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Title: Little Dorrit
Series:
----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages:
839
Words: 340K
From Wikipedia
The
novel begins in Marseilles "thirty years ago" (c. 1826),
with the notorious murderer Rigaud telling his cellmate John Baptist
Cavalletto how he killed his wife. Arthur Clennam is detained in
Marseilles with a group of travellers in quarantine. He meets new
friends in the quarantine. He is returning to London to see his
mother after 20 years in China with his father, handling that part of
the family business. His father died there. On his deathbed, his
father had given him a mysterious message, murmuring "Your
mother," which message and a watch Arthur mails to Mrs Clennam.
Inside
the watch casing is an old silk paper with the initials DNF (do not
forget) worked in beads. It is a message, but the implacable Mrs
Clennam, who now uses a wheelchair, refuses to tell him what it
means. The two become estranged.
In
London, William Dorrit, imprisoned as a debtor, has been a resident
of Marshalsea debtors' prison for over twenty years. He has three
children: Edward, Fanny and Amy. The youngest daughter, Amy, was born
in the prison and is affectionately known as Little Dorrit. Their
mother died when Amy was eight years old. Fanny lives outside the
prison with William's older brother, Frederick. The adult children
are free to pass in and out of the prison as they please. Little
Dorrit, devoted to her father, supports them both through her sewing.
To the honour of her father, who is embarrassed to acknowledge his
financial position, Little Dorrit avoids mentioning her work outside
the prison or his inability to leave. Mr Dorrit assumes the role of
Father of the Marshalsea, and is held in great respect by its
inhabitants, as if he had chosen to live there.
After
Arthur tells his mother that he will not continue in the family
business, Mrs Clennam chooses her clerk Jeremiah Flintwinch as her
partner. When Arthur learns that Mrs Clennam employs Little Dorrit as
a seamstress, showing unusual kindness, he wonders whether the young
girl might be connected with the mystery of the watch. Arthur follows
the girl to the Marshalsea. He tries in vain to enquire about William
Dorrit's debt in the Circumlocution Office, assuming the role of
benefactor towards Little Dorrit, her father, and her brother. While
at the Circumlocution Office he meets the successful inventor Daniel
Doyce. Doyce wants a partner and man of business at his factory and
Clennam agrees to fill that role. Little Dorrit falls in love with
Arthur, but Arthur fails to recognise Little Dorrit's feelings.
Arthur
is reacquainted with his former fiancée Flora Finching, the reason
he was sent away to China, who is now an unattractive widow, and
accompanied by the aunt of her late husband. Her father Mr Casby owns
many rental properties, and his rent collector is Mr Pancks. The
indefatigable Pancks discovers that William Dorrit is the lost heir
to a large fortune, enabling him to pay his way out of prison,
altering the status of the entire family.
The
now wealthy Dorrits decide that they should tour Europe as a newly
respectable rich family. They travel over the Alps and take up
residence for a time in Venice, and finally in Rome, displaying pride
over their new-found wealth and position, unwilling to tell their
past to new friends. Little Dorrit finds it difficult to adjust to
their wealth and new social position, and slowly comes to appreciate
the new places and new sights. Fanny adjusts rapidly to the ways of
society, and is sought by the same young man, Edmund Sparkler, who
pursued her in her poverty in London, but with a new start that is
acceptable to his mother. In Rome, at a party, Mr Dorrit falls ill,
and dies at their lodgings. His distraught brother Frederick dies
that same night. Little Dorrit, left alone, returns to London to stay
with newly married Fanny and her husband, the dim-witted Edmund
Sparkler.
The
financial house of Merdle, Edmund Sparkler's stepfather, ends with
Merdle's suicide; the collapse of his bank and investment businesses
takes with it the savings of the Dorrits, the firm of Doyce and
Clennam, Arthur Clennam, and Pancks. Clennam is now imprisoned in the
Marshalsea, where he becomes ill. When Little Dorrit arrives in
London, she slowly nurses him back to health.
Cavalletto
finds the villain Rigaud hiding in London as Blandois, and brings him
to Arthur Clennam. Held in the prison, he sends this undesirable man
to his mother, who has advertised to find him. As Blandois he tries
to blackmail Mrs Clennam with his full knowledge of her past. Mrs
Clennam had insisted on bringing up little Arthur and denying his
biological mother the right to see him. Mrs Clennam feels this is her
right to punish others, because they hurt her. Arthur's biological
mother died about the same time as Arthur went off to China, but
lived out of England with Flintwinch's twin brother. Mr Clennam's
wealthy uncle, stung by remorse, had left a bequest to Arthur's
biological mother and to the youngest daughter of her patron, or if
no daughter, the youngest child of his brother. The patron was
Frederick Dorrit, the kind musician who had taught and befriended
Arthur's biological mother, and the beneficiary is his niece, Amy
Dorrit. Blandois left a copy of the papers he obtained from
Jeremiah's brother at the Marshalsea for Little Dorrit.
