I do love the symmetry—or asymmetry—of this first number that begins with the entitled “Son” in the first sentence but ends (literally) with the much neglected and maligned “Daughter.” Lots of stimulating possibilities for little Florence including the marriage plotting at the very end of the installment.
I have two main thoughts about this first number: substitutions and time. There are several kinds of substitutions throughout these opening chapters: names “Son” for Paul, “Richards” for Polly Tottle, “Spitfire” for Susan Nipper, “Floy” for Florence. Then there’s the substitution of people—most notably the wet nurse (Polly) for the dead mother. I suspect there’s another replacement mother in store for us. The “Dombey and Son” business through overseas trade investments involves the substitutions of financial speculation. Then there’s realism itself as a representational practice where the novel, in this case, stands in for real life. And finally how we’re reading this novel in the initial part-issue serial installments as if we’re like those first Victorian consumers of Dickens. So I’m curious about the further work of substitutions in the novel, and in the ways we’re reading—and blogging about—this novel.
There are several references to time in this debut number of this serial novel (a form contingent on the regular monthly segments), from first paragraph that juxtaposes 48 years/hours of father/son, to the last chapter with Captain Cuttle’s “tremendous chronometer in his fob.” And then there’s the attention to ages and lifespans--the death of the mother and the birth of the son. Captain Cuttle qualifies himself as “old-fashioned,” temporally misplaced—an anachronistic character (shades of Miss Haversham of the later Dickens) who’s “fallen behind the times.” And this lamented condition of the “Instrument Maker” (maybe a substitute for the novel-maker?) and his shop constrasts with the Dombey business, a thoroughly modern commercial establishment.
I admit it’s difficult reading this number as if I’m reading it in November 1846, before the Veneerings and other multiple examples of Dickens’s disdain for newness, and his nostalgia for what’s been lost (in this installment, the lost mother). But in any case, I’m hooked on this story already. I’m amused by “Richards,” and I’m eagerly anticipating the story of the aggrieved “Daughter,” and the hazy prospects of the titular “Son” on whom the hopes and fortunes of Dombey (and the novel) depend; all in all, a nice mix of pathos, humor, familial complexity (“unhappy families” of Tolstoy’s famous opener), and the promise of intriguing currents as this serial journey gets underway. I’m curious to read your reactions to this number too, so please “comment” away.
For Friday June 5: part issue number two (chaps 5-7, first published in December 1846).
4 comments:
I am also interested in the issue of time in this first number of the novel, and the way that it seems to be represented as both circular *and* linear.
The joining of birth and death in the first chapter, and the substitution of the son for the father (through the act of reusing the same name and the fact that Dombey senior was first "Son" ) suggest the cyclical nature of time. This sense of circularity is reinforced, too, by the Dombey house and its "circular" back (p. 18).
At the same time, time is also marked as linear. Dombey is obsessed with descendants (male, that is) and moving into the future. The forward march of time is also emphasized through the Solomon Gills/Walter/Captain portion of the plot and all of its attention to anachronism. There's also the intriguing doubling of birth with Walter "starting life" by joining Dombey's firm (p. 30). This seems to mark Dombey and Son as representative of both circular and linear time. I'm wondering how this will play out in the rest of the novel, and whether it will stand out more or less when the novel is read with temporal interruptions. The dual representation of time seems to me emblematic of the way serial fiction works, especially for Dickens. I know his philosophy was that each installment should strive to stand on its own while also forming part of the larger whole.
Another aspect of this first part that I found fascinating was the way Dickens writes about material objects. In both the chapters focusing on the Dombey home and those taking place in the Midshipman, objects become fused with the emotions of those that use them. In the Dombey house after Mrs. Dombey's death, for instance, we see chandeliers that look "like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling's eye" (p. 19). At the Midshipman's, the wine "has been to the East Indies and back" and seems to have incorporated the passion and danger of the voyage (p. 33). It's interesting in this vein that the phrase "the House" is substituted for "Dombey and Son" in the last chapter. This, too, seems to bring the material world and the human world together in intriguing ways.
I've never read this novel before, so I know nothing more of the plot than what we've encountered in this first installment. Right now I'm just happy to let the text develop thematically. What I'd like to comment on are two features of structure and style.
1) The title of Chapter IV ("In which some more first appearances are made on the stage of these adventures") foregrounds the construction of plot. The metaphor of the theater ("stage") reminds us of the artifice at work in fiction, and lets us know how new characters are going to emerge. We get the arrival of the Gills before their connection to Dombey, for instance, making a leap from one set of characters to another.
I've been reading serialized novels under the assumption that this multi-plot construction was a way to build interest over a sustained period of time. If you have nineteen months to fill, it helps to balance out different plot elements, characters, etc. But now I'm not sure if that's true. After all, plenty of long novels (Clarissa, Tom Jones, Pickwick Papers) follow one character or one set of characters through a fairly linear progression. In fact, it might even be that multiple plotlines is a commercial problem -- potentially alienating readers who aren't putting things together. So I will be interested to see hoe this novel juggles its disparate characters and plotlines. So far it doesn't seem to be as jarring as Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend, where it's often difficult to tell how different elements will connect for a long time. Here, the narrator connects the dots between Dombey and Walter pretty quickly. But it will be interesting to see if this continues, as well as the explicit foregrounding of the way plotting works.
2) I'm also interested in the incredible richness of the novel's style. Just the first chapter alone is filled with rhetorical flights -- the earth being made for Dombey and Son ("anno Dombei"!), Florence as a piece of base coin, etc. I wonder if something can be done with the florid style in relation to Dombey and Solomon Gills' professions -- the rhetorical invention on display seems similar to Gills' ability as an "Instrument Maker." So what do we do with the fact that his business isn't succeeding (and Dombey's is), if the literariness of the text parallels his ingenious (but fruitless?) craftsmanship?
Since it's summer and I'm doing this purely for fun (perhaps in this way, however, also replicating to an extent the original reading experience), I'll comment in a more personal way just for now. In recent years the only Dickens works I've read have been the novels I've taught, and I've found that reading the earlier works, especially, for pleasure has been rough going--too much detail to keep me focused, for whatever reason. However, I loved reading the first part of this novel. Knowing it was short and self-contained I was able to enjoy all the details, the language, the characters, the settings. I wasn't worried about whether I'd ever finish; reading it in these rich and self-contained bits, I feel confident I will, and I look forward to sharing the journey with all on this blog.
To second what MJ has said, it is so nice to be able to read the novel in parts, I do think that it allows me to pay far more attention to details and to Dickens' style, which really is quite enjoyable in this novel.
I found the reference to memory interesting in this section. Dombey first refers to memory when employing Polly Toodle, suggesting that "the child will cease to remember you; and you will cease, if you please, to remember the child" (18), which implies that memory is a matter of control and agency. Yet, later, Dombey cannot forget the memory of Florence at his wife's deathbead (Florence also remembers the look in his eyes from this scene and shrinks from him when she sees it again), and memory emerges something that unsettles control and reveals the limits of agency. These brief allusions to memory seem important, in part because so much of the section is oriented towards the future (as the discussions on temporality suggest). I also wonder if memory is in part gendered, thinking about Mrs. Dombey's "whose happiness was in the past" (2).
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