Dear Serial Readers,
This story starts slowly, or in small installments, because originally Dickens meant to write a short tale for his new magazine MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. Infact, it's Master Humphrey who is narrating the story so far of the Curiosity Dealer and his granddaughter (and, with this second installment, his grandson Fred). With three serial novels behind him (Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby), Dickens had in mind, for this weekly journal, some sketches, essays, adventures, and letters along the lines of the famously successful eighteenth-century periodicals, the SPECTATOR and the TATLER. So that's one reason why this story seems so clearly focused already and the installments so short. I learned too that book versions of this novel do include a few sections Dickens added later to the original installments. But this is because he really had not initially meant for a full-length serial. The public's warm response to Nell demanded much more. So I wonder if we'll see a shift in the style of the narrative later on, as Dickens makes the transition from a tale to a multiplot serial novel.
This second weekly installment has our Master Humphrey narrator return to the Curiosity Dealer's warehouse in his efforts to learn more about the grandfather and his mysterious occupation. No doubt There we encounter, along with Master H., Fred, the grandson who's angry with his grandfather and demands to see his sister. Fred insinuates that the grandfather is rich and yet works little Nell nearly to death, while the Curiosity Dealer claims they're poor. Dick Swiveller provides some comic interest as a human curiosity in the shop/novel, a glimpse of the eccentric characters that are part of the Dickens trademark. What struck me again is how this short installment again ends with a bit of suspense--as Nell is on the threshold. I like these small doses of narrative that close with a teaser for more--and I'll be back soon to find out what happens when "the child herself appeared."
Next time (at the end of this week, via my Mousehold Words delivery system), chapters 3 and 4. With this slow starting up pace, I'm hoping there will be some Curiosity readers joining this serial experience! If you like, you can read the first four chapters and chime in next week. Curious?
Serially shopping,
Susan
POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins
19 February 2012
12 February 2012
The Old Curiosity Shop #1 (chap 1)
Dear Serial Readers,
I'm trying an experiment and I invite you to join me. I'm reading this serial via the Mousehold Words delivery system on my iPad or laptop rather than in a paper book format. I've asked Mousehold Words to deliver the 40 installments of THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP twice a week, and my plan is to post short comments after I read each installment (one at the start of the week, the other toward the weekend). I hope you'll join me! See the link to MOUSEHOLD WORDS in the right sidebar of the homepage of "Serial Readers."
I love the way this serial begins! The narrator as a flaneur, a man walking about London at night who encounters a little girl on a mission, is terrific as a launch into the story. Isn't this walking through the city at night, this musing and watching and wondering, like the solitary work of writing fiction and of reading it? The eponymous shop too with the "curiosity dealer" also reminds me of story-making & the shop as an emblem for the entire novel. And Nell seems an early instance of Dickens's fascination with the wise girl-child (Amy Dorrit, Sissy Jupe, Florence Dombey, Jenny Wren).
At the end of this opening number, my curiosity is piqued, eager and waiting for more. Why was Nell out alone at night in the London streets? What is the nature of the curiosity-dealer's nightly absences from home?
Stay tuned to part two of forty (second chapter)!
Serially speculating,
Susan
I'm trying an experiment and I invite you to join me. I'm reading this serial via the Mousehold Words delivery system on my iPad or laptop rather than in a paper book format. I've asked Mousehold Words to deliver the 40 installments of THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP twice a week, and my plan is to post short comments after I read each installment (one at the start of the week, the other toward the weekend). I hope you'll join me! See the link to MOUSEHOLD WORDS in the right sidebar of the homepage of "Serial Readers."
I love the way this serial begins! The narrator as a flaneur, a man walking about London at night who encounters a little girl on a mission, is terrific as a launch into the story. Isn't this walking through the city at night, this musing and watching and wondering, like the solitary work of writing fiction and of reading it? The eponymous shop too with the "curiosity dealer" also reminds me of story-making & the shop as an emblem for the entire novel. And Nell seems an early instance of Dickens's fascination with the wise girl-child (Amy Dorrit, Sissy Jupe, Florence Dombey, Jenny Wren).
At the end of this opening number, my curiosity is piqued, eager and waiting for more. Why was Nell out alone at night in the London streets? What is the nature of the curiosity-dealer's nightly absences from home?
Stay tuned to part two of forty (second chapter)!
Serially speculating,
Susan
07 February 2012
Happy 200th Birthday to Charles Dickens, serial novelist extraordinaire!