Mrs
Clennam knows of this inheritance and fails to tell Little Dorrit, or
to tell Arthur about his biological mother. Unwilling to yield to
blackmail and with some remorse, the rigid woman rises from her chair
and totters out of her house to reveal the secret to Little Dorrit at
the Marshalsea. Mrs Clennam begs her forgiveness, which the
kind-hearted girl freely grants. Returning to home, Mrs Clennam falls
in the street, never to recover the use of her speech or limbs, as
the house of Clennam literally collapses before her eyes, killing
Rigaud. Affery was outdoors seeking her mistress, and Jeremiah had
escaped London before the collapse with as much money as he could
find. Rather than hurt him, Little Dorrit chooses not to reveal any
of this to Arthur; when he is well, she asks him to burn the papers.
Mr
Meagles seeks the original papers, stopping to ask Miss Wade. She has
them but denies it; Tattycoram slips back to London with the papers
and presents them to Mr Meagles, who gives them to Little Dorrit. Mr
Meagles then seeks out Arthur's business partner Daniel Doyce from
abroad. He returns a wealthy and successful man, who arranges to
clear all debts for Arthur's release. Arthur is released from the
prison with his fortunes revived, his position secure with Doyce, and
his health restored. Arthur and Little Dorrit marry.
Little
Dorrit contains numerous sub-plots. One concerns Arthur Clennam's
friends, the kind-hearted Meagles family, who are upset when their
daughter Pet marries the artist Henry Gowan, and when their servant
and foster daughter Tattycoram is lured away from them to the
sinister Miss Wade, an acquaintance of the criminal Rigaud. Miss Wade
is ruled by her anger, and she was a jilted sweetheart of Gowan.
Another subplot concerns the Italian man John Baptist Cavalletto who
was the cellmate of Rigaud in Marseilles, though jailed for a minor
crime. He makes his way to London, meets up by chance with Clennam,
who stands security for him as he builds up his business in wood
carving and gains acceptance among the residents of Bleeding Heart
Yard. Cavalletto repays this aid by searching for Blandois/Rigaud
when Arthur wants him found. This action brings about the revelation
of the secrets kept by Mrs Clennam.
The
other major subplot is the satire of British bureaucracy, named as
the Circumlocution Office, where the expertise is how not to do it.
All I can say is thank goodness for wikipedia and the hardy souls who
have already put up indepth synopses. I don't know that I'd even try
to do a synopsis on my own anymore for books by Dickens, as he has so
many variegated plots and threads running at the same time. Daunting.
Back in '08 when I had reviewed this for the first time, I called it
the most enjoyable Dickens' I had read to date. You know what? That
statement still stands 12 years later. I'm also giving this the “Best
Book of the Year” tag to remind me at years end.
There are some things that people need to know going into this. First
and foremost, this is VERY florid. In fact, there is a character
named Flora who Dickens writes as she speaks, ie, almost no
punctuation and paragraph long sentences. It was HARD to read her
stuff, as her mind went all over and Dickens gave full vent to that.
I have to admit that I ended up skipping a lot of what she said. I
don't feel that I missed much by skimming. And Dickens is just wordy
so it's everywhere. Prepare yourself mentally to just drink in the
words and you'll be fine. If you go in expecting Dickens to get right
to the point, you'll be greatly disappointed.
Characters are Dickens strong point and Little Dorrit is filled to
the brim with Character. This time around there aren't any real
villainous characters, it's more about small minded things between
characters. Clennam, the main character and what goes on between him
and his estranged mother. Little Dorrit and how her family treats her
before and after their succession to riches. Clennam and Little
Dorrit, as Clennam slowly comes to realize that Little Dorrit loves
him and that being 40 doesn't mean he's an old man ready to die. Plus
lots and lots and lots and LOTS of other character interactions, all
of it engrossing.
I read this while on vacation and that set the perfect pace for me.
Read until I wanted to do something else, then toddle off and do that
for 5-10 minutes, then come back for another hour or so. It was a low
key read and and slotted perfectly into how our vacation was going. I
suspect any Dickens I read during that time would have gotten the
same treatment and the same praise. But still, this was a fantastic
book.
★★★★★
