This week we have a guest lead-off blogger, MJ, who is about to depart on a 3-week trip and may not be able to post while traveling (but plans to keep up with the weekly reading schedule).
So this is from MJ:
What I found especially powerful in this part is the first chapter, in which Dombey reveals once again, and chillingly, the degree of his self-absorption. His reaction to Paul’s death is both poignant and disturbing: poignant, because all parents who lose a child must feel that devastating sense of the loss of all their hopes, as well; disturbing, because all parents come to know that, regardless of their own hopes and dreams, their children will have plans and dreams of their own that might not coincide with what their parents have imagined for them. We know that Paul Dombey, Sr. would never have asked, “What is money for?” so we can imagine that at some point he would have been very disappointed in his son; he would have lost him in another sense, and would probably have seen that loss as a betrayal. His anger at Toodle’s wearing of crape is also revealing, as he is insulted by what we see as an act of kindness and sympathy. Of course, Dickens understands all this, and
it is a profound and powerful chapter.
Later on I was interested to see that the Toodles continue to play an important role; I hadn’t expected that. I’m also interested in what others think about the exhortatory voice (if that’s the word) at the end of at least one of the chapters, e.g. when the narrator warns the reader and Florence about trouble ahead. I know Dickens does this elsewhere, too, but he seems to do it a lot in this novel. I find it overblown, but I also kind of enjoy it.
Carker and his teeth are becoming truly frightening!
THANKS, MJ! My comments dovetail nicely with yours.
First off, are more people catching the train (of serial blogging) here? Trains, railway lines, and the ever-growing networks of plot lines populate this number. That piece of crape in Mr. Toodle's cap as a sign of mourning for little Paul grates on Dombey, but it's this "community of feeling" (297) that seems to underwrite so many of the connections between characters and places, and even the activity of serial reading. This novel seems deeply interested in the process of mourning--so many different ways characters deal with Paul's loss (and then, there's Edith's indifference, perhaps also another form of dysfunctional mourning). Is there a parallel between mourning and the experience of reading as loss (and remembering)?
Then, Dickens launches into an extended metaphor that likens "the triumphant monster, Death" (298) to the train that relentlessly moves across the landscape via the proliferating tracks of the railway system. What intrigued me especially is this juxtaposition of the locomotive, a symbol of modern industrial progress, and death (the end or antithesis of progress). This reminds me too of an earlier post about the experience of time in these part-issue numbers and in reading these installments as both standing still and moving ahead (and sometimes back). Ambidextrous time?
Echoes and parallels--many serial readers have pointed these out, and they continue to grow, both in terms of characters and formal devices. More "new faces" (ch 21) in this number--Edith Granger, whose son died young too, becomes the object of Dombey's marriage plot through their parallel losses. What lies beneath her surface of studied indifference? She's the flipside of Florence, who vibrates with feeling. Dickens brings out the convergence of opposites in that startling address to Edith (the penultimate para of ch 20). This formal device, along with the use of the present tense, recurs at the end of the number (ch 22, 336) as the narrator commends Florence's dog Diogenes for growling protectively at Carker the Manager, who has marital designs on Di's mistress. Like MJ, I'm terrifically ambivalent about these narrative interventions--the tone seems a bit sappy for our late-modern tastes, but these intrusions are fascinating formal features of narrative, the kind Victorian novelists (I'm thinking George Eliot here) relish. While Dickens (and Eliot, later) at times addresses the reader, these intrusions by the narrator to characters (including a dog) are a different violation of narrative level (what some narrative theorists call "metalepsis"). What do you serial readers think of these moments?
As MJ also notes, the Toodles family is especially ubiquitous in this number. They seem to play a prominent role as network fibers--first Polly aka Richards, then Mr Toodles who appeals to Dombey about his errant son, and now Biler aka Rob, that eldest son to be installed at Sol's, as Carker plants him as Walter's substitute. Is Rob being set up as a possible suitor for Florence too? How many are angling for Florence now? Carker, Toots, Walter--someone else?
If anyone would like to take the lead for next time, just indicate this in your comment (and include your email address, if I don't know you). I encourage more guest lead-off bloggers!
Until next Monday 14 July (Bastille Day!)--#8, chapters 23-25, I remain,
Seriously Serial
2 comments:
I was also drawn to those strange moments of narratorial intervention at the end of Chapter 21 and 22. For this reader, they seemed melodramatic, but perhaps effective for creating a sense of suspense. The realignment of the relationship between character and narrator in these moments--they seem to be collapsed into the same register--might also provide a kind of intimacy for serial readers who have been connecting directly with the narrator all along. Potentially, this seems to gesture toward more immediate access to the characters. Or maybe this is just my own idiosyncratic reading?
The alignment of the railroad with death in this installment was also quite interesting, especially since it had been ambivalently portrayed in earlier installments. Earlier, the railroad resulted in the destruction of Staggs Gardens but also gave life to the Toodle's better family situation. I wondered as I read these passages how original readers might have reacted--would they have found the railroad/Death metaphor convincing or a stretch?
As a last observation, I was fascinated by the frequent references to Florence in an installment in which she was never actually present (except as a shadow in the window). Florence seems to be everywhere but also absent. I found this to powerfully emphasize the ways in which Florence figures as an object in the schemes of others, just as Paul Junior had (I'm recollecting here the passage in an earlier installment that talked about the dreams of others being tied to little Paul). This invocation of the mysteriously hidden Florence also worked well to open up all kinds of new possibilities for the plot of "Dombey and Daughter."
I'm happy to see so much attention paid to the extended train metaphor. Dickens' particularly rhetorical moments always fascinate me, as does the topic of transportation and industrialization, so this passage obviously grabbed me right away. I thought it was interesting that "the monster that has let the light of day" on the social ills of poverty, but that this "monster" hadn't caused them. This seems to be a more subtle take on the railroad than we'd seen before -- it exposes inequality instead of necessarily causing it. And the stylistic flourishes are pretty incredible -- the string of gerunds and the repeated tag of the "remorseless" and "triumphant" monster.
I must confess that I'm having some problems keeping all the characters straight! I get there eventually, but the cast is big enough that some characters aren't always fresh in my mind. It's an interesting challenge, I think, to keep juggling this enormous group over a long, long novel.
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