Where did Little Dorrit learn of selflessness and compassion?

While I appreciated how much better Dickens got at the construction of his novels - compared to “Martin Chuzzlewit”, for example, this one has a much stronger beginning and the wrapping up of the narrative threads at the end is done much more neatly - the title characters’ self-sacrificing nature was a bit much for me to be able to enjoy it. Still four stars because there is so much good stuff in here that three feels like it wouldn’t be enough. It won’t end up as one of my favorite of Dickens’ books, however.

Probably my favourite Dickens so far. It has everything I love about Dickens - quirky characters, dense, sprawling plot, social satire (the Circumlocution Office is basically proto-Kafka) and heaps of atmosphere. And, while female characters are usually not Dickens’ strong suit, Amy Dorrit is actually quite well-rounded. Great read.

Second reading since college. I’m such a softie for a critique on the prison complex and a sweet marriage ending! Pairs well with imagining Matthew Macfadyen in the BBC version.

While I wished the pacing were better at times (perhaps it would have been better to read this as it was published, in a serialized manner), this classic (and my first dickens) was an outstandingly fun read.

I found this to be, perhaps, the most comprehensive critique of 19th century ills that Dickens ever wrote. It's also a beautiful metaphor about imperfection, love, and recovery. I owe a great debt to Claire Foy, however, for forever tinting my view of little Amy Dorrit (Solid talent) in the BBC miniseries. If I had read the book before the film, I would have seen her as too perfect, too angelic (for Clennam paints her so), but because of Foy I saw the flaws and identified with the character. And Blandois was even more evil than painted in the BBC adaption.

Brilliant Dickensian writing, of course. It seemed more collected than some--less sporadically scattered about.

My one complaint was the plot... I'm still not sure what happened, what the secret was. Bits and pieces of it seemed to be scattered throughout the story and, since it was never quite collected in one monologue (cue The Incredible's quote), I'm still puzzling it out in my mind.



Dickens' wit strikes again...

"Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral town, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty- five as a single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General drove until the commissary died. In the course of their united journey, they ran over several people who came in the way of the proprieties; but always in a high style and with composure.

The commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable to the service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his hearse, and they all had feathers and black velvet housings with his coat of arms in the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what quantity of dust and ashes was deposited at the bankers'. It then transpired that the commissary had so far stolen a march on Mrs General as to have bought himself an annuity some years before his marriage, and to have reserved that circumstance in mentioning, at the period of his proposal, that his income was derived from the interest of his money. Mrs General consequently found her means so much diminished, that, but for the perfect regulation of her mind, she might have felt disposed to question the accuracy of that portion of the late service which had declared that the commissary could take nothing away with him."

Monsieur Dickens at full-tilt boogie!