/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13570046]

Great Expectations. A Tale of Two Cities. Oliver Twist. Bleak House. David Copperfield. Little Dorrit. Nicholas Nickleby. Martin Chuzzlewit.

How did this fucking Anglo manage to write so many classic works?

[Anonymous No.13570050]

>>13570046
who that

[Anonymous No.13570057]

>>13570050
Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.13570078]

>>13570046
you forgot Our Mutual Friend. just finished it. great book.

[Anonymous No.13570106]

>>13570078
I've never read it desu, I really should. Guy was so remarkably consistent.

[Anonymous No.13570116]

>>13570106
have you read bleak house? I just bought it and will be starting after I knock a few more books off my list. is it worth the hundred hours plus I'll probably be putting into it?

[Anonymous No.13570118]

>>13570046
I thought A Tale of Two Cities was pretty fucking bad, but I’ve heard really good things about David Copperfield and Bleak House. Been meaning to give them a try but I’m unsure if his other works would be much better.

[Anonymous No.13570166]

>>13570118
I loved A Tale of Two Cities. I'm not saying this applies to you, but I think the people that don't like it are lacking in their knowledge of the French Revolution. Without understanding that historical context, the terror, the social situation in france at the time, the anger and uncertainty, you miss out on A LOT. that uncertainty is always in the background of the novel, like a a banging drum in the background of a movie scene. but if you aren't familiar with revolutionary france, there's no drum. and a lot of the passages lose their significance.

[Anonymous No.13570189]

>>13570116
It's honestly my favourite of his, incredibly ambitious and immersive. The more time you spend with it the less you want to leave.

[Anonymous No.13570193]

>>13570189
thanks!!!! I'm looking forward to it.

[Anonymous No.13571066]

Didn't even include Pickwick Papers.
Really though, only Old Curiosity Shop is missable, he had great quality control otherwise.
That experience as a court reporter must have helped with writing so fast about so many different people. But I think Dickens just had more raw talent than any writer, like one of those athletes that's never had proper coaching but has so much potential it doesn't matter.
If he had been better educated he might have produced more polished work, but in terms of pure imagination and creativity he's on his own.

[Anonymous No.13572618]

>Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the influence of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down their shirt collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets with bare throats and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an astonished public. >These were poetical young gentlemen. The custom was gradually found to be inconvenient, as involving the necessity of too much clean linen and too large washing bills, and these outward symptoms have consequently passed away; but we are disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the number of poetical young gentlemen is considerably on the increase.
>We know a poetical young gentleman — a very poetical young gentleman. We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and melancholy cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction of soul: he seldom has his hair cut, and often talks about being an outcast and wanting a kindred spirit; from which, as well as from many general observations in which he is wont to indulge, concerning mysterious impulses, and yearnings of the heart, and the supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly things with the glowing magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all his friends that he has been stricken poetical.

[Anonymous No.13572626]

>>13572618
>The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the opposite wall. When he is in one of these positions, his mother, who is a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to bespeak your attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and whisper with a shake of the head, that John’s imagination is at some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it. Hereupon John looks more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before, and suddenly snatching a pencil from his pocket, puts down three words, and a cross on the back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once or twice across the room, inflicts a most unmerciful slap upon his head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.

[Anonymous No.13572632]

>>13572626
>The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical obliquity of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted. For instance, when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched woman was affording delicious food wherewithal to gorge the insatiable curiosity of the public, our friend the poetical young gentleman was in ecstasies — not of disgust, but admiration. ‘Heavens!’ cried the poetical young gentleman, ‘how grand; how great!’ We ventured deferentially to inquire upon whom these epithets were bestowed: our humble thoughts oscillating between the police officer who found the criminal, and the lock-keeper who found the head. ‘Upon whom!’ exclaimed the poetical young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, ‘Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!’ — and thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the great and noble of the land. We held our peace, and meekly signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions — firstly, because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young gentleman; and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use our entering into any disputation, if we were: being perfectly convinced that the respectable and immoral hero in question is not the first and will not be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false sympathy or diseased curiosity will be plentifully expended.
>This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman. In his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his neckcloth, and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a Lady’s Magazine, or the ‘Poets’ Corner’ of some country newspaper; or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the rainbow leaves of a lady’s album. These are generally written upon some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by midnight, or beholding Saint Paul’s in a snow-storm; and when these gloomy objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his soul in a touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that he is no longer a child, but has gradually grown up.

[Anonymous No.13572634]

>>13572632
>The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school. He has a great deal to say too about the world, and is much given to opining, especially if he has taken anything strong to drink, that there is nothing in it worth living for. He gives you to understand, however, that for the sake of society, he means to bear his part in the tiresome play, manfully resisting the gratification of his own strong desire to make a premature exit; and consoles himself with the reflection, that immortality has some chosen nook for himself and the other great spirits whom earth has chafed and wearied.
>When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are all superlatives. Everything is of the grandest, greatest, noblest, mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest, vilest, and most pitiful. He knows no medium: for enthusiasm is the soul of poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young gentleman? ‘Mr. Milkwash,’ says a young lady as she unlocks her album to receive the young gentleman’s original impromptu contribution, ‘how very silent you are! I think you must be in love.’ ‘Love!’ cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at full speed, ‘Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart. Love! The withering, blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted. Love did you say! Ha! ha! ha!’

>With this, the poetical young gentleman laughs a laugh belonging only to poets and Mr. O. Smith of the Adelphi Theatre, and sits down, pen in hand, to throw off a page or two of verse in the biting, semi-atheistical demoniac style, which, like the poetical young gentleman himself, is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Anonymous No.13573893]

>>13570193
AGREED. It is his best

[Anonymous No.13574545]

>young Dickens will never interview you about your court case, his eyes flashing as you you share emotional details, his hand grasping yours in sympathy