Not my favorite Dickens, nope...

For years I thought this book was some sort of a universal joke, because at the end of Evelyn Waugh's novel, A Handful of Dust, one of the characters ends up trapped in a jungle by a madman who forces the character to read Little Dorrit aloud — I figured this was clearly meant to be a fate worse than death. Turns out, however, that Little Dorrit was merely an appropriate choice because of its themes of imprisonment, delusion, and reversals of fortune. Ah ha!

Little Dorrit (the character) is the diminutive, angelic daughter of Mr. Dorrit, the “father of the Marshalsea”, which is the debtor’s prison where he resides in a self-manufactured state of importance. Every day while he holds court with the other debtors, his three children leave the Marshalsea to work — a fact nobody ever mentions in order for Mr. Dorrit to maintain the fiction that the Dorrits are people of quality and leisure; their unfortunate 20 year-long incarceration is because of some nebulous financial mismanagement on someone else’s part.

Other families with even greater levels of dysfunction and delusion populate this wonderfully rich novel, making the rather daunting 900 pages zip right along. If you’ve read any Dickens, you know to expect plot twists, reversals, dark secrets and convoluted connections — Little Dorrit does not disappoint. As with several of Dickens’ later works that take on various institutions, this novel skewers the penal system and government bureaucracy (with the wonderfully named “Circumlocution Office”). Little Dorrit doesn’t have nearly the same level of intrigue as A Tale of Two Cities, but Dickens certainly does know how to turn a phrase, and his funniest characterizations never grow old.

Después de mi chasco con Dickens en Cuento de Navidad y la decepción en Grandes Esperanzas, me entregué con ganas a darle otra oportunidad al autor con La pequeña Dorrit.

Los primeros capítulos del libro ni tan mal. Incluso pensé que me iba a encantar. La ambientación de la carcel de deudores y la vida en ella me pareció interesante. Pero luego se desplomó y a pesar de ello llegué hasta el final, ya la última parte leyendo en diagonal. La experiencia me ha llevado a distintas conclusiones:

- No caso con el estilo del autor: no me gustan algunas de la características concretas del autor como sus personajes caricaturizados y polarizados, las moralejas, las casualidades que acontecen en sus historias, la lentitud de la parte central para estirar el chicle por aquello de ser por entregas, los finales “satisfactorios” para los personajes buenos y los “dramáticos” para los malos, la crítica social que hace es demasiado evidente, forzada a tope y repetitiva… entre otras cosas pero es que no me quiero alargar pero muy evidente su intencionalidad y su público objetivo.

- No disfruto de ciertas ideas con más acogida en su época: ¿contextualizar obras? Claro, pero eso no quiere decir que vayas a disfrutar de ciertos temas leyendolo en la actualidad. Dorrit es un personaje sumamente horrible INCLUSO para su época comparando con otros personajes femeninos de autoras y autores coetáneos, la romantización que hace Dickens de la pobreza no me gusta nada, las moralejas cristianas de “hay que ser trabajador, no hay que ser avaro, hay que ser amable con todo el mundo te traten como te traten…” yo que sé, no puedo con ello…

- No es el mejor libro del autor: está a años luz de Grandes Esperanzas por ejemplo, aunque me decepcionó en su momento, pero al menos tenía un hilo conductor claro, una prosa más cuidada, una mejor ambientación, no tenía tantos sucesos casuales y no era tan sumamente aburrido en la parte central como La pequeña Dorrit.

Si tuviese que resumir mi experiencia lo más brevemente posible diría que es uno de los libros más aburridos que he leído y ADEMÁS me ha sacado de quicio, cosa que otros libros que no me gustan no consiguen.

Ahora sí que sí, dudo bastante que vuelva a leer a Dickens en el futuro.

Little Dorrit is a novel of family loyalty. We follow the paths of three families, and rub shoulders with a few others as well. Our three primary households are the Dorrits, the Clennams, and the Meagles.

Little Amy Dorrit is the child of the Marshalsea debtors prison. She was born there and lived there with her father and two siblings, Fanny and Edward, for her entire early life. Once grown, Fanny and Edward leave the prison, but Little Dorrit stays on to support her father. Amy is the perfect daughter and the perfect Dickensian woman. She is small but strong of body and spirit. She is extremely loyal to her father, seeking to please and provide for him in all matters, and unwilling to hear a word against him, even when that word is the truth. Her father is self-absorbed and proud. Although thirty years locked in, he still prizes his status as a gentleman and is greatly concerned with upholding the family honor. Fanny and Amy both work, but (ostensibly) hide this fact from their father, who would feel ashamed to have his lady-daughters hiring themselves out as common workers.

