Good god, was this a snoozer. I love Charles Dickens like nobody's business, but this book was about 600 pages longer than it needed to be. If he was getting paid by the page, I'm not hatin', but it seemed to drag on and on and on without really going anywhere.

Little Dorrit herself is a really boring character because she is a meek little Mary Sue whose entire personality consists of being weak, submissive, and a pushover to everybody else.

The plot is kind of vague and poorly defined and goes off into weird tangents at times. I finished the book with a few things left unanswered, and the ending felt kind of anticlimactic and rushed (sort of ironic given how the pace dragged the rest of the way).

Where this book shines is in Dickens' wonderfully written secondary characters and his brilliant descriptions of an intentionally inept and horribly ineffective bureaucracy. His writing is witty and engaging, and he's quite good at writing memorable characters.

I just feel like that wasn't enough to make this book memorable as a whole, though, especially when Dickens has so many fantastic novels. I'd recommend this book to fans of Dickens, but for everybody else, pass on this one!

Little Dorrit is one of the less reviewed Dickens, it is clearly not “up there” with Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and whatnot. I wish I could advance a theory as to why but I can’t because Little Dorrit really does deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those acclaimed titles. Anyway, it’s been years since I read a Dickens and it is always nice to pick one up. I just get a kick out of his writing style, the way the prose occasionally switch into a poetic / rhythmic mode, the way every character seems to have their own distinctive speech pattern and catch phrases, and the characters and story of course.

I am fairly useless at deciphering themes from novels but if there is a single overriding theme in Little Dorrit that communicates itself to me I would say it is the virtue of modesty. The eponymous Little Dorrit (real name Amy Dorrit) is a young lady of twenty+, small in stature, unassuming in manner, without an atom of malice, kindly and virtuous to a fault. She is one of Dickens’ angelic girl stock characters. Yet the novel also shows that always being self-sacrificing, never thinking or doing anything for oneself can lead to a lot of unhappiness and being taken for granted by the people we are servicing. (TV Tropes.com classify this character type as “Incorruptible Pure Pureness”!). Sometimes I am a little resentful that Dickens expects me to love this shrinking violet of a character but her niceness does club me into submission after a while. If only real people could be like this.

n  “This is the way in which she is doomed to be a constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she unto them should be.”n

Besides being a character study Dickens also has a lot to say about the bureaucracy, the class system of the time, debtors prisons and whatnot. I don’t want to go into details about such weighty matters but a special note should be made for the Circumlocution Office, a fictional government office which is a great bit of lampooning about red tapes.

Dickens’ prose is great to read as always, sometimes beautiful, sometimes sarcastic, and sometimes hilarious. The dialogue similarly ranges from silly to heartfelt and profound, it brought a lump to this throat a few times. A very rare thing while reading I assure you. I am more sedimental than sentimental.

In rating the book so high I am really cutting Dickens a lot of slack. His usage of deus ex machina at several plot points is a little outrageous. People become rich and poor at the drop of a hat, buildings fall on people just because they deserve it. Still, the way I see it a five stars rating does not indicate that the book is perfect; it just means that I like it a lot and am willing to forgive its flaws.

If you were made to read Dickens at school and have consequently been avoiding him like the plague to this day as an adult reader I would suggest you give him another try. Personally, I am always up for a bit of Dickens, my favorite Victorian author probably.
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Notes:
• This review is based on the audiobook version amazingly well read by Mil Nicholson (with voices and accents galore), available for free at Librivox.

• The BBC adaptation is very good (they almost always are).

Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit is an intricate tale with a wide cast of characters, each leading a seemingly separate life, who become interwoven in a story contrasting the poverty of social prominence with the wealth of a commonplace life. Prison, both physical and social, is a recurrent theme. Some critics and scholars consider it among Dickens' finest novels. I disagree. Little Dorrit is representative of the author's later, darker period of literary output, and as such suffers from an overly-emotional and gloomy atmosphere. The novel's narrative flow is undermined by excessive length, no doubt resulting from prolonged serialization. One hundred pages should have been cut – reducing it to a mere pygmy of eight hundred pages. Dickens devoted too much space to characters and story lines irrelevant to the novel's main threads. The roles of Miss Wade and Tattycoram were superfluous, as was the prolonged (yet hilarious) exposition on the Circumlocution Office and its family Barnacle. Despite its length, Dickens wrapped up the complex story in only the last seventy pages by using a calamitous event of "B movie" dimensions to resolve the enduring Clennam family mystery. According to John Holloway's introduction to this Penguin Classics edition of 1967, Dickens was preoccupied with “working the story round” to its conclusion. He should have worked it around some more.

While steeped in social commentary, Little Dorrit is not lacking in distinctive Dickensian comic creations – such as Mrs. Plornish, Clarence Barnacle, Mr. Pancks, and Mr. F's aunt. These redeem it to a great extent and raise the novel to a Three Star ranking, but if a friend asked me for a recommendation of a Dickens novel, it wouldn't be Little Dorrit.

I was reading a book of conversations with the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and in it he actually said that Dickens was a hack writer, and I think back in the 20's or 30's when these conversations took place that might've been the consensus opinion.

But what malarkey!
What balderdash!
What unmitigated posh and drivel!

Yes, his characters are more often than not cartoonish.
Yes, he can ooze sentimentality from even his schnozz pores. Yes, saccharine notions of love and loyalty were the air he breathed.
Yes, he romanticized gamins and waifs.

But the writing itself is surcharged and so chock-a-block with detail and incident as to be visionary. As big as most of his late books are I still find virtually every word important and potent, and his natural vitality, nearly insane energy, often seems to be straining to break through his words, as when he adopts a strategy of repetition (see page 1 of Bleak House) and in a prosey way almost outdoes Poe's insanity of repetition in the poem The Bells.

