Charles DICKENS : The Pickwick papers

Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers - a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, and his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters and incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour & literary invention.

Never have I even thought that Dickens could be so funny !

It is a big book (800 pages), there is basically no plot, I sometimes put it down to read another book and feel like I was progressing in my TBR pile, but it always made me smile and laugh when I got back to it !

Let's start with the good in this classic victorian novel, the first Dickens ever published :

- The characters are great. They are exaggerated, everybody knows that, but each have their own distinctive behaviour, sometimes even their own speech patterns ; you can't help but like them, even the rascals like Mr Jingle, or laugh at them, like Mr Stiggins.

- The storytelling is great. I love Dickens' sense of humour, I could imagine his eyes twinkling with laughter as he thrust his Pickwickians into the most incredible adventures. I love the way he writes hilarious things without seeming to do so.

- This is all in good fun. It's a fell good book. If you're even down, open up a chapter or two, read them, you don't have to re-read the whole book and you'll instantly feel better.

- It's a great example of male friendship : they all stand by each other, help each other.

- I seem to have developped a strong liking for manservants named Sam : first there was Sam Gangee, now there is Sam Weller. He's my favourite here.

What my problem was, mostly, was that the book is really, really long without an undergoing storyline. Mr Pickwick and his friends go here and there, do things (generally, eat well and drink well), meet people who tell them stories, then there's a little story inside the story, adventures happen but there is no big plot. You have to take into account the way The Pickwick papers were published at the time, by episodes in a newspaper.

My recommendations are :

- I know it was his first published book, but don't start reading Dickens with it. Get used to him with other novels, then come back to Pickwick later.

- Read it like it was published at the time : a little each week !

- Help yourself with an audiobook and a good narrator. This novel was my occasion to try my first audiobook and it helped a lot doing other stuff while listening to it. I found it for free on Youtube, here's the first of the three videos :

I didn't find any mention of who the narrator was, but he was excellent, I recommend him.

At the end, I was happy to have (finally) finished it - it took me practically a month to read it, but I was also sad for leaving all these people behind me. On the other hand, I learned to love the author and I'm sure he has many other great characters in store for me. Good, because I have bought his complete novels !