Arthur Clennam has just returned from twenty years of company work in China. There, he served the family business alongside his father, who has just passed away. Arthur comes home to his mother, a physically crippled but hard-minded woman, who raised Arthur in a stern and loveless manner. Despite the cold childhood she gave him, Arthur tries to respond to her with a son's love, though she finds his love hard to stomach. Arthur gives her notice that he is leaving the family business. She doesn't take it kindly.

Minny “Pet” Meagles is the only living daughter of the most loving of parents. Her twin sister died in childhood, and Pet has grown up, as her name indicates, petted in every way. While perhaps a little too innocent and privileged, she has turned out very sweet and kind and loving. She adores her parents, but takes her love-filled environment for granted. Having fallen in love with a man her parents dislike, she goes ahead with an undesirable marriage, assuming that married life will be a lovely as her family life has been. Living with the Meagles family is Harriet, called Tattycoram. She is a beautiful and fiery orphan girl, who holds the Meagles's kindness to her against them. She hates feeling condescended to, and hates even more the difference she perceives between the way Pet has been lovingly raised, and the way she feels she has been raised as a charity child. She, too, takes the Meagles's love for her for granted, and even holds it in contempt.

In true Dickens fashion, the lives of these families intersect, secrets are revealed, and reversals of fortune turn the positions of Amy, Arthur, and Pet on their heads. Still, the three continue to deal with issues of family loyalty as circumstances change.

Mister Dorrit, it is discovered, is actually heir to a huge fortune and property. In great pomp, he and his family exit the Marshalsea and embark on a grand European tour preparatory to returning to England and entering Society. Fanny and Edward slide smoothly into their new positions as wealthy socialites, but Amy struggles. Her father wishes to forget the Marshalsea and everything connected with it. He wants to remake Amy. But her whole life has been the Marshalsea and the people she's met in connection with it. Although the other Dorrits might be able to shut the door on their past, she, as the only family member whose whole life took place around the prison, finds this distressing and painful. Still, to please her father, she loyally tries her best to give up the people and remembrances she loves.

Arthur's mother has gotten into some trouble with a businessman who isn't all he seems. This evil man has discovered a Clennam family secret and wants to blackmail her. Of course, proud and stern, she won't share her situation with Arthur—especially as the secret she's protecting has to do with him. He, dutifully filial, continues to visit and reach out to her, although she persistently rejects his loving gestures. During his visits, he encounters the villainous “man of business”, senses something amiss, and wants to protect his mother and help her out of her trouble. She denies him, saying he left the family business and the family home, and now has no right to participate in any decisions or workings-out connected to either.

Meanwhile, Pet is married and away in Italy with her artist husband. Married life is not all she hoped it would be. But, in her good nature, she puts her happiest face on and loves her husband despite his flaws (he runs through all their money—which comes from Pet's family—disregards Pet's discomfort with a certain strange gentleman, and takes her for granted, loving her beauty and sweetness, but not caring for her as a husband should for his wife). She starts to miss home. Not just the place, but the people. When Pet becomes pregnant, her parents travel to visit her. Unfortunately, though she longs for her parents' love, her husband doesn't feel the same way. In fact, he dislikes keeping up a connection with the Meagless.

Tattycoram, on the other hand, has made a very unfortunate connection in the spiteful Miss Wade. She has run away to live with Miss Wade in a fit of rage toward her protectors. But life with Miss Wade is dark and full of hate, and remembrances of life with the Meagles family appear in a new light. Both Miss Wade and Tattycoram are orphans, both struggle with receiving the kindness of others, but will both end up giving in to their hate? Or will Tattycoram decide that an adopted family is better than no family at all, and that loyalty to those who love you is better than loyalty to your idea of how life among others should be?

In the end, some of our friends are freed from their loyalties, by death or distance; while others make a decision to strengthen their loyalties or form new ones. Either way, Dickens shows us that family loyalty is a strong and admirable virtue, but one that can cause great pain as well, especially when not equally shared by all members of the family.

