Listening to Anton Lesser's superb narration, courtesy of review audiobook via SFFaudio.com.

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Casting around for something to listen to but in a weird frame of mind ... I began trying out books read by some of my favorite LibriVox readers, as well as those recommended in the comments. Then I got to Mil Nicholson who reads Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. I have been longing to read it for some time.

And I fell in love. Her reading is simply superb. It also is wonderfully supplemented by my reading the print copy. This allows for a slow, rich reading, which is not my usual style at all but which I am enjoying very much.

I also love rediscovering all the things I love about Charles Dickens, especially the way he slips bits of humor into his writing. Its funny because its true.

He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.

I also want to mention that I have become a fan of Modern Library publishers. Their books are inexpensive but nicely flexible to stay open at the page I'm reading. The typesize is pleasing. And so forth.

FINAL
Having just finished the book I find that I have been associating it with Middlemarch more than with Dickens' other books. Perhaps that is because Little Dorrit adds a gentle touch of domesticity wherever she goes. More likely it is because it is hard to pigeonhole Dickens from one book to the next. What a genius. I am so happy that I have so many of his books yet to read as shiny, "new" discoveries.

It is a rather mixed bag of mystery and intrigue between characters both well-off and not. The theme of prisons and imprisonment permeates this book with the title character residing with her family in the infamous "Marshalsea" prison for the first part of the book. The main plot is focused on the efforts of Arthur Clennam to assist Little (Amy) Dorrit's family in paying their debts so as to escape the prison and Arthur's own quest to solve the mystery of his family & identity. The Dorrits succeed in leaving the prison due to discovered inheritance. The novel moves on to the second part and advancement of the love interests of several characters along with new developments in the life of Arthur. One of Dickens most complicated tales, the novel has several "shady" characters that create difficult situations. Moreover Dickens demonstrates some of his most effective satire in the description of the Circumlocution Office and its administrators, the predatory Barnacles.
This novel exhibits some of the characteristic traits for which Dickens is famous, including a plethora of characters, atmospheric descriptions and a somewhat convoluted plot line. While exhibiting these traits it also has two of the most decent and truly good protagonists (if not hero and heroine) in all of the Dickens which I have read. That Arthur Clennam and Little Dorrit (Amy) finally join together in wedded bliss is a consummation not unexpected and certainly deserved. Arthur has survived his 'quest' for identity and understanding and while not entirely successful he has reached a point from which he can satisfactorily go forward with his life and with his Amy.
For this reader the novel was both satisfying and perturbing. The continual railing against the Circumlocution Office and skewering of debtors' prisons with the 'Marshalsea' was not convincing and the weakness of the plot undermined the quality of the novel. However, the fecundity of curious and wonderful characters who consistently charmed and challenged the reader with their psychological complexity helped to overcome all other weaknesses. And this is the great strength of Dickens as a novelist which he demonstrates again and again as he continued to increase his mastery of this literary form.

Another classic from Dickens (by definition - obviously) although not my favourite. Great characterisation and social observation as per usual - with striking resonance to many areas of contemporary life in many respects (particularly the circumlocution office - loved it!) . It goes without saying that the complex plot lines and unlikely intertwining of plot / sub-plot and seemingly unrelated characters is often hugely implausible - but with Dickens this is somewhat missing the point. All his novels are so packed full of life, interest, intrigue, social observation, satire and humour (amongst many other things) - how can you fail to find them anything other than compelling!

Looking forward to reading Our Mutual Friend and Edwin Drood next - then I'll have read them all...!

Prisons are more than just literal in this novel. We begin with two men imprisoned for felonies, then a group of people in quarantine during an outbreak of the plague. Everyone in the world over the age of four has been there and done that. Then we meet the people in debtors' prison, an institution with which Dickens was all too familiar. His father was sentenced to debtor's prison, and he had to go to work as a child laborer to help support the family. Dickens never quite forgave his father for that. Characters in his novels who get over their heads in debt are usually portrayed as well meaning but feckless incompetents. That does not include the family members who go to debtor's prison with them, notably poor old Mr. Dorrit's youngest daughter. Like most Dickens heroines, she is impossibly good, kind, unselfish, loving, etc., but also has gumption and backbone. She works by day as a seamstress to support the family and also becomes a surrogate mother for a mentally disabled older woman.

