Dear Serial Readers,
I can hardly believe we've reached the end of this novel we began reading in March (and when I was in London and took the photo of the Thames)! I found this one of the most satisfying, if somewhat predictable (but not entirely so), of Dickens' novels. I'm eager for your reviews! Apologies for the length of this post--and there's so much I'm leaving out!
First, I was so intrigued by Josh's recollection that Shaw thought this novel was more "seditious" (the word Shaw used) than Marx's CAPITAL. Here's a link to an article a few years ago that mentions this: "Why Dickens is so relevant today..." Shaw was a great admirer of Marx, a Socialist, and member of the Fabian Society. What seems to me most startling and radical about Dickens' portrayal of financial speculation, greed, and the pervasive networks of capitalism is the sense of accountability or responsibility from so many different quarters. In this light, Arthur's recriminations over a wreckless investment (even if he did not act with the rank ruthlessness of Merdle), or his resolve to take consequences, suggests a model of shared responsibility; the same with Pancks, expressed through his noble, hilarious, and satisfying rant on Casby's Principle of the Squeeze in Bleeding Heart Yard. In other words, Dickens doesn't rest content with eliminating a few outlier criminal crooks, like Merdle or Rigaud, but shows how they're part of a huge network of characters who profit from others' losses: Casby, Mrs. Clennam, Flintwinch, and many more.
This shared responsibility seems a far cry even from today's response to financial crimes and misdemeanors, and a widespread refusal to see the vast interconnections between speculation, fraud, gains and losses. See Paul Krugman's recent op-ed where he notes the contradiction of the position that argues, on the one hand, that extending aid to the unemployed is unthinkable in this era of national deficits, and on the other hand, that reducing tax cuts for the rich is equally unthinkable.
In this novel, all players and speculators are linked together in the intricate webwork of the plot and the circulations locally and abroad of money, or paper documents about money (such as the iron box with that codicil of the Clennam will, which trades hands, crosses borders, and involves legacies uniting Arthur's real mother and Little Dorrit). The only way truly to leave the vast debtor's prison which is, in a sense, the world of the novel (which opened in a quarantine prison of foreigners in Marseilles), is to realize and accept the implications of one's debts, to see that one is in a debtor's prison in the first place, something perhaps Dorrit Senior, with his delusions of grandeur, never quite managed to do. Or perhaps living in a state of indebtedness is vastly preferable to the alternative. Maybe that's why Marshalsea is a more genuine place in contrast to all the scenes of fraudulent pretenses. And maybe that's why "Little Dorrit" insists on this name rather than "Amy" as one that emphasizes smallness (grating though I find that choice--and doesn't "Amy" come from the French "amie" or 'friend'?)
What did you think of Mrs. Clennam's secret and her justification of her possession of the baby Arthur from his nameless mother and the related suppression of the codicil? So many miserable women in this novel (including Miss Wade, with her brief curtain bow in Calais)! Amy Dorrit is certainly the model held up for women to emulate, and Tattycoram seems to rehabilitate herself in that direction. But I think Pancks and Clennam and even Doyce, are male models of the right ways to speculate and conduct responsible financial and interpersonal relations.
Did you notice how the last chapter opens with "a voice" reading to Arthur in prison, Amy's reading something like a Dickens novel of fancy that encourages imaginative speculation that is soothing and replenishing in contrast to the immediate environment? Is this a panacea, or a way to curtail trading on others' losses?
The whole ending, marriage too, reminded me of the ending of a later Dickens novel, Our Mutual Friend, where Lizzie Hexam nurses Eugene back from the edge of death and marries him. Dickens likes unlikely angels (from lower class or modest origins or inclinations) to rescue his fallen men back to life. There are many such pairings throughout his novels. But what also struck me in this finale, with the long-foreshadowed marriage, was Amy's active role. She is the one who makes a full confession of her love to Arthur, and her desire to share her "fortune" with him--she in effect reverses their roles and so becomes his mother, rather than his child.
On Julia's comparison with Jane Eyre: in Bronte's novel Jane's fortune allows her to approach Rochester on the class ladder and to free herself from financial dependence on him as (former) employer. In this way, Jane can return to Rochester as a closer equal, even one with the power to see and to lead (Amy is similar in this respect). Here, Amy has either lost her fortune (as did her siblings) through bad speculations or destroys it, at least symbolically, through the burning of the codicil, in order to demonstrate that she and Arthur are equals. I see this ending too as part of Dickens' desire for a world of social and even financial equals--rather than the peaks and valleys of the rich upper class and lower working class and destitute.