P.S. LOVED this novel. Probably my second favorite Dickens, after David Copperfield. Brilliant characters in here. I particularly loved the flighty ex-flame of Arthur, Flora. This excitable romantic, grown into a stout and ridiculous (but kind and loveable) middle-aged widow, speaks with only commas for punctuation and totally won me over with her devotion to Arthur and her deep-down selflessness. She was the perfect comic relief in a book that burrows through some of life's darker passages.

Now this book is primarily a love story although in a convoluted narrative, containing fraud, murder, suicide
and hate, domestic violence...plenty of that, mystery, weird noises in a dilapidated mansion, the lopsided shaped edifice, inside an old recluse woman with bitter memories and a son which he and her the mother, dislike each other stating it mildly.... A evil man who likes doing evil things, however some think this is a comedy ....to each their own. Arthur Clennam the son after twenty years in China working with the recently deceased father in business comes home at the age of forty a virtual stranger in his native land of England...And the people old friends and particularly relatives unknown, they in reality are strangers . Mother, Mrs. Clennam cold, intelligent, unforgiving lady with dark secrets in a wheelchair for many years...her eyes show hatred and Mr. lennam wonders why ? The parents were for a numerous time, estranged. In the same house a poor little woman of 22, Amy Dorrit a part time servant there that for obvious reasons Arthur calls "Little Dorrit," the timid girl doesn't mind...Her father William has been in debtors prison, Marshalsea for 23 years... still the amenable man becomes the leader of the inmates, surviving by accepting small gifts from the unlucky creatures, the poor giving to the poorer . But of course his daughter Amy lives with him in the ugly compound taking care of the wretch, the widower two other children envious Fanny , and Edward the drunk have shed the bad remembrances or tried to and live outside, not very well though. Arthur falls for Amy but being 18 years older is he entitled, feeling uncomfortable and sees various women, Flora a lady he almost married but the flame is out only Little Dorrit can lite . Starting a new business with Daniel Doyce a brilliant inventor lacking the ways of bookkeeping they are perfect until the troubles begin; money or not enough as it is everywhere. However the wealthiest man in England all say Mr. Merdle, has a get- rich- quick business proposition, Arthur is tempted. Then Mr.Blandois, not his real name for sure he has many, the evil man mentioned before, reenters the scene bringing gloom and destruction for those unable or unwilling to pay up, a mustached villain with a pointed nose the very image of mid 19th century, blackmail is his game. To anyone who has read Mr. Dickens will surmise the ending but the fun is taking the long log (obstacles ) road getting there. Little Dorrit is such a lovable girl which any person with a heart will love. The bad thing is they only exist in fiction.

Reading Little Dorrit is like having your own portable fireplace to cozy up to. It’s also huge, like a log or a brick. At 1,000 pages, if you set it on fire, it would burn for a long time. But I don’t mean it that way. I mean reading Little Dorrit makes you want to take off your shoes, don your housecoat and lean way the hell over the open pages, soaking up all that homey tenderness.

Reading Little Dorrit is like suffering the ritual of birthday cake. It’s also enormous like cake is enormous, heavy and sticky like children’s fingers. But with the ritual I mean watching the cake float towards you in the dark, luminous with spindly candles. You want to lean way the hell over it and, soaking up the glow, make your best wish, blow, and bellyflop into all that icing.

Reading Little Dorrit is like being dragged by your parents to a revival festival teeming with tents and strange people. By dragged I mean you used to like going but now think you’re too old for it. You wander around -it’s on the edge of a forest- and you like the smell of the pines and campfires but you stick to the parking lot where some other characters share their six-packs, and there’s a puddle of rain and spew and you lean way the hell over it and see your own reflection.

As a huge dickens fan, I was slightly disappointed with this novel. I often found my mind wandering as it struggled to grasp my focus.
I found that I didn’t ‘love’ or root for any of the characters until the last few chapters. Usually it is my investment in Dickens’ characters and their stories that makes his novels so enjoyable for me. This just seemed a little lacking for me in little dorrit. There was no moment that tugged on my heart strings, and no unexpected twist.
That being said, I loved the way dicken’s used his own childhood experience of the Marshalsea prison. As well as giving some of the characters the names of his siblings. I enjoyed the prison setting, and my heart went out to all those who had been confined to a debtors prison.
All in all, it was an okay book, it just fell a little short for me. It certainly is not one of my personal favourite Dickens novels. But I am glad I experienced it none the less.