Then there are also those invisible prisons that we make for ourselves, most of them created by obsessions with what other people think of us. Mr. Dorrit has gained a certain status in the debtor's prison just by being there so long, and expects his daughters to keep up appearances by not socializing with anyone lower on that social ladder. Later, when he leaves the prison, he lives in terror of any seeming slight that might imply knowledge of his past. Another woman who drifts in and out of the story is the negative image of what someone in Amy Dorrit's situation might become. Amy was born in prison, Miss Wade was born out of wedlock. Amy's whole life has been taking care of her father, siblings, and friend Maggy. Miss Wade's whole life has been detecting hidden agendas. No matter what anyone says to her or does for her, she suspects a veiled insult. She ends up alone in a prison of her own creation. And then of course there are the powerful people of business, the stars of society because of their wealth. The hero's mother runs a financial business but hasn't left the bedroom of her dilapidated old house in years. She's crippled with arthritis and uses a wheelchair, although we find out toward the end that she doesn't really need it. The wheelchair seems to be another voluntary imprisonment. And then there's the financial wizard Mr. Merdle, who has more adoring groupies than Trump or Elon Musk. He's so rich that he must be a a genius! He hardly ever leaves his house or office, because for him it's all business all the time, and when he does entertain guests at his lavish dinner parties he can hardly even manage a little polite small talk. But thanks to "extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds," he has lots and lots of investors. How this ends for him and his investors and his social-climbing wife and daughter-in-law I think you can guess from his name. Dickens was very Victorian and prudish about mentioning the existence of any bodily function, but could speak French and Italian. If you don't know what "merde" means in French, or "merdo" in Italian, look it up.

And how does the novel end for the good guys? Happily, of course, with freedom from the imprisoning social pressures to make more money or rise in society. Like Esther Summerson in Bleak House, they find happiness in a simple little house, earning an honest living spending within their means, and raising their children. I don't think this is a spoiler, because we all know that in most Dickens novels, virtue is rewarded. Like all of his novels, this is very long, but that lets you drift along with it, reading a chapter or two a day, until you really become caught up in the lives of the characters. But the last two chapters are compulsive page turners, as all the plot threads come together and the Big Reveals happen. It's worth every minute of time you put into it.

Not as well-known as his other works but this is such a brilliant satirical and symbolic novel. I have laughed so much, in the chapters of the father of the marshal sea or that involving the “high society” or the bureaucracy.
It is filled with some idiosyncratic and entertaining characters like the father of the marshal sea, the benevolent Mr.Casby, Mr.Sparkler who loves women with no nonsense about them, Mrs.Merdle and her extensive bosom and also a wicked pantomime villain.
Along with the comical part this also deals with many important themes like imprisonment, whether in the debtors prison or in the structures of society. It’s a satire on the Victorian society and a self-serving bureaucracy. It’s a moral parable against capitalist greed and ambition. Against hauteur and pride.
This book does tend to get very tedious in some of its long-winded, descriptive, wordy passages. Its plot is a typical Dickensian plot with a lot of convolutions and melodrama. But still a sprawling epic that is quite enjoyable.

This book has been reviewed so many times there is nothing new that I can add.

I read this book with the Dickensians group, one chapter per day for 70 days. This was a wonderful experience. Thank you so much to Jean for working so hard at moderating this group, providing summaries, interpretations and other information every single day. The experience of reading and understanding this novel was so much richer given all of your much appreciated hard work and knowledge.


I love Dickens writing, especially his satire which is brilliant. He is simply a joy to read. His satire of bureaucratic government offices and the men who run them was one of my favorite parts of this novel, perhaps because it is still so apt today, especially in the U.S..

The ending was beautiful and perfect. As my friend Violeta would say, "who doesn't like a happy ending?"

This is the second time in a month I’ve noticed my original ratings are wrong! Both times for 5?star books it’s been altered to 2 stars!! Little Dorrit is an amazing novel and warrants every last star available. Whatever is wrong with Goodreads at the moment, it is causing friends to question my ratings.

A chapter-a-day group read with the Dickensians! group, starting September 15. Adding some variety to my reading diet. :)

This has been, as usual with a Dickens novel, quite a journey. The writing is certainly up to the Charles Dickens standard. I’ve given it four stars because I think it’s very good but I didn’t like it quite as much as Bleak House. It's a close call, though, more like four and a half stars. So here’s another grab bag of my impressions from the book. If you’ve read this one or don’t mind spoilers, feel free to remove the cloak of invisibility now.