Today is the bicentennial of Dickens's birth! To celebrate, I talked with University of the Air hosts Emily Auerbach and Norman Gilliland about Dickens's serials and about "Serial Readers"--you can download that interview through the link (sidebar).
Next week, we'll start reading Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, originally published in forty weekly parts in his new magazine, Master Humphrey's Clock in 1841. I propose a slightly accelerated pace of two installments per week rather than one so that we'll take twenty weeks in all to read this novel. The reading for next week's launch at the bottom of this post. So for next week, February 13-20, chaps 1-2! If you click on the image of MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK at the top of this screen, you'll go to a website with the installments of the novel--chapter one is waiting for you!
Serially celebrating still,
Susan
Next week, we'll start reading Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, originally published in forty weekly parts in his new magazine, Master Humphrey's Clock in 1841. I propose a slightly accelerated pace of two installments per week rather than one so that we'll take twenty weeks in all to read this novel. The reading for next week's launch at the bottom of this post. So for next week, February 13-20, chaps 1-2! If you click on the image of MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK at the top of this screen, you'll go to a website with the installments of the novel--chapter one is waiting for you!
Serially celebrating still,
Susan
Washington Square 6 (Nov. 1880)--chaps. 30-35
Dear Serial Readers,
Today we conclude the six-part serial by Henry James. I found these final chapters of WASHINGTON SQUARE quietly satisfying, like Catherine Sloper herself. She rallies forth in her own quiet but determined way to refuse the two men who have refused or disappointed her, her father and her lover. She refuses to accommodate her father's wishes that she marry eventually and she refuses to promise him that she won't marry Morris, because she has no desire to satisfy a father who has disappointed her in his low regard for her. But Catherine also refuses Morris's renewed proposal after some decades. In that finale, she tells Morris that she didn't marry because she didn't "wish to" and that she had "nothing to gain." It's true that her father reduced her inheritance because she refused to make the promise he required, but she has enough money and property, and a comfortable life. She's a spinster by choice, and as such James gives us a new kind of heroine. I'm also intrigued by Catherine's "ancient facility of silence"--she's a woman of few words (in contrast to the babbling Mrs. P.) and yet her quiet determination speaks volumes.
As other Serial Readers have noted, we have some interesting gender reversals--it is Catherine who is the strong, silent type, not noted for her physical beauty or charms, but deeply attracted to these qualities in Morris, whose body and face (both young and middle-aged) get far more words in this story than does Catherine's. And she enjoys material independence--she has the money which Morris must marry into because of his seeming inability to make money himself--again a position more typical of women. So, again, I found Catherine's life at the end, even with that "morsel of fancy-work," quietly satisfying because she has refused both men's wishes and because she does have a life of financial autonomy and activity--not to mention that Washington Square home! Your thoughts?
Please join the next serial, Serial Readers! You can sign up for installments of Dickens's CURIOSITY SHOP via "Mousehold Words" (see sidebar) by requesting the e-delivery of TWO installments per week! Next week, chapters one and two! See the next post too!
Serially celebrating (Dickens at 200),
Susan
Today we conclude the six-part serial by Henry James. I found these final chapters of WASHINGTON SQUARE quietly satisfying, like Catherine Sloper herself. She rallies forth in her own quiet but determined way to refuse the two men who have refused or disappointed her, her father and her lover. She refuses to accommodate her father's wishes that she marry eventually and she refuses to promise him that she won't marry Morris, because she has no desire to satisfy a father who has disappointed her in his low regard for her. But Catherine also refuses Morris's renewed proposal after some decades. In that finale, she tells Morris that she didn't marry because she didn't "wish to" and that she had "nothing to gain." It's true that her father reduced her inheritance because she refused to make the promise he required, but she has enough money and property, and a comfortable life. She's a spinster by choice, and as such James gives us a new kind of heroine. I'm also intrigued by Catherine's "ancient facility of silence"--she's a woman of few words (in contrast to the babbling Mrs. P.) and yet her quiet determination speaks volumes.
As other Serial Readers have noted, we have some interesting gender reversals--it is Catherine who is the strong, silent type, not noted for her physical beauty or charms, but deeply attracted to these qualities in Morris, whose body and face (both young and middle-aged) get far more words in this story than does Catherine's. And she enjoys material independence--she has the money which Morris must marry into because of his seeming inability to make money himself--again a position more typical of women. So, again, I found Catherine's life at the end, even with that "morsel of fancy-work," quietly satisfying because she has refused both men's wishes and because she does have a life of financial autonomy and activity--not to mention that Washington Square home! Your thoughts?