I loved reading this book so much.
I don´t know where to start. The social criticism, the humor, the wonderful characters, the story... Dickens basically did everything right writing this.
I personally struggle with books that have too many different characters, which sometimes made it hard to follow the story, but somehow that did not lessen my enjoyment.

I especially enjoyed how there was no big goal to achieve or anything else pre-determined to guess the twists and turns of the story. Thats hard to come by in fiction. Everything that happend was more or less a surprise and that was so enjoyable.
I loved how the characters were so likeable and portrayed with some dignity while also making fun of their flaws.
It could be long at times, but I would not represent how much I liked reading it if I gave less than 5 stars.

https://youtu.be/iGAHRuGyc0c, lecturas de junio en youtube.
Ha sido duro pero gratificante.
me ha gustado muchísimo y aunque es muy largo y nada ágil, me ha enganchado desde el principio.
Con este libro he descubierto que Dickens eran un cachondo mental...tiene cada frase y cada texto que eran puro sarcasmo y humor, (que por cierto diré, que he reconocido a algún Bernacle aun en nuestros tiempos) ya sabia que escribía bien esta hombre pero descubrir este libro con ese sentido del humor, esos personajes tan cínicos y algunos tan buenos, los pensamiento y movimientos políticos y éticos, y como narra estas desgracias que no tienen culpable pero son culpa de muchos, todo es una maravilla.

Little Dorrit is Charles Dickens’s eleventh novel, published in monthly parts between December 1855 and June 1857, and illustrated by his favourite artist and friend Hablot Knight Browne, or “Phiz”. We tend to give Dickens’s novels convenient labels, such as the one criticising the workhouse: “Oliver Twist”, the one criticising schools: “Nicholas Nickleby”, the one criticising the legal system: “Bleak House”, and the one criticising unions: “Hard Times”. This one could be thought of as “the one criticising government bureaucracy”. But it is much, much more than that.

By now Dickens had established himself as a literary phenomenon. He was an enormously popular novelist, but he was keen to sustain his literary status as well as entertain the crowds. Like “Bleak House”, this is an elaborate, very complex and occasionally creaky novel with many interwoven and seemingly inexplicable mysteries. In this, it seems more of a natural successor to “Bleak House”, rather than to the much shorter and more direct one which preceded it, “Hard Times” (although the vitriol of “Hard Times” is in evidence here too). Although Little Dorrit is set in about 1826, it was written only a few years after the great Crystal Palace Exhibition “of the Works of Industry of All Nations” in 1851. It is interesting to wonder whether this vicious attack on British institutions is in part a commentary by Dickens on Britain’s grand industrial and social advances.

Dickens was continuing to work at a frenetic pace — to “burn himself out” in the modern vernacular — and his personal life was equally frenzied. In these two years, he bought two new houses, including his dream house “Gads Hill” in Rochester, which he had admired since he was a boy. He lived in Folkestone, Paris, Boulogne and London, as well as travelling for speeches and business. He continued to write, edit, and give public readings, be involved in the lives of his children, and was as enthusiastic about the theatre as ever. He produced and acted in 6 plays and farces during this time, helped by his friend Wilkie Collins, although Dickens was very much the driving force behind them. And his letters reveal that he was approaching a domestic crisis, and increasingly frustrated with his marriage. He was preoccupied by the idea of freedom in all areas; freedom assumed a greater and greater importance to him, and he was increasingly impatient with the Victorian constraints of his time.

Little Dorrit is the novel which comes out of this state of mind. The themes of prisons and being trapped in various ways, both physically and psychologically, permeate throughout the book. Dickens certainly felt himself trapped, whatever others thought. He also felt a long-buried shame at his father’s incarceration in the “Marshalsea” Prison for debt. This is perhaps the novel most influenced by Charles Dickens’s early experience, and a sense of gross injustice prevails too. In fact the original title of the novel, for the first four issues, was not Little Dorrit but “Nobody’s Fault”.

The Marshalsea Prison was a notorious prison in Southwark, Surrey (although Southwark is now part of London), just south of the River Thames. It was one of London’s best known debtors’ prisons, and one with which Dickens was well acquainted. Of course, the irony was that the only way for those incarcerated to survive there, was by purchasing items to keep themselves fed and clothed. Getting out was well nigh impossible, as being incarcerated, they could rarely earn any money! It was very much like a village behind bars, and although it was 30 years since his father had been imprisoned there (and the prison had been closed down in 1842), Dickens had never returned to look at it.

