Dear Serial Readers,
Traveling in this novel seems to take a while--perhaps to allow sufficient time for all the reading? I was intrigued by the discussion of form by the architecture student, aka Martin C, early in this installment. Pecksniff has given him the assignment of designing assorted odd constructions--a cow-house or an ornamental turnpike. I wonder if this as an extended metaphor for the raw materials of fiction-building, where even "a cart-load of loose bricks" can be transformed into architectural wonders, like the domes of St. Paul's in London or St. Sophia in Constantinople.
Despite the various tangents and odd annexes (Slyme and Tigg), the plot thickens--we learn that grandfather Chuzzlewit's traveling companion Mary is young Martin's would-be sweetheart. As Tamara noticed about Dickens's fire-gazers, Martin relates much of this backstory to Tom Pinch while watching the flames in the fireplace, a favorite Dickensian inspiration for imaginative speculations. This seems a familiar pattern: young Martin must prove himself worthy of his love, and presumably worthy of the wealth too his grandfather withholds from him. Have I read this story already?
Eager to learn more of M. Todgers while the Pecksniffs visit London--for reasons which will reveal themselves "all in good time" (apt closing words of this number) in the fullness of seriality!
Next week: chaps. 9-10 (again, two long chapters, rather than three shorter ones).
Serially yours,
Susan
2 comments:
Boy do I feel like I've read this story before! And yet, as Susan points out, its extended metaphors really stick out as pleasurable moments of narrative pause during all the traveling (particularly the ornamental turnpikes and distrustful skylights).
I'm still trying to figure out the tempo of all of MC's comings and goings, their different (and so often uncomfortable) modes of transport, and their various lodgings and resting sites. Is its focus on impractical architecture and uncomfortable/provisional lodgings training us to look for other more rewarding or meaningful sites of community and domesticity--other plots and paths? Pecksniff's metaphor for people *themselves* as traveling coaches with passionate horses (a great misreading of Phaedrus!) seems very apropos here.
I'm hoping we'll hear more of Mark Tapley, who leaves his comfortable "spot" (and possible marriage plot with Lupin) not only for the adventure of the unknown but also for a determinedly *melancholy* experience--something he vows to make "jolly". And, of course, the only thing that will really work for Mark is a "WICKED" (or at least very mean and malicious) FAMILY--the Chuzzlewits themselves, perhaps?
These ambitions (spurred by Mark's "whimsical restlessness" and "roving" ways) strike me as yet another fitting metaphor for the goals and rhythms of the novel--although we'll soon see about that!
enjoyed Susan’s musing whether the discussion of architecture and “cart-load of bricks” is a metaphor for fiction-building. Otherwise, having noticed that Slyme and Chevy and Chiv are one, I’m relieved to have have fewer characters to track than I originally thought. I also enjoyed the dawning awareness in Pinch, whose good nature seems to presume goodwill in everyone else, that Martin the younger is obstinate and selfish. He communicates his insight dryly in response to Martin’s announcement that he will not marry "the young lady" until he is *able* to do so, seeing no reason to plunge himself into poverty. To which Pinch says,“To say nothing of her."
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