One of the things I think I’ll always remember from this book is the mighty “Circumlocution Office.” As a critique of bureaucracy, it’s as over the top as anything I have ever seen or read. Charles launches some of his most amazing literary fireworks in describing this ridiculous institution devoted to elevating the noble Barnacle family and preventing anything from getting done. That’s right, an entire institution dedicated to “HOW NOT TO DO IT.” This isn’t, of course, about how to do it right but how not to do it at all, an important distinction. Of all the satirically descriptive names in the whole of the Dickensian canon, could there be any more obvious than that of Mr. Tite Barnacle?

In this one, Charles seems to mention every form of imprisonment he can think of, both physical and metaphorical. There's definitely a theme here. I don't remember if he mentioned transportation to Australia, so that's one he might've missed. As a concept, debtors’ prison seems insane to me. I guess you to have lived back then to understand the logic of how you expect someone to ever pay off a debt while incarcerated.

Charles does a good job of slowly building up the story before introducing us to Amy Dorrit, the Little Dorrit of the title. She is in many ways a typical Dickens heroine. She’s intelligent, perceptive, meek, hardworking, self-sacrificing, soft-spoken and mild. She literally lives up to her name in that she is physically tiny, something that both works in her favor and is an obstacle to overcome. Despite the fact that everything about her emphasizes the author’s painfully Victorian values about what makes a good woman, I liked Amy Dorrit. There are more ways for women to be heroic than Charles ever conceived of, but hers is definitely one of them.

Arthur Clennam seems like a decent enough, if a rather weak fellow, for his role in the novel. Sure he can be noble and honorable, but also a bit shallow and stupid at times. This is not a huge knock on him, I suppose I can be a bit shallow and stupid at times too, but I expect more from my heroes unless I have a good reason not to.

Without getting into a lot of details, the reason for Mrs. Clennam’s long years of self-flagellation and being horrible to everyone around her seems a bit ridiculous when you finally get all the details, especially to modern ears. “It was fornication I tells ya! Fornication!” I supposed to the Victorian sensibility, it must’ve seemed terribly dramatic. Make no mistake, I get it, this is more of a commentary on Mrs. Clennam’s grim, vengeful, domineering character than the morals of the age, but it still comes across as a bit of an overreaction. What she did to poor faithful Affery was monstrous. By forcing her to marry the evil Mr. Flintwinch, she subjected her to years of horrific emotional and physical abuse that would’ve threatened anyone sanity, gas lighting aside.

I loved Maggy. What happened to her wasn’t her fault, but she never complained about her lot. She seems to be a very positive person who didn’t dwell on the bad and never forgot the good. Of course, she didn’t know any better, but I’m pretty sure a hospital in that era was no paradise. Also, just because she remained permanently a child didn’t mean it was a foregone conclusion that she would be a nice person. I’ve known people who are already nasty pieces of work by the time they were ten.

Another person I liked was Flora Finching. I know she was supposed to be comic relief, but I felt kind of bad for her. I saw a basically kindhearted and decent person, living in terror that she would end up alone because nature hadn’t favored her with long-lasting beauty. I think that’s the reason she rattled on the way she did. There was a sense of desperation about it, as though all her hopes and dreams were slipping away and she was helpless to do a thing about it. It makes you want to weep at the thought. I also wanted to take her aside and tell her that it was okay. She was probably better off without a domineering Victorian husband anyway. She was a woman of means. She was free in a way that few women of that time ever were. One assumes that, once her massive hypocrite of a father passed away, she would be freer still. I picture her future as one where she is surrounded by friends who appreciate her for herself, run-on sentences and all.

Mr F’s aunt is further proof of Flora’s basic goodness. There are many different forms of dementia and the type that that old lady suffers from does not seem to make her a joy to be around. Flora looks after her and puts up with her with infinite patience and consideration.

Rigaud aka Blandois is an amazing cartoon villain. That nose, that mustache, it seems like such a cliché. He would not look out of place tying some frightened heroine to railroad tracks and giving an evil cackle as he slinks away. Did Dickens invent that kind of villain? Also, that house collapsing on him when it did is the most outrageous coincidence I have ever seen in any book. I understand the symbolism, but still, how on earth did Charles get away with that? Was it supposed to be the hand of God, or maybe the ghost of Rigaud’s poor murdered wife? I suppose that’s all plausible in the novel of this era. It’s just too bad that Mr. Flintwinch wasn’t actually crushed with him.

A whole lot of what to Miss Wade said to Mr Meagles about Tattycoram seemed bang on the mark. I suppose that’s why it had so much power. There’s no doubt Tattycoram would’ve been worse off if she had not been taken in by Mr Meagles and his family, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was put in a very demeaning position despite the fact that Mr Meagles’s heart was in the right place while Miss Wade’s wasn’t.