Only when he came to write Little Dorrit, did Dickens nerve himself to visit the parts of it which were still standing. He notes in his preface, that this was in order to research the “rooms that arose to my mind’s eye when I became Little Dorrit’s biographer.” Yet Amy Dorrit (“Little Dorrit”) is not the main character in the book. If there is just one, it would be Arthur Clennam. Dickens may well have decided to name his novel after Amy, since she is one of the very few virtuous unaffected characters, always seeking opportunities for each of her family, and through sheer determination, working towards the best life they can all have. She may be small in stature, but her heart and courage are great indeed.

Amy was born in the “Marshalsea” Prison, surrounded by a family who all display the faults which can result from such a meanness of environment. Her father, William, is so pompous, so quick to take offence, and so socially conscious, that having the unofficial title “Father of the Marshalsea” conferred on him, is seen by him as a great honour. He is arrogant, selfish, and “all show”, continually bolstered up by Amy’s coquettish and patronising sister Fanny, a theatrical dancer, and her brother Tip, a roguish ne’er-do-well. William’s brother Frederick, a broken man, has been up to now, Amy’s only true friend.

We also follow the story of Arthur Clennam. On his father’s death, Arthur has returned from business abroad, and is at a loose end. Arthur’s mother is a grim, old puritanical woman, who is paralysed, and living in the gloomy, decrepit old family house. She is attended by Flintwinch, a malicious man, twisted in both body and mind, who has wheedled himself into being her business partner, and forced the family servant, Affery, to marry him. These three form a unholy trio. The scenes set here have a gothic unearthly quality, and Affery, with her terrified nonsensical babbling, comes across as some kind of wise seer. There is hatred and malevolence here; a deep-seated resentment, but we are not privy to its cause, and neither is Arthur.

There are myriad minor characters who make this novel sparkle, although it is a sinister sparkle, perhaps as in sparkly vampires. There is the avaricious Casby, with his flowing white hair and twinkly eyes, with a semblance of benevolence shining out of his bald head. There is his whipping-boy and rent-collector Pancks, a little chugging steam engine, busily screwing more and more money out of Casby’s tenants. There is Casby’s daughter, the widow Flora Finching, fat, flirtatious and foolish. Twittery, chattery Flora used to be Arthur’s sweetheart (a fact which now appalls him) and is determined that he will never forget that fact, much to Arthur’s embarrassment and chagrin. She now looks after an equally eccentic and hilariously impossible relative, “Mr F.’s aunt”.

Flora’s character is based on Maria Beadnell (later Mrs Henry Winter), with whom Charles Dickens had fallen madly in love, in 1830, when he was 18. Maria, like Flora, was pretty and flirtatious, and the daughter of a highly successful banker (similar enough to a property-owner). After three years, her parents objected to the relationship, because Dickens’s prospects did not look good. Dickens wrote to her, “I never have loved and I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself.” And it is clear from his letters to his friend, John Forster, that Dickens had felt completely heartbroken over the break-up.

He met Maria, now Mrs Winter, again in 1856, and although he knew she was a great fan of her work, he was devastated at how she had changed, although she had tried to warn him, describing herself candidly in a letter as being “toothless, fat, old and ugly”. Dickens found her talkativeness especially irritating, and quickly attempted to extricate himself from all but the most essential social contact with her — and always strictly in public. Dickens it now was, who rebuffed Maria’s flirtatious attempts, and he portrayed her here as the voluble and irrepressible Flora.

Perhaps an old affection did temper his pen, however. Although it seems a cruel, heartless portrait initially, Flora reveals herself to have a heart of gold, and hidden perceptiveness, as the novel proceeds. These characters who are so vociferous often prove to be the most multi-layered in Dickens’s novels. The silent ones are often more shadowy. But Flora is an appalling delight, and some scenes which feature her may well make you laugh out loud:

“Wanting the heart to explain that this was not at all what he meant, Arthur extended his supporting arm round Flora’s figure. ‘Oh my goodness me,’ said she. ‘You are very obedient indeed really and it’s extremely honourable and gentlemanly in you I am sure but still at the same time if you would like to be a little tighter than that I shouldn’t consider it intruding’”.