Finally, I loved the sudden collapse of the House of Clennam. This reminded me of the role of houses, edifices, even bodies in Dickens that collapse or seem on the brink of some disaster (Bleak House, Krook's own spontaneous combustion, the House of Dombey, just to name a few) as richly symbolic.
Yes, this novel grew on me in startling ways, as some of you have mentioned too. I'm glad I'm teaching it this fall! I've also just ordered the 2008 BBC adaptation, which earned much praise.
Now, onto a novel that was serialized in Dickens' magazine All the Year Round: Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE! As I mentioned earlier, we'll read each week the four installments published weekly in the course of a month. I'll list the chapters for our weekly reading, but also the original divisions in case you want to follow the flavor of the serial form, and divide these readings up according to the original weekly installments (which you could read in four daily sittings each week).
For next week: The Moonstone, Prologue through chapter 9 (January 1868: Prologue-chap 3; chaps 4-5; chaps 6-7; chaps 8-9).
Serially Sailing (to India....),
Susan
3 comments:
I loved this novel. I think I actually liked it better this time than the first time I read it, because I could spend a little more time admiring all the little details instead of trying (vainly!) to figure out all of the plot details that we don't learn until very late in the novel. Flora, the description of Merdle's financial dealings as an "infection" (how perfect is that for understanding financial crisis?), Mrs. General, the Circumlocution Office, Mr. Pancks, the hilariously dull Mr. Sparkler, and so much more -- it's just amazing to me how full of wonderful details there are in this novel.
As far as the big picture goes, I was struck how the novel consistently thinks about (literal and metaphorical) debt. It's of course the reason that Dorrit is in jail in the first place, but there are so many characters who create debt, refuse to forgive debt (Mrs. Clennam and the ambiguity of that phrase "Do Not Forget"), and so on. Little Dorrit, unlike so many of the other characters, doesn't insist on repayment for her actions. (Although I guess that Doyce reproaches Arthur for being so distraught about his error and the debt that he created.) Perhaps this is why the novel is so moving when it considers how William Dorrit is unable to shed the pain of the Marshalsea ... it's a debt that he is unable to forgive or repay, even as he becomes incredibly wealthy.
Looking forward to Wilkie Collins and The Moonstone!
I agree that the ending of Little Dorrit gives one so much to think about, it is hard to condense it into one post! This was my first time reading the novel, and there are so many plot strands that the ending invites one to bring together. It really is weblike, as Susan says. I'm looking forward to rereading it at some point to savor Dickens' storytelling prowess (like Josh was lucky enough to do!)
But for now, just a few thoughts. I was particularly moved by the very last paragraphs of the novel, where Dickens moves from a vision of Little Dorrit's life as a storybook scenario (perhaps even fairy tale) recorded in three volumes of the "Registers" (birth in vol. 1, sleep in vol. 2, and marriage in vol. 3) to the married couple going "down" literally into the street and more figuratively into "a modest life of usefulness and happiness" (perhaps as opposed to the elevated life of a literary protagonist?). What struck me most about this passage, in addition to the way it captured the fluidity of the novel's interconnected plots, was the fact that the world itself had not changed. The streets are still roaring with "the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain" but Arthur and Little Dorrit walk through this unscathed. Dickens is definitely critiquing capitalism and especially speculation here, but he doesn't necessarily suggest that even a huge crash will change the system in significant ways. What can be changed is one's personal attitude toward debt, one's responsibility to others, etc. At times I found the emphasis on unmitigated duty (especially as associated with female characters) a little grating, but this last paragraph ameliorated this a bit for me. Reciprocal human relationships (the image of Amy and Arthur hand in hand) seem to take over and stand up against the din of the competitive, materialistic world. Like so many of Dickens' other novels, happiness isn't about material comforts at all, but rather about deep human connections. This is a message that I still find relevant today!
Like Josh, I'm looking forward to reading the Moonstone in installments. I've read the novel before, but never with close attention to serial breaks.
For anyone who wants to read the original installments of The Moonstone in Dickens's magazine, I found them on Google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ETMFAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions%3ALCCN02026389&lr&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q=moonstone&f=false
The novel isn't listed in the table of contents, unfortunately, so you do have to scroll through to find them. Or just type in "moonstone" in the search box.
Enjoy!
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