Mr Pancks was an interesting fellow. I felt bad for him as he obsessed about why his investments went so wrong and kept on insisting that they should’ve worked out. It’s as if he refused to see that Merdle was basically running a Ponzi scheme. Makes me wonder if Bernie Madoff ever read this book. Probably not. I did enjoy it when Pancks unloaded on his “proprietor.” That was fun and I’m sure Charles intended it to be.

I found myself hoping that Young John Chivery would find himself a good wife, raise a family and be happy.

All in all, this is not quite my favorite Dickens novel but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It’s a long (really long) and winding road that pays off in the end.

I have a really close friend - let's call him Charlie. Charlie began college at 18, like most of us did. Then he sort of started drifting, and his friends began to suspect he wasn't sitting his exams. The years went by, and gradually they began to realize he wasn't even enrolling. He just avoided the issue, or made such an elaborate pretense of being terribly busy during exam season, they tacitly left the whole thing alone. To this day, he hasn't officially quit university or laid out any alternative plans for his life - he's just frozen. But he's made such a good job of obliterating the issue, he firmly believes he's eventually finishing law school. He's 30 now. We talk on an almost daily basis, and I have never discussed this with him.

I thought a lot about Charlie while reading Little Dorrit.

I'm not going to dwell on the main themes in this novel. Firstly, because I have nothing to add that hasn't already been covered in the previous reviews. The imprisonment motif, the dysfunctional families, the criticism of Victorian society and of government incompetence - they're all there, and they're probably what the novel is about, mostly. But they didn't exactly surprise me - rather, those are topics one can always count on Dickens for covering in his, at the same time, sarcastic and empathic style. In this respect, the book delivers better than almost any Dickens I've read to date. The whole subplot concerning the fictional Circumlocution Office is borderline Kafkian, and the family melodrama gets dark. Like, really dark.

But that is not the novel I have read. Which is embarrassing, because it's the novel all of the scholars have read, and all of GR's reviewers too. Meaning what I'm going to say now is going to sound, really, really pretentious. Okay, here I come: that's not what Little Dorrit really talks about. *ducks*

I don't know if it was intentional on Dickens's part or just a result of his criticism of Victorian society, but if you pay close attention to the character development, you'll realize what I mean. Almost every main character in this novel (and a good portion of the secondary ones as well) are bent on deceiving themselves as methodically as possible. Sure, there are a couple of people here and there who pretend in front of other people, but they aren't believing their own lies. Still, pretty much everybody else is investing so much energy on self-deception, and making such a point of believing their own lies, I sometimes felt exhausted just watching them.

There's of course the Dorrit family, with their airs of self-importance and wounded pride, overcompensating for the fact that they've been penniless for the last 25 years. Flora Finching insists on behaving like the 15-year old she once was, in the hopes that her old lover will propose to her again. Arthur insists on shutting off his feelings for Minnie Gowan, even after it becomes obvious that he's feeling deeply disappointed - the whole subplot is told in the third person, in a way that strongly reminded me of a depersonalization episode once recounted to me by a schizophrenic patient. And on, and on, and on.

Of course I'm not claiming to know Dickens's mind better than the Harold Blooms of this world. But trust me - if you're at all interested in why people do what they do, you'll find Little Dorrit isn't just about bureaucracy and poverty. In fact, it might be that it's about the power of the human nature for believing its own lies, and how everyone else is just too polite to tell you to shut up.

This was a long and demanding read, but wholly worth the time spent with it. The story is complex, with many characters and covering a large time span. There is drama, there is mystery and even a bit of romance that managed to keep me engaged throughout the book’s more than 800 pages. But above all, there is a beautiful writing, unforgettable characters and a scathing satire of the English government and society that often had me laughing out loud. A few examples:

“Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid to know it, Mr. Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner, entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the ground that they were ‘all bosh’.”

“I caught Doyce. Ran against him, among a lot of those dirty brown dogs in women’s nightcaps a great deal too big for’em, calling themselves Arabs and all sorts of incoherent races.”

While reading this book, I did a bit of research and learned that Dicken’s vivid descriptions of the life in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London where an important part of this book’s action takes place, own their realism to the fact that Dickens's own father has been imprisoned there when he was only 12 years old and was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at a shoe-blacking factory… The social criticism typical of his novels are therefore based on his own experience and he often created characters inspired by real people. So it is no wonder that his books were such a success among the illiterate poor, who saved a few pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them (this was the way many of his books were published for the first time, pioneering the serial publication of narrative fiction in monthly or weekly installments, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication).