There is Mr Merdle, the financier and greatest man of his time:

“As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.”

Dickens builds Mr Merdle up so much that we are tempted to suspect that everything might come crashing down! In fact Mr Merdle is based on a real life Irish financier and politician, called John Sadleir, a “prince of swindlers”. John Sadleir had resigned his ministerial position, when he was found guilty of being implicated in a plot to imprison a depositor of the Tipperary Bank, because the individual in question had refused to vote for him. His disastrous speculations and forgeries had ruined several major banks, to the tune of more than £1.5 million. John Sadleir had ended his life by drinking prussic acid. There is Mr Merdle’s wife, always referred to as “the Bosom”, on which he displays all his jewels and worldly acquisitions. Mrs Merdle piques herself on being society, hypocritically professing herself “charmed” at the idea of being a “perfect savage”. She values her own status, money and etiquette above all else. There is her son from a previous marriage, Edward Sparkler, a chap of limited intelligence, whose highest praise of a woman is that there is “no nonsense about her”.

There is young John Chivery, the prison warden’s son, who is devoted to Amy, and has a tendency to keep imagining his own gravestone with appropriate new inscriptions, according to how he feels the wind is blowing with respect to her feelings about him. And the kindly Meagles family: the retired banker Mr Meagles, impossibly convinced that all the world should speak English, his wife, and their cossetted daughter Minnie, or “Pet”. There is Pet’s companion or servant “Tattycoram”, whose real name is Harriet Beadle. Tattycoram/Harriet is an interesting character, who is to play an essential part in the novel’s outcome. She grows greatly in character, but initially has understandable feelings of resentment. She was a foundling, who has ostensibly been adopted by the Meagles. They think they are being benevolent in this, but in fact she feels patronised, instructed to “count five and twenty, Tattycoram” whenever she shows her temper, and is treated more like a servant than a companion. These feelings are encouraged by another malevolent and manipulative presence in the book, Miss Wade, one of Dickens’s most evil creations.

We have a veritable panoply of characters then, full of energy and life, spilling from the pages, as always in a novel by Dickens — and there are many more I have not mentioned. And the dastardly villain of the piece? He is a true pantomime villain — “Rigaud”, alias “Blandois” — based on the hated tyrant Napoleon III — and we first meet him right at the start of the novel, in a prison, in Marseilles. For this novel does not start out in the dank gloom of the Marshalsea, but in an oppressive hellhole of a prison in the blistering heat of the South of France. We see Rigaud’s arrogant, evil, manipulative, swaggering personality straightaway, and although Dickens keeps up the mystery by rarely naming him, we can recognise him every time he enters the stage, by his malicious, devilish smile, when:

“his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache”.

Mysteries abound in this novel. There are long-lost twins, both male and female, impersonations and doppelgängers, unsuspected marriages and dysfunctional relationships. There is truth, but mostly there are lies, and secrets. There is the collapse of an institution, both metaphorically and in a very dramatic literal scene. It is doom-laden, with delusions and dreams; mysterious creaking sounds are seen to be prophetic. There is a suicide — and a murder — and animal cruelty.

It is a novel of two parts, entitled “Poverty” and “Riches”. In the second part, there is restitution of a sort, and there is punishment. Debts are paid. Poverty is transformed into riches, and those who were kind to each other when they were poor, become more spiteful or selfish, considering such earlier behaviour to be humiliating. Starting in Marseilles, the action removes to London and then Venice — a crumbling, decaying edifice, reflected in the degeneration of the characters within it. In Little Dorrit any prosperity is almost a guarantee that the wealth will be put to bad use. Even that decidedly decent fellow Daniel Doyce, intelligent and kind, the inventor of an unspecified mechanical wonder, is unable to get a patent for it in the Circumlocution Office, and we fear for his future.

Nothing in Little Dorrit is what it appears to be. In many ways it is as much of a mystery story as “Bleak House”. Almost all the characters are self-seeking, and the message of the novel is a very bleak one indeed. For whereas the concerns of the novel are similar to those of “Dombey and Son”, in Little Dorrit it is not only business concerns which are corrupt. It has a far wider purview — Dickens here attacks the whole of British society. The novel Little Dorrit does not merely indicate a dark view of human nature, but is a savage indictment of the corruption at the heart of British institutions, and the effects of British economic and social structure upon every single individual. Dickens shows with this embittered novel that he believes British society to be rotten to the core, and riddled with deceit. There are only two refuges from the all-pervasive “Circumlocution Office”, either exile, or prison.