Please join the next serial, Serial Readers! You can sign up for installments of Dickens's CURIOSITY SHOP via "Mousehold Words" (see sidebar) by requesting the e-delivery of TWO installments per week! Next week, chapters one and two! See the next post too!
Serially celebrating (Dickens at 200),
Susan
31 January 2012
Washington Square 5 (Oct. 1880)--chaps. 25-29
Dear Serial Readers,
Thanks to Lurking Leora for her global observation that we've read three novels now of widowed doctors and their daughters! I like too this idea that Catherine's money and appreciation of beauty (rather than being the object of beauty) suggest some gender reversals. I hope she ends up a bachelor rather than an old maid--we'll soon find out.
I found in this penultimate installment some of the resolve and strength and smoldering sexuality of the early Catherine. She's now quite assertive about wanting to marry Morris despite her father--whom she has distanced herself once she recognizes he has no love for her. Meanwhile Morris is a coward--he can't even break off the engagement outright (since Sloper isn't yielding on the money matter) and manufactures weak excuses--he must go to New Orleans on business. Resolute Catherine says she'll go with him and risk yellow fever. She even sees beneath Morris's evasions and gathers he's leaving her despite his denials. I like Catherine's determination in the face of both her father and Morris. But I don't know where this story will conclude--only one installment remains!
When readers of THE CORNHILL read this installment in Oct. 1880, they found another James serial launched in the very same issue: THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, a novel with some interesting echoes of Catherine, her father, and perhaps Morris, but without New York or American scenery at all.
We'll leave WASHINGTON SQUARE after next week. I just learned that Dickens's THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP was first published in 40 weekly parts in the magazine MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. I propose reading a part per week, starting the week of February 13th. And guess what? You can have each original installment of Dickens's novel emailed to you via MOUSEHOLD WORDS (see sidebar). So sign up for CURIOSITY SHOP on the weekly plan! No money down! There are a few other websites that offer Dickens's novels in serial format and I'll include these next week. Some of the installments are only a chapter long--so I hope you'll consider joining the "Curiosity" serial reading experience!
Serially yours,
Susan
Thanks to Lurking Leora for her global observation that we've read three novels now of widowed doctors and their daughters! I like too this idea that Catherine's money and appreciation of beauty (rather than being the object of beauty) suggest some gender reversals. I hope she ends up a bachelor rather than an old maid--we'll soon find out.
I found in this penultimate installment some of the resolve and strength and smoldering sexuality of the early Catherine. She's now quite assertive about wanting to marry Morris despite her father--whom she has distanced herself once she recognizes he has no love for her. Meanwhile Morris is a coward--he can't even break off the engagement outright (since Sloper isn't yielding on the money matter) and manufactures weak excuses--he must go to New Orleans on business. Resolute Catherine says she'll go with him and risk yellow fever. She even sees beneath Morris's evasions and gathers he's leaving her despite his denials. I like Catherine's determination in the face of both her father and Morris. But I don't know where this story will conclude--only one installment remains!
When readers of THE CORNHILL read this installment in Oct. 1880, they found another James serial launched in the very same issue: THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, a novel with some interesting echoes of Catherine, her father, and perhaps Morris, but without New York or American scenery at all.
We'll leave WASHINGTON SQUARE after next week. I just learned that Dickens's THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP was first published in 40 weekly parts in the magazine MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK. I propose reading a part per week, starting the week of February 13th. And guess what? You can have each original installment of Dickens's novel emailed to you via MOUSEHOLD WORDS (see sidebar). So sign up for CURIOSITY SHOP on the weekly plan! No money down! There are a few other websites that offer Dickens's novels in serial format and I'll include these next week. Some of the installments are only a chapter long--so I hope you'll consider joining the "Curiosity" serial reading experience!
Serially yours,
Susan
25 January 2012
Washington Square 4 (Sept. 1880)--chaps. 19-24
Dear Serial Readers,
I must say this serial continues with its collection of unappealing characters. Morris does seem increasingly a cad, really, and Mrs. Penniman a meddlesome fool (something the narrator and the doctor seem to concur on). Sloper is willful, including his threat that he won't will his money to C if she marries M, but then so is Catherine in her subdued, dutiful way.