Little Dorrit is a dark tale written by Charles Dickens. It is dark in texture, atmosphere, and satire. The story begins in a prison and also technically ends in one. The prison atmosphere dominates the story even when it's not present. And as it happens, most of the other settings in London too, have a similar ambiance of confinement, gloom, and airlessness. It was at first puzzling why Dickens set such a gloomy tone to the story, but when it is understood that the setting is a necessary character to work on the dominating themes of the story, all felt into a pattern.

The main reason that induced Dickens to write this story is his need to expose the obstacles that operated to impede the forward progress of the country. He wanted to show what imprisoned the country, robbing it of its air, light, and freedom. Everything was confined and weighed down by government bureaucracy by their maxim of "how not to do it", and also by the false patriots who represent them as major contributors to the country's finances, boasting as saviors of the people when in fact they are nothing but a bunch of swindlers who squeezes and robs people of their hard-earned money. Dickens, with his dark satire, exposes this duplicity. Following the publication of Little Dorrit, Dickens was accused of exaggeration. Perhaps, he did, for the book was a creative art, but it also was evidence that the message has hit home.

The book consists of two parts - the first part is named "poverty" and the second part is named "riches". As the names indicate, the story is a comparison and contrast between these two ends. The exploitation of the poor by the rich is a common theme in many Dickens novels, and here he does it by exposing the shocking living conditions of the poor, living in cramped, dirty houses while the landlord's, from their comfortable houses, unmercifully demanded the due rents when the tenants were barely scratching a living to feed their families, and this too with no thought for the improvement of the place. This showed in whose hands the power laid. And then there is the condescending patronizing of the poor by the rich which was prompted not out from true kindness, but from their vanity and love to differentiate. Some of the literary critics have described this 11th book of Dickens as a 19th-century criticism of Capitalism. There is some truth in it no doubt, for otherwise, George Bernard Shaw wouldn't have declared that the book turned him to socialism.

Other than the social criticism, Dickens's personal views and experiences too have made strong contributions to the story, especially regarding a debtor's position. It was customary when a person is found in heavy debt and unable to meet his creditors for the creditor to execute a writ and imprison him in a debtor's prison (a similar situation was faced by Dickens's father). But Dickens seems to doubt the productivity of such action. Unless the creditors can be relieved by some friend or relative, meeting their demands, the debtor has no way to meet them as he is imprisoned and cannot earn. What benefit will the creditors reap by confining the debtor into a prison, except for a possible vengeance? These thoughts run subtly through the pages of the story.

Immersed in this social commentary and personal opinions is a beautiful story of courage, perseverance, and selflessness. The titular character, Little Dorrit, is the good angel, the loving heroine. With a quiet strength and an unusual forbearance, she labours for others both in their good times and in their affliction. She herself is steadfast equally in her poverty and her riches. Arthur Clennam, the center of the story, despite the title, is Little Dorrit's male counterpart. He comes to our story having passed his youth in toil for his family business. His youth was sacrificed for duty and he continues with this duty and many other duties he takes upon him in the course of his life, having resigned his own hopes of love and marriage thinking that his time for such pursuits has passed. Arthur is a new hero that I came across in a Dickens novel, one I cannot compare with, unlike Little Dorrit, the dutiful daughter, sister, wife, and friend who we have met in Dickens's novels before. I liked both these characters. They made me quite emotional. Their misfortunes, miseries, losses, and heartbreaks became my own too. That is the extent of closeness that I felt for them. I was happy that they were both rewarded at the end for the many sacrifices they've made.

Dickens's writing is rich and heavy, unusually so than other Dickens novels I've read. Reading was almost a battle in the field of his verbosity. There is always the debate when it comes to Dickens that he could have done with fewer words and it is because he had to stick to a certain amount of serial installments that so many words came forth from his pen. But it is also a characteristic of Dickens that if you do away with it, certainly it will lose the pleasure of reading him. What I found most fascinating in Dickens's writing in Little Dorrit, however, is the use of symbology to bring out different quirks of his characters. I don't know if I've missed observing this style in his other works, but since I observed it only here, its novelty was welcoming.

Reading Dickens is always a pleasant journey. It takes you to memorable places and characters you'll never forget. It also gives a good account of 19th-century Victorian society with its strengths and its flaws. I also like the fact that I'm drawn to that time through his writing and living the history of a memorable period in England. I experienced the same in Little Dorrit. Except in one, Dickens hasn't disappointed me so far, and that may be why I keep looking forward to reading him more.