The very name “Circumlocution Office” is a challenge, and with the monstrous “Barnacle” family, Dickens once more thumbs his nose, by naming the family after a limpet-like marine animal, which lies on its back and attaches itself to anything solid, such as a ship forging ahead and destroying everything in its path. This is another metaphor for that great destroyer of originality, the Circumlocution office. It is a self-serving system of sinecures; a place where all the employees learn “how not to do it”, where all innovation, creativity, individualism and enterprise are efficiently stifled and ultimately quashed.

Together with the Stiltstalkings, the Barnacles infest both government and society, going around in circles, spewing red tape, and accomplishing nothing. They ensure that no business which might promote the common good is ever done, crushing both originality and initiative, and rendering all relationships false. This damning satiric representation of the Civil Service draws on Dickens’s view of the recent government’s bad decisions during the Crimean War (which they expected would take 12 weeks, but in fact took twelve months, three major land battles and countless actions resulting in loss of life on a massive scale) coupled with the leftover cynicism from his own days as a young parliamentary reporter. Dickens was well placed to comment on the Civil Service, and his view was savage, waspish — and also very witty. Chapter 10: “Containing the Whole Science of Government” is possibly the funniest thing Dickens ever wrote — and that’s really saying something!

The extraordinary achievement of Little Dorrit is that such a devastating and dour indictment of British society and institutions can be so very readable, so topical, yet at the same time so current, in its description of the never-ending wheels grinding on in the Civil Service — and to contain such delightful characters. Dickens’s characters can be recognised in any age; he knew how to write about the familiar types of people we all know.

I can see Mrs Merdle with her “Bird, be quiet!”, and the awful spectacle of Mr Dorrit with his airs and graces, posturing, hemming and hawing “hem — hah — ah”. I can see the heart-rending picture of an over-large child, Maggy, Amy’s mentally disabled friend with her “large features, large feet and hands, large eyes and no hair”, devotedly following her diminutive friend Amy round like a little dog, with an inner conviction that if they all go to “’orspital” everything will be all right. I can see timid beaten Affery, worrying about “those two clever ones” always plotting.

I can see the appalling “varnishing” of the smooth-tongued Mrs General, employed as a tutor to Fanny and Amy, with her insistence on reciting “Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism” at every opportunity, in order to keep the lips in the desired pouting positions:

“[her] way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails on which she started little trains of other people’s opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere”.

And now I can see the final scene in the book open up before my eyes. The two characters we have been rooting for most, come out of the church of St George the Martyr, in Southwark, and are swallowed up in the roar of the city:

“[they pause] for a moment on the steps of the portico looking at the fresh perspective of the street in the autumn morning sun’s bright rays, and then went down. Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness ... into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed.”

Curiously enough, in the church of St George the Martyr now, Little Dorrit herself is still to be seen. If you approach the altar and look up at the left panel of the magnificent stained glass window behind it, you will see the figure of St George, see that his foot is resting on a piece of parchment. Directly beneath this is a much smaller, kneeling figure of a girl, whose hands are clasped in prayer, and whose poke-bonnet is dangling from her back. This is “Little Dorrit”:



Dickens always provides us with neatly tied up endings, in which mostly the evil characters get their just deserts, and our heroes achieve some sort of happiness, or growth. We have that here, but we also have a deep sense of doom, or foreboding. Their destinies lie heavily shrouded in the ether; the fug of the city.

George Bernard Shaw considered Little Dorrit to be Dickens’s “masterpiece among many masterpieces”. I cannot think of a more apt description.

People may say that I am such a huge fan of Charles Dickens. Yes, I am, but at the same time I also have to be objective in reading and criticizing his works. This year I have gained back my love for Dickens’ novels. It started with The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With its bleak atmosphere, it has brought me back to the world of Dickens. Finishing it, I wanted some more of Dickens. Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend then charmed me with their own significant way. However, Little Dorrit does not do the same thing to me. Nope, it is not a bad piece of writing. It’s just lack of spells to bewitch me.

