Title: Nicholas Nickleby
Author: Charles Dickens
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 817
Rating: 4/5
Alrighty, time for another chunky review courtesy of Mr. Charles Dickens. In case you haven’t got the memo, each of my reviews has the same number of reviews as the book has pages, and considering that this one has 817 pages, we’re in for a treat.
Not that I read the printed version. I quite like Dickens, but I’ve found that he’s much easier to read via audio book than via the printed word. There are a few reasons from that, but the biggest issue I’ve come against is that the hefty word count of his books tends to mean that they’re printed with tiny print to save cash, and that gives me a headache. When you combine small fonts with Dickens’ verbose writing style, you’re in for a world of pain.
Nicholas Nickleby is Dickens’ third novel, and it’s another of the ones that was initially serialised. The good news is that unlike something like The Pickwick Papers, it’s not super obvious. Oh sure, you can tell if you’re looking for it, but it’s at least a little subtle, perhaps in part because it wasn’t based upon a series of illustrations like Pickwick was.
The idea behind this one is that young Nicholas Nickleby loses his father and finds himself at the head of the family, responsible for financially supporting his mother and sister. It’s a very Victorian idea and the perfect concept for Dickens to take on, and it also does a pretty good job of providing him with a number of jumping off points.
That’s important, because you need something like that when you’re working on a story that’s serialised. I don’t think it was as effective of a MacGuffin as the Pickwick Papers, because that relied on people actively going out of their way to have adventures that they could tell their friends about. Nevertheless, it did the job.
We also get a decent cast of supporting characters along the way, including good old uncle Ralph Nickleby, who reminded me of a prototype of Ebeneezer Scrooge. We also get some incredible names throughout the book, from Wackford Squeers to Newman Noggs.
Now, I’m not going to attempt to summarise the plot, because it’s a huge, sprawling novel that just keeps on going. I actually feel a little sorry for anyone who has to teach this to people, because I don’t know where you’d even get started. I guess you could take a look at some of the themes that it covers, but then there are more themes here than there are in Street Fighter II and so it’s tricky to pick just one.
For the most part, though, we’re dealing with the typical Dickensian stuff, and if you have an idea in your head of what Charles Dickens liked to write about, the chances are that you’ll find elements of it here. I particularly liked the way that he looked at Victorian schooling and the way in which adults can mistreat children for a paycheque, such as when someone adopts a child for the financial support and then locks that child in a cupboard beneath the stairs, Harry Potter style.
There were bits of dialogue that I loved too, including a reference to a gammon which a little research suggests is the source of the way that we use it today to refer to nutcases on Facebook. It goes a little something like this:
“‘The meaning of that term — gammon,’ said Mr Gregsbury, ‘is unknown to me. If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even hyperbolical, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice of the remark. I AM proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory.’”
It’s little things like that which act as a reminder that Dickens is still relevant today, and he’ll continue to be so for many years to come. Sure, this might not be quite as iconic as some of his other books (I’m looking at you, Oliver Twist), but it still shows that the guy was a writer who had his finger on the pulse of the society that he lived in. His works are timeless in that they tap into a timeless aspect of what it means to be human.
Characters like Newman Noggs might have ridiculous names that sound as though they belong in a pastiche of Dickens, rather than in reality, but don’t be fooled. Their names are cartoonish, but their characters feel as real as they come. I’ve met people like the ones that Dickens is writing about, and I’ve heard stories about the ones that I haven’t met. So there’s that.