Sloper's distasteful views of his daughter's merits where she's "about as intelligent as a bundle of shawls" persist. I doubt he believes what he tells her at the end of this installment, that Morris should thank him because, by taking Catherine traveling in Europe, her "value is twice as great." He's already suggested she's somewhat dense. Still, that Sloper sees his daughter in terms of her value (monetary, cultural, aesthetic) is clear, and perhaps echoes how Morris sees her as well.
The last chapter surprised me. Sloper's alpine wandering made me think something dramatic would happen--he'd get killed in an avalanche. But when he returns to Catherine he confronts her about her marriage plans and expresses his anger. The installment ends just on the brink of their return to NY, what Sloper anticipates as "a most uncomfortable voyage." There's a bit of suspense here too--and I expect something will happen on that trip--maybe he'll fall overboard or die suddenly, and we'll get to see if Catherine has the grit to marry Morris after all. Her plan to wait indefinitely has its limits.
Next time: chapters 25-29. And since we're approaching the conclusion of this serial (only one more after next week), I'm thinking of returning to Dickens--The Old Curiosity Shop. What do you think, Serial Readers?
Serially yours,
Susan
I must say this serial continues with its collection of unappealing characters. Morris does seem increasingly a cad, really, and Mrs. Penniman a meddlesome fool (something the narrator and the doctor seem to concur on). Sloper is willful, including his threat that he won't will his money to C if she marries M, but then so is Catherine in her subdued, dutiful way.
Sloper's distasteful views of his daughter's merits where she's "about as intelligent as a bundle of shawls" persist. I doubt he believes what he tells her at the end of this installment, that Morris should thank him because, by taking Catherine traveling in Europe, her "value is twice as great." He's already suggested she's somewhat dense. Still, that Sloper sees his daughter in terms of her value (monetary, cultural, aesthetic) is clear, and perhaps echoes how Morris sees her as well.
The last chapter surprised me. Sloper's alpine wandering made me think something dramatic would happen--he'd get killed in an avalanche. But when he returns to Catherine he confronts her about her marriage plans and expresses his anger. The installment ends just on the brink of their return to NY, what Sloper anticipates as "a most uncomfortable voyage." There's a bit of suspense here too--and I expect something will happen on that trip--maybe he'll fall overboard or die suddenly, and we'll get to see if Catherine has the grit to marry Morris after all. Her plan to wait indefinitely has its limits.
Next time: chapters 25-29. And since we're approaching the conclusion of this serial (only one more after next week), I'm thinking of returning to Dickens--The Old Curiosity Shop. What do you think, Serial Readers?
Serially yours,
Susan
18 January 2012
Washington Square 3 (Aug. 1880)--chaps. 13-18
Dear Serial Readers,
The question of marrying for money--mercenary motives--continues in this installment. I rather liked Morris's candor with Mrs. Penniman: "I DO like the money!" And Mrs. P points out in turn that Dr S "married a wife with money--why shouldn't you?" So is Catherine's inheritance the underlying motivation or a benefit on the side? Isn't money always a facet of marriage alliances, does James suggest, in some way or other? Is it the money angle that irks Catherine's father, or does he use this to provide a rationale for some intuitive dislike of Morris's character (along with Dr S's sense that his daughter is easily taken advantage of--but is she)? What matter is this matter of money in marriage plotting here? Is Dr S's threat that Catherine won't receive his money should she marry Morris a test of her dutiful daughterliness (which she's struggling to preserve) or a test of Morris's ultimate motive?
I can see all the wills and will plotting at work here. Whose will prevail in the end? I'm glad this novel is short--only three more parts.
Next time, chapters 19-24.
Serially yours,
Susan
The question of marrying for money--mercenary motives--continues in this installment. I rather liked Morris's candor with Mrs. Penniman: "I DO like the money!" And Mrs. P points out in turn that Dr S "married a wife with money--why shouldn't you?" So is Catherine's inheritance the underlying motivation or a benefit on the side? Isn't money always a facet of marriage alliances, does James suggest, in some way or other? Is it the money angle that irks Catherine's father, or does he use this to provide a rationale for some intuitive dislike of Morris's character (along with Dr S's sense that his daughter is easily taken advantage of--but is she)? What matter is this matter of money in marriage plotting here? Is Dr S's threat that Catherine won't receive his money should she marry Morris a test of her dutiful daughterliness (which she's struggling to preserve) or a test of Morris's ultimate motive?
I can see all the wills and will plotting at work here. Whose will prevail in the end? I'm glad this novel is short--only three more parts.
Next time, chapters 19-24.
Serially yours,
Susan
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