Little Dorrit opens with such a dark scene, which is two people talking in a prison. From the very beginning, we are introduced to the villain of the novel, Blandois, and I kept asking what the hell this man’s gonna do. And that became my problem with the novel. Until the end of the novel, I didn’t find the clear answer of what Blandois has done and what the motive is. Perhaps I missed something in this case, so can anyone be so kind to explain it to me? From his appearance (his terrific moustache and nose), Blandois has the potential to be a remarkable villain, but since I do not clearly understand his motive, I cannot find him outstanding. Another thing that I do not understand is the function of Tattycoram to the whole plot. Yes she’s an emotional girl, then what does it have to do with the main plot?

Thankfully, readers, we have Arthur Clennam. After Pip and Nicholas Nickleby, he is the Dickens’ hero that I find adorable (Well, Bradley Headstone is unforgettable but not because he’s adorable, right?). As a 40 year old man coming home from China, Clennam feels quite isolated in England either culturally or personally. I like how Dickens delivers the personal conflict in Clennam’s heart: his distance with his mother, his supressed feeling for Pet, and finally his love to Little Dorrit. And yes, Orwell is right. He once wrote that once Dickens describes something, you will not forget it maybe for the rest of your life. A scene that is really memorable is when Clennam gives up Pet for another man. The paragraph goes like this:

When he walked on the river’s brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put his hand in his breast, and tenderly took out the handful of roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but certainly he went down on the shore, and gently launched them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them away

That happens when Clennam finds out that Pet is going to marry another man, and Dickens shows that Clennam is willing to let Pet go through the launching of roses to the river by Clennam. The roses, of course, are given by Pet before. Such a great symbolization.

How about our Little Dorrit? At first I thought that she’s the typical of an ideal Victorian woman (motherly and feminine), but as the story went, I started to consider her motherly characteristic as a strength, not as a sign of submissiveness. When her father and Clennam have to face the bad situation, it is Little Dorrit who becomes tough and can support the two men. She might be known as Little Dorrit, yet she got this HUGE character, I believe.

Oh, I also fall in love with Young John Chivery’s character. As Little Dorrit’s childhood friend, he’s been in love with her since then. What is interesting about Young John is that everytime he gets a new experience, either it is good or bad, he always imagines what’s gonna written on his tomb. His character may invite you to laugh but in the end, we’re going to see how this funny character has such a big heart. I cannot wait to see how Russel Tovey (The History Boys) portrays Young John’s character :).

With two strong main characters and other memorable characters, it is disappointing that Little Dorrit doesn’t really give me enough explanation about the major conflict. Or I may say, the web isn’t tangled really well. So, Chuck, I am sorry. Three stars, not more than that.

Para cualquier lector de clásicos Dickens es siempre un valor seguro, siempre encontrará en sus libros algo que le guste, le fascine y enamore.

La pequeña Dorrit es un libro de personajes, como no podía ser menos en el autor, pero casi más que los principales, a veces demasiado ejemplarizantes, sufridos y perfectos dechados de virtudes victorianas, el plato fuerte está en los secundarios, y aquí Dickens deja aflorar todo su talento en el desfile de personajes que se pasean por la novela: desde la familia de la protagonista, los internos de Marshalsea, la señora General y por supuesto los miembros del Negociado de Circunloquios con los Barnacle a la cabeza. t

Si bien la trama principal no se resuelve hasta final y de manera quizá un poco embrollada y rebuscada, también es cierto que deja algún fleco suelto y que no quedan muy claras las motivaciones de uno de los personajes (Mrs. Clennam).

Pero lo mejor del libro es cuando Dickens decide ponerse estupendo y dar a diestro y siniestro contra la burocracia inútil y paralizante, las fuerzas vivas de la nación y la ingenuidad de la masas para creer que un sinvergüenza es poco menos que un héroe nacional. Ese es el Dickens que yo más he disfrutado en esta novela, el irónico, crítico y sarcástico que no deja títere con cabeza, eso si, con mucha elegancia, y donde su pluma de escritor es tan afilada e hiriente como una espada. Se nota que Dickens empezó su carrera literaria como columnista de periódicos y aprendió a tener el colmillo afilado.

Flojea sin embargo la trama amorosa del libro, algo que por cierto, se deja sentir en otras novelas del autor, donde las relacione sentimentales es probablemente lo más flojo de sus relatos.

No es el mejor Dickens, pero incluso las "malas" novelas del autor (si es que tiene alguna) son mejores que las buenas de otros escritores.