Little Dorrit (Wordsworth Collection) [ペーパーバック]

This is my personal favorite among Dickens novels, fully equal to Bleak House, though not nearly as widely read or admired. Most reviewers miss the fact that debtors prisons had long been closed before Dickens wrote the novel, so 'reform' was in no way its objective. What he really wanted to explore was self-imprisonment. His main character, Arthur Clennam, has been imprisoned by family strictures all his life. Denied love as a child, exiled from his sweetheart as a young man to an outpost of the family business in China, left by his father only with a watch inscribed 'DNF' meaning 'do not forget' (what he doesn't know) Arthur returns to England. We first see him 'imprisoned' in quarantine with others who suffer spiritual incarcerations of their own. The spiritual heart of this novel is the story of how Arthur loses hope that he can 'go home again' and pick up with his old life, how he reconstructs a personal life and satisfying work, and how he endures the collapse of the past and all its guilty debts, ultimately being set free to live life on a new foundation. This novel will hearten those who have arrived in the middle of our lives feeling that like Arthur, we stand among ruins, 'descending a green and growing tree' whose limbs die and wither under us as we come down. But when he is finally stripped of everything, Arthur gains all. While this great bildungsroman of maturity is being carried forward, Dickens offers a wealth of characters, plots, and subplots that will keep Dickens lovers turning pages in well-founded faith that Boz will once again knit all together in a satisfying tapestry of incident and meaning. It could be summed up as "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." All the characters are jailed by something--Little Dorrit herself by her prison home, her father by his dependency and pathetic grasping for reputation. Blandois, the wicked murderer, shows up first in a Marseilles prison and bestrides the plot with his vile presence. Arthur's mother stays voluntarily imprisoned in a decaying house and her wheelchair, and worse, in wrath and jealousy. We also meet a housemaid trapped in uncontrollable rage, the woman who abducts her, walled in pride and hatred, a young woman trapped in adoration of a worthless husband, parents frozen in grief over a lost child, a financier transfixed with the knowledge of his own falsity . . . and more. Secrets, nightmares, murders, lost deeds and treasure, stolen fortunes, all abound in this vivid and satisfying plum pudding of a novel. Modern readers may weary of the satirical chapters on 'the Circumlocution Office'--but they're no worse than the treatment of the Court of Chancery in Bleak House. The best of this novel is that it is not all written just for the satisfactory settlement of some young person, but rather for the arrival at full maturity of a man who is already adult at the novel's opening. Arthur (one remembers that Britain's legendary king bore that name) rescues others from despair, and finally learns to let others so rescue him. This is a redemptive novel, that shows us it is possible to see that we are inside the prison of who we've been taught we are, and believe we can't stop being, and it is possible to break beyond those prison walls and 'go down to a life' of quiet decency and common happiness. A great, grownup read!

I truly don't understand why this novel is not more widely read or discussed. Thanks to the BBC dramatization, it has been saved from obscurity. Even though the television adaptation is quite good, it is no substitute for reading the full text of the book. I would disagree with those who say this was not one of the author's best novels; on the contrary, I feel it is one of his very best. Dickens wrote so many great books of which I am a fan. Among my favorites are: Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield. Of all these masterpieces, Little Dorrit is my absolute favorite. I heard somewhere that Shaw felt Little Dorrit was Dickens's best work. Who am I to argue with Shaw? I believe many critics and those who study Dickens would agree. Ironically, the work was wildly popular during Dickens own life when it was published in serial form. In fact, that is the best way to read the novel...in small portions. You will choke to death if you try and consume it in one bite. This novel is too big and rich to devour quickly. I had a difficult time getting into the book after the initial few chapters but was richly rewarded as I continued on. This is not a book for lightweights. The length of the book is quite intimidating, the plot is complex, and the characters numerous; that being said, it is well worth the effort to read. I could not put it down as I came to the last few hundred pages. I absolutely loved it by the time I finished the book. It is one of Dickens's darker novels, which may put some off. Even so, many, if not most, of Dickens novels deal with unpleasant topics, and there is quite a bit of humor (Flora, her aunt, Afferty...) in Little Dorrit to balance the darkness. In fact the book is full of balance - wonderful Dickens prose, masterful characterization, as well as one the best plots ever devised. As others have said so well, this novel stands up to multiple readings. I certainly plan to reread and savor it many times.

Among the reasons to come to earth must surely be the chance to read this novel. Shaw called this novel a masterpiece among masterpieces. My opinion is that this novel is the greatest of the sixteen. It is less bland than Bleak House, more poignant than Copperfield. I started it desultorily, distracted greatly by events in my life. But gradually as I read it dawned on me that sentence by sentence Dickens was here at his most trenchant. I began to be charmed by the characters, some of the greatest in his oeuvre. For all the darkness in the conception--a girl born and raised in debtor's prison--Little Dorrit is a wonderful character. Arthur Clennam is a real man. I adore Flora's deranged speech and her tenderness. Fanny is a delight! And there are Doyce and Pancks--and the Meagles and Pet and Tattycoram--and there are so many secrets! And isn't Blandois the precursor of Fosco? Oh, I could go on. To the Circumlocution Office and Barnacles and Merdle - and Afferty and Flintwich and Mrs. Clennam--such a wonderful feast of characters--with the Marshallsea hovering over all.

How well Dickens uses dialogue to identify character; how amusing are their tics. The characters fall into strata. The main of them, characterized by Clennam, Doyce, and Pancks, are at the level of small businessmen, tradesmen. Below them are the destitutes. A little above them are Mrs. Clennam, Casby, the Meagles. And high above them the Merdles, Gowans, and the like. The novel finds its way at the lower levels--it's a novel of the lower middle class and the lower class and the poor--and down there is so much life and love and devotion. It was strong medicine for me, cognitively dissonant, for Little Dorrit to love with such devotion. And Clennam loves her so deeply though he had no love in his life to that point. Where did he find such love in himself?

Dickens does not just give the action. Unlike so many other writers (almost all), he lets the characters be themselves, revealing the plot from time to time as they get to it, but seldom hurrying. They are being themselves and leading their lives--of course caught up in the great machine of the novel; it's as though Dicken's characters' clothes get caught in the huge, creaking machinery of his plots which then tugs them along, or perhaps grinds them up...

The novel is too full of words. It's verbose. Many times I could not follow the sense. It's labored. There are plot shifts just for the sake of changing the experiment.

But as I finished the novel a benediction fell upon me--a moment that cannot be put into words.