Book Review

[kenjari]

Nicholas Nickleby
by Charles Dickens

I really enjoyed Nicholas Nickleby. I guess I just didn't appreciate Dickens properly when I was younger, because I don't remember liking his writing nearly this much when had to read Great Expectations in high school. Also, I think that Dickens' reputation for being wordy is greatly exaggerated. Sure, he's wordy by the standards of contemporary writing, but when compared to other 19th century authors, he's not particularly verbose.
Oddly enough, the title character is actually not that interesting - Nicholas is a fairly standard 19th century Nice Guy. He seems to be more of catalyst for plot and a central axis around which the other characters move. This is not a problem, though, because Dickens does a brilliant job with the rest of the cast, from the serious characters (Ralph Nickleby, Newman Noggs) to the comic relief (Mr. Mantalini).

Comments

[storyjen.livejournal.com]

I read Nicholas Nickleby shortly after seeing the video of the stage play that the Royal Shakespeare Company did of the book - a very faithful adaptation, all eight hours of it! (If you can track that down, it's well worth a view. They rewrote a very few small bits that would not be so understandable to a 20th century audience, but managed to remain faithful to the spirit of the original while doing so. Plus their Nicholas is great, and really makes the character come alive in a way that's even more vivid than the written page. I rented it once from Hollywood Video - eight tapes, but as I say, well worth it.)

The book really redeemed Dickens for me too. I understand he has an earlier period in which he was a little more comic (during which he wrote Nicholas Nickleby among other things) and a later period in which he is a little more bleak (during which he wrote Great Expectations and a bunch of other books that you're likely to find representing him in high school curricula, but which are not nearly as much fun, I think. Pity.)

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look for that video. There's also a recent film version with Jim Broadbent, Nathan Lane, and Romola Garai.
It's strange how seldom high school curricula include any books that could be called fun, despite there being plenty of such novels in the canon.

[hca.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of classics are like this - unappreciated by the teenagers whose throats they are shoved down, but having lots of fine elements more easily appreciated by adults. Jane Austen is very much in this category - Jane Austen is freakin' funny, but you have to have a well-enough developed ear for nuance to get that, and most high-schoolers don't.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yup. There does seem to be a huge disconnect between what books adults like to assign teenagers, and what those teenagers might actually enjoy reading. And the sad thing about it is that I think that there are several books in the canon of "great literature" that high school students would probably enjoy reading but that they are almost never assigned for class.