Journal Entry 1 by seethroughfaith from Turku, Varsinais-Suomi Finland on Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Note this is a brick of a book (1000+ pages) and while a paperback it means I won't be sending this by post to anyone. Sorry!

Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist whose popularity was established by the phenomenally successful Pickwick Papers.


A victim of her father's debt, 'Little Dorrit' has spent her childhood behind the heavy, iron doors of Marshalsea Prison. But will a chance meeting change her life? Dickens’ Little Dorrit is classic tale of hardship and struggle in 1820s London, where larger-than-life characters leap from rags to riches (and back again), and fortunes can be reversed in an instant.


I ordered this book from Stockmann's wintersale (6.90€) after seeing the BBC series this autumn. It's one of the few Dickens' that I have not read, so look forward to it

 

Journal Entry 2 by seethroughfaith at Turku, Varsinais-Suomi Finland on Thursday, January 06, 2011

Have to admit I'd forgotten how hard Dickens is to read (though it's a love-hate relationship) ... if he were a modern (postmodern) author we'd all be saying he needed a better editor!!! The descriptions are fab -and you really get a taste of the cities, the streets etc but oh they do go on and on and on.Bleak House with its description of the fog (opening pages) is a prime example of this, but it's there in Little Dorrit too. That said Dickens is skillfull in weaving a complicated plot.

I'm only on p.66 (so less than 5% into this hefty book!) but already the plot is thickening. Who is Miss Wade? Who is the prisoner in France? And have we met Little Dorrit yet (or not)?