because it is quite a tragic comedy of life really the whole situation and how stupid people can behave. There are some surprises in the book as well which is a nice touch. The setting is in provincial England and some of it in London and some of it even in America. The scene of America was not painted very nicely I might add. It was greatly done. My only criticism of the book which is approximately 760 pages is the last two pages when one of the main characters, one of the most endearing naieve characters of a simple disposition. I read these pages aloud to my BFF as I wrapped up the book and was disappointed that they were written in a very different style from the rest of the book. Too flightly, too abstract, but I will not let those two pages detract from my overall enjoyment of this book. It too I am putting in my favorites of all time list. It was a friend to me for quite a while. I started it on 7 Sept 2026 and finished it on 24 October 2026. I am considering next year embarking on a long-term project of re-reading my favorites of all time to revisit old friends while still mixing new classics in there too. We will see if I end up doing that, thinking about it. What books have you read multiple times? for me at this point they are just two: A Sand County Almanac and Don Quixote my absolute favorite of all time still, hands down. Now I am embarking on a Penguin Twentieth Century Classic publication of Sea and Sardinia and also will be re-approaching Finnegan's Wake which I DNF'd long ago and it has been bothering me ever since. I will finish it, but it is going to be worked through slow with a different approach. One that simply seeks to read it to try to decipher the 'feelings' associated with it instead of trying to do the impossible, 'to understand' it. Maybe there is an Audio Book of it too I might work in with it to make it less painful. |
 Next up Sea and Sardinia by DH Lawrence, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics! Concurrently with Finnegan's Wake, also a Penguin Twentieth Century Classic publication. Join me in either!  |