A church down the road from us had their annual book sale today.  It's the first time I'd ever been, and it was somewhat smaller than I expected, but still very fruitful.

 

 

The 3 books on the right were MT's finds and the picture doesn't include a small bag of children's books I picked up for a song to donate to one of the primary schools I work for (they're in the middle of a book drive for their classroom libraries).

 

Lots of good bargains and a few I bought because I felt like I should read them and at their bargain price, if I didn't like them, I wasn't committed to finishing them.  

 

 But the biggest find, I think, was when I was flipping through the fiction titles and came across an old clothbound copy of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens:  I've never read any Dickens (I know!) and when I flipped open the cover and saw the price I thought "what the hell?" and added it to the stack.  

 

When I got home, I started googling the older books (pre-isbn) to add to my home database and here on BookLikes, starting with the Dickens.  It's one volume of a 17 volume set from 1890.  I found one listing for it on eBay and the going price was 69.99 USD - the condition of that book was NOT good; from the pictures it was missing most of its spine - much worse shape than mine.  What did I pay for my pretty-good-for-a-125-year-old copy?  10 cents.  SCORE!!

 

I also paid 10 cents for Souls Belated by Edith Wharton - with everyone raving about her, while simultaneously talking about how anxious her stories make them, I've been WAY hesitant to dip my toe in - until I found this little 60 page gem.  I'm hoping not even Wharton's characters can scar me too badly in 60 pages.

 

The rest of the haul are all books I'd heard about here or elsewhere that sounded interesting - A Pelican at Blandings was bought solely on the strength of Wodehouse.  The The Children's Bible is the exact same copy I had as a kid and I had a sentimental moment when I saw it; for 2 bucks, it can sit on my shelf and remind me of a happy childhood, although I'm as unlikely to actually read it now as when I was a kid.

 

I've been moderately interested in owning a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary for sometime, so I snapped up this two volume set for $4 - even though MT thinks I'm bonkers.  I also have him seriously considering ripping out the wall my library shares with the hallway, and replacing it with a bookcase wall.  :D  Woot!

This is a good example of why Dickens continues to give satisfaction and pleasure to lots of readers, even though his wordy narrative, his deus ex machina plots and his moral lessons are frequently considered outdated by the sophisticated literary public.
His secret is infinite love and compassion for all but the most evil of his characters. He is prepared to understand and forgive anyone who realizes that forgiveness is needed, and asks the readers to forgive with him, too.

The fault is my own that I did not enjoy this novel more. Every time I read a Dickens novel I am disappointed in myself. If I were intelligent enough, surely I would be as infatuated with his verbose storytelling as so many others. I do enjoy the language he employs, though I could suffice with quite a bit less of it. The book has a meaningful moral in which both good and bad characters eventually are served what they are due. Glimpses of humor can be found, especially in the chapters that take young Martin and Mark to America. Still, I was relieved when it was over.

I listened to this as an audiobook and feel certain that it would have been better read the 'old fashioned' way. If I had it in front of me, I would be able to let my eyes skim over the text looking for points of substance and spending less time on superfluous descriptions and tangents. When listening to it, no choice exists but to wait for the narrator to painfully trudge their way through.

I did enjoy many of the characters and the expert way they were developed, though I was much of the way through the book before I decided which Martin Chuzzlewit (younger or older) was the title character. I still may be wrong. Who could not love Tom and Mark, appreciate the changes and growth that take place in young Martin, or cheer to witness the fall of Mr. Pecksniff. On the other hand, if I heard one more adjective singing the praises of "little Ruth," I was prepared to vomit. As you can see, the names alone are a also point of humor.

If you are a Charles Dickens fan, you will most likely love this book as much as any of his other novels. I remember adoring a young reader version of Great Expectations as a child. Later in life, I read the original edition and my great expectations were as dashed as the characters'. Whatever it says about me, maybe I should stick with the abridged versions of Dickens' classics.

Martin Chuzzlewit follows that formula that Dickens is so good at executing - our hero is basically a good person, but has some character flaws. Hero goes on a journey/experiences some serious hardship. Hero reforms and repents. And everyone lives happily ever after. I don't mind this formula and many of his stories that follow it, like Our Mutual Friend, end up being one of my favorite classics. But, in this story, our hero Martin Chuzzlewit goes on a journey to the United States and not only does he face physical hardship, but has to endure the crassness and shallow liberality of Americans. Definitely there was an agenda here describing Dickens dislike of certain American qualities. In some ways this was enlightening to see a visitor's viewpoint of America during the 1800's, but the message was too strong, and some of those quirky characters that he executes so well became a sounding board for his agenda.