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The Old Curiosity Shop
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Posted by
marita40 (
My Page) on
Tue, Feb 28, 12 at 12:48
| Is anyone reading this in advance of the Masterpiece Theater piece coming soon? I've read most of Dickens but not this novel. I'm about 30% through it at the moment and find the usually-weeping Little Nell and her dim-witted grandfather tedious, but the minor characters (e.g. Mrs. Jarley of Jarley's Waxworks) are delightful. I did think that the grandfather's gambling addiction was interesting in that the narrator calls it a "disease" and not, as one would think for the time, a moral failing. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| It showed here on Sunday night. I thought MPT did a good job in condensing the book into one program. They hit all the basics and made Quill the typical hateful grotesque that Dickens used in all his books. Remember, the Victorians loved melodrama, and it was Dickens' intention to use everything he could to reach his audience with his ideas for reform. (Maybe I should be saving this for our discussion in March.) |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| "Quilp" is one of the most loathsome of Dickens' villains. It has been fashionable for years to make fun of the sentimentality of The Old Curiosity Shop, but it is still one of my favourite novels by Dickens. |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| Of course, Quilp. Thanks, Tim. I had a feeling I had gotten that wrong. I'm off tomorrow to get a copy of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the only Dickens novel I have not read. |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| Carolyn, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was shown as a 2 part drama here a couple of months ago. As I hadn't read the book I found it difficult to follow the early part of the story, especially when a brother and sister of Anglo-Indian descent turn up 'out of the blue' and all mixed/mingled with opium induced nightmares. Perhaps I should have concentrated harder. |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| Carolyn, I envy your having read most of the novels of Charles Dickens. I've only read about 5 or 6 of them myself. I need to pull my socks up and read one for his bicentennial. |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| Well, I'm near the end of The Old Curiosity Shop and I must say that it is my least favorite Dickens novel so far (I've read most of them). As stated, there is some very delightful characterization (Quilp, Richard Swiveller, the very small servant, the single gentleman, Whiskers the pony) but little in the way of plot, and Nell is so sentimentally developed as to be pretty boring. I certainly prefer the darker and, to my mind, more complex and "meaty" Dickens' novels such as Bleak House and my all-time favorite Our Mutual Friend. On the other hand, I remember loving Pickwick Papers years ago when I read it as a graduate student--will have to go back to that at some point. |
RE: The Old Curiosity Shop
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| Marita, did you know that New Yorkers met the ship bringing the episode of The Old Curiosity Shop after Nell became ill, shouting from the shore, "Did she die?" |
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