Dombey and Son Part Trois et Fin

So after having my copy of Dombey and Son stolen from my friends car by a homeless person I finally went out and bought a copy from Borders.  Having finished the book I am sad to part with it.  Yes the new Paul Dombey Sr. was a glancing blow to my established notion of the distinguished curmedgeon but it was a welcome change, if a bit sentimental.  Wal’r and Miss Floy become happily married and Mr. Toots and the Nipper are given to “connubial bliss” and even the dread Mac Stinger marries Bunsby in a flash of a marital headlock. 

This book was something of a long one, clocking in at only 925 pages there’s no wonder it took me months to read it.  I know the laundromat owners thought I must be crazy to keep lugging the same book there each week. I must say though that this is a well rounded book with all of its’ plot lines being cut and dried and served steaming hot with a side of emotional effrontery thrown in to satisfy the deeper reaches of the psychological palate. 

Anyways I have recently picked up Little Dorrit and David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and hope to read them this year.  For isn’t it said that to be truly literary in the least one must read all of one author’s works or some bo log na like that?  I will drink a Labat Blue tonight in hopes of honoring that proposal.

Dombey and Son, the halfway mark

So DIckens has done it again, he killed a favored character. I’m surprised I didn’t throw the book into the river of Paul’s dreams. But I haven’t and I am sticking this Victorian novel out to the end.  The climax of development for Paul is reached on page 234. “But he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his character: and under circumstances so favourable to the development of those tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful, than before.”

Goodbye young Dombey it was a pleasure to know you, but as with everything life must go on. At the halfway point of the novel we find the cruelty of Mr. Dombey begin to be unbearable, for Dickens is pulling on the heartstrings of his poor readers and even I am susceptible to it.  Young Walter Gay has been sent overseas, mistakenly. His Uncle Sol has fled leaving only Florence, Rob the Grinder, and Captain Cuttle in the positive aspect of the picture. Carker, Dombey, and Ole’ Joey B. round out the negative. What can one make of this flawed reproduction of a sliver of Mid-Victorian life?  He’s killed the Son of the title and now we are left with the bitter irony that maybe young Florence could somehow succeed?

I am not buying this view. Something triumphant, or equally tragic need occur for there to be any worth to this novel. I shall report no more until I am finished reading it.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Short post here.  I have started Dickens’ Dombey and Son. Upon reaching the fourth chapter I have noted a lack of a sufficient plot. Yeah one could say that I am jumping the gun a little but I like some relish with my hot dog if you know what I mean.

Anyways I dislike Mr. Paul Dombey, the head of the firm and I am starting to wish for his early departure from the book. It will be nice to read of the flowering of young Dombey and to see what kind of character he develops. For of course Dickens has 900 pages to imbue the child with a dramatis personae.  Here is hoping to some development. Further posts on this novel will be written along with ones on Graham Greene’s Life Vol. 1 and the first Frank Miller Batman comic/graphic novel from 1986.

Au revoir!