The book of dialogues with Whitehead is good though, I just got annoyed when he said that about Dickens.

I first read this a few decades ago and it’s not my favourite Dickens but it has some great moments. This time I read it one chapter a day with the Dickensian group buddy read here on Goodreads. Such a great way to read these books getting so many insights and extra info.
My favourite parts? Definitely the circumlocution office. Dickens really goes to town on the government bureaucracy set up so nothing can be done and the long line of entitled but useless rich people who get cushy jobs in the place. Then there’s the Merdle investment scam and so many people drawn into investing their savings and of course the bubble bursts. How easy it seems to appeal to the greed in people, and nothing much has changed there really.
I love the humour and the variety of characters. Pancks hair, mad Mr F’s aunt, Maggy, Mrs Plornish and poor John Chivery. There’s much more, I could go on and on.
Things I don’t like? The ending. It seems strange to say this considering it’s a nearly 800page novel, but the ending seems rushed. Much is crushed into the chapter explaining all the backstory and many of the important characters stories are finalised in a few lines.
Flintwinch gets away with it. The wife beater and thief escapes to the Netherlands. Unusual for Dickens, generally the bad guys get what they deserve.
Flora. I know she’s supposed to be humorous but my brain seizes up trying to read her convoluted conversation. I just groaned whenever she appeared.

Overall it’s a wonderful rags to riches and back to rags again story with the characters we’ve grown to love having a happy ending even if they’re not rich anymore.

I haven't read Dickens in a very long while. Also, this was the first time I read one of his books in English. I won't make any summary, since there is a synopsis here, on goodreads, so I'll just stick with my own thoughts and feelings.
It's a looong book. And it makes sense, it was published in small bits, over the course of two years. Sometimes, I felt like I wanted to let it go and DNF, because some chapters are very long and very boring, filled with unnecessary details or recounts of past events. Which, again, makes sense, if you were in 1855 when you started the book.
The character work was brilliant, though, I loved each and every one of them. The social commentary, again, very well done, like in all his books. A lot of funny moments. Sometimes, it felt like a drama, other times like The Young and The Restless TV series.
Overall, a nice story, if you manage to stick to it.

I enjoyed Little Dorrit even though it is not my favorite of Dickens. It was a little bit too long and drawn out, but who can't enjoy Dickens' writing style and sense of humor?! ;)
Can't wait for my next Dickens read!

I won’t attempt a review as others, particularly Bionic Jean, have surpassed anything I could attempt. This was a buddy read with the Dickensians! which made it a much more rewarding read than it would have been had my buddies not shared their insights and depth of knowledge. At a chapter a day, there is time to reflect and time for anticipation of what happens next. I am finding it a very enjoyable way to read Dickens.

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Arthur Clennam befriends seamstress Amy Dorrit and meets her extraordinary family at a debtor's prison. Dickens adaptation stars Ian McKellen.

2/5: Arthur Clannam worries about his parents, but thinks he's found a new love. Amy receives a proposal.

3/5: Surprising discoveries about the Dorrits are revealed, but Arthur is yet to solve his family's secret.

4/5: The newly wealthy Dorrits set off on a tour of Europe, but Amy is feeling homesick.

5/5: Arthur is struck by disaster, and Mrs Clennam is finally forced into revealing the family secret.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b20s5

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

A TV Series was made based on this book: Little Dorrit (2008), with Claire Foy, Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Courtenay .

This series is available (13 episodes) at YouTube.




3* Oliver Twist
4* David Copperfield
4* Great Expectations
4* A Tale of Two Cities
4* Our Mutual Friend
4* A Christmas Carol
2* The Chimes
3* The Baron of Grogzwig
4* The Trial for Murder
3* The Haunted House
4* The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
4* A House to Let
3* A Message from the Sea
4* Hard Times
3* Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings
3* L'abîme
5* Barnaby Rudge
2* The Mystery of Edwin Drood
2* The Pickwick Papers
4* Bleak House
4* Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Pictures Printed From the Original Wood Blocks
3* The Battle Of Life
3* Hunted Down
4* Little Dorrit
TR No Thoroughfare
TR To Be Read at Dusk
TR The Seven Poor Travellers
TR Nicholas Nickleby
TR Dombey and Son
TR A Child's Dream of a Star
TR Martin Chuzzlewit
TR The Cricket on the Hearth
TR The Old Curiosity Shop
TR A Child's History of England

About Charles Dickens:
4* The Mystery Of Charles Dickens by Peter Ackroyd
3* Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
TR Charles Dickens by George Orwell
TR Charles Dickens: A Critical Study by G.K. Chesterton
TR

L'inizio è un tantino faticoso poiché Dickens si prende tutto il tempo che gli occorre per costruire l'architettura, poi, quando prende l'abbrivio, diventa fantastico.
Non scrive, dipinge, rappresentando persone, epoche, sentimenti (o la loro assenza) come se li avessimo sotto gli occhi.
E macina pagine su pagine senza stancarti, anzi creando una dipendenza dai personaggi tanto che vorresti il libro non finisse mai (in effetti sono 1022 pagine).
E quando finisce non spiega niente! Non c'è un finale edificante, un romantico lieto fine.
E' come se avesse fotografato un determinato periodo e poi avesse smesso.

As a huge fan of Dickens, this book didn't disappoint. It didn't measure up to Great Expectations or Oliver Twist but I love his characters... especially love to hate the villains!

What a wonderful book to read at a leisurly pace, savouring the subtly humourous commentary on human beings and their daily struggles in 19th century England. The complexity of his characters is so rich, each one responding to their circumstances at various points along the way between self interest and true selflessness. Even the simpler ones show a strength of character that - at least for me - brings tears to the eyes.