Tell me about Dickens. Whats his writing like? Whats a good novel to get the Dickens experience? Like I read that he was the greatest Victorian novelist. What made him so great?
>>23537962He has added nothing to our understanding of human character.
>>23538168So any reason to read him or is he just a figure of is time? Is he funny, at least?
>>23538168This is horrendous bait.
Reasons to read him:Funny as fuckEvery book has a cast of memorable charactersOnce his plots get started, they zoom along like thrillersHis set pieces prose showreels are as good as any writerReasons not to read him:Long as shitHe doesn't really bother with any serious philosophical or thematic depthCan get over cutesy sometimesHe's essentially a crowd pleasing comedian, not an artist or a thinker. Charlie Chaplin not Carl Dreyer. Up to you if that's good or bad
>>23538287>He's essentially a crowd pleasing comedian, not an artistRetard
>>23538168>the Nabokov fag found new bait
>>23537962If Shakespeare and Swift had a child the result would be Dickens.
>>23538287>I-is that... artistry and subtlety?>Where's the heckin philosophical monologues??>Why can't I solve this book like a math equation???>AHHHH NOT ART IT'S NOT ART
>>23538294nta but I agree, Dickens was the 19th century equivalent of JK Rowling, not a great artist. He is a good writer, but not a genius by any means. Can't say I've read all of Dickens, but my favorite is Pickwick Papers; it's funny, entertaining, comfy, about three middle-aged men wandering around England and getting into jams and such. That's the only one I've bothered to reread.
>>23538659Curious about your idea of what makes a great artist or who a great artist is in your opinion. You can say Homer was a poor artist by your criteria.
>>23538659I think the opposite. I would say that Dickens in a good write but a great artist.
>>23537962Max Lawton loves Dickens
>>23538729He has good taste
>>23538182If we might hazard a definition of his literary character, we should, accordingly, call him the greatest of superficial novelists.
>>23538287Reading this description reminded me of Balzac quite a bit, specifically these points>Funny as fuck>Every book has a cast of memorable characters>Once his plots get started, they zoom along like thrillers>His set pieces prose showreels are as good as any writer>Can get over cutesy sometimesbut the Frenchman obviously has philosophical and thematic depth.
>>23538722You know it when you see it. I'd say a proper great writer should be intellectually challenging. Dickens didn't have any ideas besides poverty is bad, debt prisons are bad.
>>23538876There's a sort of genius in how shallow Dickens is. There's isn't anything there that might challenge an uneducated victorian factory worker, but there is still enough talent to make it worth while. If you self consciously tried to aim a book at the widest possible audience you'd never manage something as good as Dickens managed - you couldn't fake Dickens.And the odd thing is that his influences, Cervantes, Fielding, Goldsmith, are very clever and tricksy and play all sorts of self reflexive games Dickens never does - he means it all. The orphan girl isn't a cliche for him, he want you to take it as real, to feel it.He's such a bizarre personality. You'd say he was cynically commercial, but he's not cynical, that's really who he is
>>23538876Eh that's lame reasoning. Might as well deem Hegel the pinnacle of literature. He inspired Tolstoy, Hugo, Nabokov, Twain, Poe, Faulkner, etc. for a reason.
Dickens wrote approachable literature which spoke to the issues of his day. Reading him was never painful, but while most of his characters are solid, only a few really ascend into something I can care about (Sydney Carton in ATOTC was the standout).He deserves his reputation as an icon of his age, but I don't think he holds up. Honestly, I doubt that would surprise his contemporaries, or even him. He's the father of middlebrow literature, and at this points he's a historical figure more than a literary one.
>>23539056Who is highbrow?
>>23539098You are such a faggot.
>>23539101>I get filtered by Dickens>So this means he's middlebrow>He would definitely agree with me guys, this isn't really that controversialYeah I'm the faggot
bump
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>>23537962Dickens is a man of great literary merit. A man who had his finger on the pulse of English society. You have no understanding of Englishness if you haven't read Dickens. When most people think of Victorian England, they view it through the eyes of Dickens that's how influential he is, not Thomas Hardy or even George Eliot. Dickens' greatest novel is easily David Copperfield although the best one to start with is A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist.>>23538287>Implying Chaplin wasn't an artist or a thinkerHoly fucking shit. Tell someone you haven't seen City Lights or Modern Times without telling me you haven't seen either.
>>23537962He's everything GRRM wished he could be. Able to write complex, consulted plots and characters with surprise twists, and actually finish them with a satisfying ending.
>>23538287Charlie Chaplin wrote his own work with plenty of thought behind it. Dreyer was a talented filmmaker but he only ever adapted plays novels that he liked.
Ive only read Our Mutual Friend. It was overly long, the social commentary too on the nose (Fledgeby is a cartoon vilain, Riah a stereotypical al meek Jew who is supposed to be Dicken's apology for all the villainous Jews he's written even though Riah is definitely not a good man on closer inspection), fulm of tropes of the period (the hero was in disguise all along), changes tone halfway through (Boffin was obviously rewritten. Some anon here once said that his publisher forced him to make these changes as well as the sentinmental, feel-good ending. There's brief glimpses of literary genius though such as the resuscitation of Riderhood.
