Dickens

[Anonymous No.11242668]

So I was offered Charles Dicken's entire works for a very low price and I impulse bought it despite not having read him or knowing anything about his work

Can you give me some pointers as to which of his books to start with and which aren't worth reading??

Also Dickens general I guess
>what have you read
>was it good

[Anonymous No.11242910]

>>11242668
bump fucking reply to my thread you plebs

[Anonymous No.11242925]

>>11242668
I have read most of his work, Little Dorrit is a personal favorite

[Anonymous No.11242927]

Start with Pickwick Papers for fast-paced comedic breezy Dickens, or with Great Expectations for more complex and darker later Dickens.

[Anonymous No.11242930]

>>11242668
Dickens is a good writer. His work will entertain, but don't expect it to educate or elevate. Doesn't matter how you read him.

[Anonymous No.11242934]

>>11242930
>don't expect it to educate
That's not really fair, Dickens' work will educate on various issues in 19th century British society

[Anonymous No.11242941]

>>11242668
A Christmas carol is the only book by him that I've read, but I must say, it is some supreme comfy christmas kino. Well worth a read.

[Anonymous No.11242969]

>>11242668

He's good but can be hard work. A Tale of Two Cities is shorter and has a good hero. The best would generally reckoned to be Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations I guess. Maybe David Copperfield too.
Christmas Carol is obviously an easier read. Oliver Twist is the most famous I suppose.
Pickwick Papers is more lighthearted, just a string of incidents.

[Anonymous No.11243013]

>>11242969
>>11242941
>>11242927
>>11242925
Thank you friends, I will read these

>>11242930
The split in people's views on Dickens is kind of spectacular. half seem to think he's on a par with shakespeare, the other half think he's like steven king. I cant think of any other writers with this much of a split in their critical reception.

[Anonymous No.11243028]

>>11243013
Like King ? No Dickens could actually end a story correctly and not ramble on forever over shit that should have been cut

[Anonymous No.11243034]

>>11243028
I know, but my point is that so many people see him as just a cheap entertainment writer, while so many others think he's a linguistic genius on par with the shake snake. And it's just puzzling that there doesn't seem to be a concensus after 200 years

[Anonymous No.11243143]

>>11243034

There is some variation but not that much. No-one thinks he's Stephen King - tier and no-one thinks he's Uncle Bill - tier.

He varies between "the best English novelist" and "a very good Victorian novelist who is let down by his propensity for caricature and sentimentality".

[Anonymous No.11243199]

The only real stinker is The Old Curiosity Shop, so skip that (you will long for Little Nell to finally die)
>>11243034
I think part of the problem would Dickens is how he goes against the grain of what 'good' literature, or good a novel, is supposed to be. You have people like Dostoevsky, Henry James, Woolf, Nabokov, Pynchon, who have worked incredibly hard to make the novel Art, in a real sense, comparable to the symphony or an oil painting. Likewise you have readers who will make the effort required for such demanding work (pic related naturally)
And then you get this sentimental retard, Dickens, gleefully trampling over all of it.
It's very easy to see how 'bad' Dickens is. The shallowness, the sentimentality, the purple prose, the bad jokes, the lack of character development etc etc. You could write a book about his flaws. And yet, he just fucking works somehow.
I reread Oliver Twist recently. And all the flaws are immediately obvious. Imagine writing a novel in which the hero is a perfect little angel boy! Surely it should be awful. The crudely sketched villains, the nauseating 'good' characters.
And yet it works, I raced through it, brilliant as I remembered. Somehow it's still a fantastic read. So vivid, so immediate. In a way it is comparable to Shakespeare in how alive Dickens' world seems, the earthiness of it, the sense of a lived reality.
I wish I could explain how he does it.

[Anonymous No.11243201]

>>11243143
>He varies between "the best English novelist" and "a very good Victorian novelist who is let down by his propensity for caricature and sentimentality".
This exactly.

[Anonymous No.11243206]

>>11243034

cheap entertainment and linguistic genius don't have to be exclusive, i don't think anyone is arguing that dickens wasn't a 'linguistic genius', his prose facility is obvious from just a few pages of reading