A Masterful Look at the Corruptions of Wealth and Poverty

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	• Little Dorrit (Penguin Classics) Charles Dickens Penguin Classics, 2004 - 1024 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Love Almost Lost

Little Dorrit was not well received upon its original publication in monthly segments from 1855-1857 because critics and readers of the time were unhappy with the complicated nature of the story and its dark tone. To this day, it is one of the lesser known Charles Dickens novels, a fate it does not deserve.

Much of the novel takes place in the Marshalsea prison for debtors, an environment with which Dickens was familiar due to his own family history. William Dorrit, father of "Little Dorrit," has been confined to the prison for so long when the book opens that he has become known inside its walls as "Father of the Marshalsea." He has lost all hope of ever being released from the prison and has learned to enjoy the respect that he receives there from prison employees and fellow-prisoners alike. In fact, he has been imprisoned for so long that Little Dorrit, born inside the prison walls, is now a young woman working as a seamstress outside the walls in order to be able to bring her father some of the luxuries not provided to prisoners. She faithfully returns to the prison every evening in order to see that her father is as comfortable as possible.

Into this mix arrives one Arthur Clennam, only recently returned to London from several years in India when he meets Little Dorrit while visiting his mother. Clennam is struck by the selflessness of Amy Dorrit and befriends the family in an attempt to make their lives somewhat easier. But in true Dickens style, Clennam and the Dorrits will find their roles reversed after Clennam is swindled of his fortune and William Dorrit is found to be heir to a large fortune.

But this is only one of the book's major plotlines. Dickens also spends hundreds of pages introducing a predatory Frenchman and describing how this despicable man is attempting to extort money from Clennam's mother because he knows some dark secret of hers that she is desperate to keep hidden.

At its heart, Little Dorrit is a love story, one that seems destined for a sad ending because middle-aged Arthur Clennam feels that Little Dorrit can never see him as anything more than a friend and father-figure. She, on the other hand, living in complete poverty, does not feel worthy of Clennam's attention. Pride proves to be a two-way street, and when Little Dorrit finally admits her love for Clennam, he is broke and refuses her because he does not want to leave the prison at her expense.

Little Dorrit is filled with side-characters who have distinct personalities and stories of their own to tell. It is through them that Dickens so successfully recreates the world of early nineteenth century London as experienced by all class levels of its inhabitants. Admittedly, this is a long book (the Wordsworth Classic edition runs 740 pages but others clock in at over 1,000 pages) but it is well worth the effort. It is always a treat to lose yourself in the world of Charles Dickens and Little Dorrit is no exception.

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My favorite Dickens novel

I disagree with those who say this was not one of Dickens's best novels; on the contrary, I feel it is one of his very best. I believe many critics and those who study Dickens would agree. I had a difficult time getting into the book after the initial few chapters but was richly rewarded as I continued on. The length of the book is quite intimidating; however, it is well worth the effort to read it. I could not put the book down as I came to the last 100 or so 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 his novels deal with unpleasant topics, and there is quite a bit of humor in the book to balance the darkness. In fact the book is full of balance, wonderful Dickens prose, masterful characterization, as well as one the best plots. I will read this novel again when I have the time to savor it.

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a great Dickens novel but ...

This is one of Dickens best novels in terms of overall continuity but it also is his most static: almost all scenes occur inside prisons - mostly debtors prison - and there's a lot of it - 1000 pages. And there's not a lot happening in those prisons. I think that Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend and Martin Chuzzlewit are also long novels that are more entertaining (and of course there are all of the 'episodic' Dickens novels to read), but Little Dorrit is one of his better crafted works. If you seriously like Dickens, then this is worth the time.

While Hard Times was written at about the same time as Little Dorrit, the two could not be more different. Hard Times features 1-dimensional characters you couldn't care less about; Little Dorrit's father, the Father of the Marshalsea, is one of Dickens' most complex creations, and you sympathize with him at the same time as you dislike him. His mental breakdown at the end is particularly poignant. The Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit seems to foreshadow Kafka's Castle, whihe factories in Hard Times are cardboard propoganda.

(Aside: the best Dickens film adaptation I have ever seen was of Little Dorrit. For some reason, that is still unavailable on DVD.)

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A Masterful Look at the Corruptions of Wealth and Poverty - and One Shining Spirit

I have always loved Dickens, but hadn't read any in a while, and never might have read "Little Dorrit" if I hadn't recently read a biography of Dorothy Day that mentioned that this was her favorite and that she kept a copy of it by her bed. Let me just say that I understand why someone whose life was dedicated to the homeless and downtrodden would have found this book - out of all of Dickens - the most inspirational. It is particularly masterful at depicting how being flung to the bottom of the heap can create psychological damage that no amount of wealth can ever undo. We see the corruptions both of extreme wealth and degrading poverty. And we are also shown most convincingly one small figure who remains uncorrupted by both extremes, who finds her greatest joy in service and in following the steps of the Master. (Little Dorrit has a wonderful speech to this effect as she confronts Mrs. Clennam's championing of Old Testament-inspired vengeance.) The characters are endlessly interesting, whether engaging or loathesome, and altogether, long as it was, I was sorry to see it end!

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I would give it six stars if I could

This is a long book - it feels like a 1000 pages - but it is a masterpiece. Dickens takes us from Marseilles, home to an evil man whose smile makes his moustache disappear under his top lip and draws us into a dark, damp, murky Victorian London where one's whole future existence seems to be mapped out at birth, and where to escape from one's perceived 'destiny' is both sacriligeous and impossible. The Marshalsea Prison is a place all of us can visualise - a debtors prison from which many fail to escape, the dubious honour of the Father of the Marshalsea bestowed on the longest-serving inmate. Little Dorrit - Amy - is the daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea and this is her tale, one which stretches across the grime of smoggy nineteenth century London to the pollution of Continental Europe. The cast of characters is fascinating and Dickens rarely misses a trick - each is easily comparable to people any of us knows today. I studied this book at school and I have read it four or five times since.

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reviews: page 1, 2

When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother?s seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy?s father, William Dorrit, a man of shabby grandeur, long imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr. Pancks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, and the tipsily garrulous Flora Finching, to Merdle, an unscrupulous financier, and the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens?s maturity.

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