DDR: Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Martin Chuzzlewit. Two Volumes. Volume I is XXV + 506 = 531 pages long. Volume II is V + 509 = 514 pages long. Thus the novel weighs in at a total of 1,045 pages...which I think is the longest Dickens yet. At an average rate of 30 pages per day, it will take 35 days to read this one. 

BTW, 5,545 pages to go to double the number of pages I read in my first 1,000 DDR days...and 215 days to do it in, which means an average of slightly less than 26 pages per day. And I've been knocking back more than that for some time now, so I think it's a done deal. Time will tell. And so will I. And, of course, MC will put a sizeable dent in those 5,545 pages, won't it?

So let's go. 

Day 1 (DDRD 1,785) September 20, 2022

Read the Introductory material and to page 8 of the text. And am kind of excited to read this novel, as I'm getting the message that this might be at least one of the (if not the) greatest of Dickens' novels, and one which has been sorely neglected and unappreciated. Unfortunately, the INTRODUCTION was written by one Geoffrey Russell, who (1) seems to have been either a minor actor or the 4th Baron Ampthill, (2) has a convoluted and at times impenetrable style of writing, and (3) is one of those fellows who will proclaim a work one of genius, then proceed to tell you how it could have been much better. In fact, I think that he spends a lot more time on the novel's "faults" than on its virtues. So fuck him.

There's a December 1971 notation on the first page of this book. It also feels new, so I'm thinking that it's probable that it has never been read through...a suspicion bolstered by the fact that there is no date noted in Volume II.

Day 2 (DDRD 1,786) September 21, 2022

Read to page 40. Kind of rough going, actually...but probably just the rough going endemic to starting any big novel as you settle in to the characters, plot, and setting.

Meanwhile, a new word for me:

And if you notice the fine print, yes, I was reading at 4:07 am. Getting old is a bitch sometimes, my friends.

Day 3 (DDRD 1,787) September 22, 2022

Read to page 70. Still not sinking into this novel for some reason. There are some good moments, for sure...but no real connection the way there was with the other books. Hmmm. Reminds me that this is the novel that Professor Eliot Engels claimed (I don't believe anything I heard him say about Dickens now) that he assigned to his students. Hmmm.

Day 4 (DDRD 1,788) September 23, 2022

Read to page 104...and it's started twitchin' a mite. That might have something to do with the entrance of Martin Chuzzlewit the Younger, as he seems to be an interesting character.

On page 81, Dickens uses the term "bran new." I thought it was a typo, but further investigation shows that it is (or at least was) a variant spelling of "brand new." So there's that. Also forgot to mention a thought yesterday: some of the art in this go-round reminds me if Kevin O"Neill. Check this out, for instance:

Especially the figure of Mr. Pecksniff in the middle. 

Day 5 (DDRD 1,789) September 24, 2022

Read to page 131. 

Day 6 (DDRD 1,790) September 25, 2022

Read to page 161.

This--

"He might have added that he hated two sorts of men: all those who did him favours, and all those who were better off than himself; as in either case their position was an insult to a man of his stupendous merits." (135)

         --reminds me of someone I was once very close to. I guess it makes sense, in a perverse way. If you consider yourself to be superior to every other human being you encounter (as she most certainly did, and was not reluctant to say so), then you hate those who help you because you cannot bear to feel indebted to someone else. It's a sad sort of human being, but she is not the only one I have known in my many years on this planet.

On page 142, a character uses the phrase, "love my heart alive." I thought that would be a fine song title. I don't know if I write songs anymore, but if I do, this shall most certainly be the next one.

Day 7 (DDRD 1,791) September 26, 2022

Read to page 190. I'm sorry to say it, but this novel continues to be a bit of a slog for me. I can't really put my finger on the why of that. It has some interesting characters. It has the occasional bit of humor. And the occasional pithy line. I've never been much concerned with plot, but what there is here seems sufficient, I suppose. Hmmm. That would be scanned. Because come to think of it, I don't really know that there is a "plot" in this novel. The characters meander around and converse, but we're not really heading towards anything so far as I can see. That certainly wasn't true of most of the Dickens novels I've read previously--with the possible exception of The Pickwick Papers, in which a bunch of characters wandered around. As little as I care for plot, perhaps that is the gist of my dissatisfaction...or perhaps better expressed as lack of satisfaction...with Martin Chuzzlewit. It also makes me think back, once again, on Dr. Eliot Engels, and his gleeful assertion that he assigned this novel because there were no Cliff's Notes on it. It's possible he was lying--since he lied about pretty much everything else in that lecture--but if he wasn't, you have to wonder about a teacher who would assign a shitty book by a great author just because there weren't any Cliff's Notes available for it. Of course, it's also possible that the next time I pick this book up something will happen which will make me think that I'd been missing the boat and that this was just fucking brilliant. But I doubt it.

Time will tell.

ADDENDUM: I just went online and searched for "Dickens' Worst Novel," thinking that I might find some folks who agreed with my assessment of MC. I happened upon a blog by one Clive Baugh (entitled Baugh's Blog) which listed his Top 5, Middle 5, and Bottom 5 Dickens novels. MC was in the Top 5. Which immediately made me think that I was much stupider than I'd previously thought and had obviously missed something. Then I took a look at another of the Google hits, this time one not focused on Dickens and entitled The Five Worst Books Ever Written By Great Authors (by Isaac Chotiner

in The New Republicm February 19, 2014). And in the number one slot, Mr. Chotiner had this to say:

1. TIE: American Notes (1842) and Martin Chuzzlewitt (1844) both by Charles Dickens

The first of these dreadful books is Dickens’s American travelogue, which was partially plagiarized and completely without insight. The second is his lamely unfunny satirical novel directed, again, at Americans. George Orwell famously called Dickens “generously angry”: These books are angry but small-minded and mean-spirited.

Which at the very least made me feel less stupid and unobservant. So I think I'll stop there and see how the rest of MC goes for me.

Day 8 (DDRD 1,792) September 27, 2022

Read to page 220. Rough day, so only enough strength to note this:

re·fec·tion

/rəˈfekSH(ə)n/

refreshment by food or drink.

"the peaceful hours of the sacred night demand refection"

a meal, especially a light one.

plural noun: refections

ZOOLOGY

the eating of partly digested fecal pellets, as practiced by rabbits.

Day 9 (DDRD 1,793) September 28, 2022

Read to page 250.

Day 10 (DDRD 1,794) September 29, 2022

Read to page 290. I'll be heading for New York City in about a week, and I really want to finish Volume I before I leave (so I don't need to pack two books), so I'm trying to push a little bit harder in my reading. 

In today's chunk, this:

"There are some falsehoods...on which men mount, as on bright wings, towards Heaven. There are some truths, cold bitter taunting truths, wherein your worldly scholars are very apt and punctual, which bind men down to earth with leaden chains. Who would not rather have to fan him, in his dying hour, the lightest feather of a falsehood...than all the quills that have been plucked from the sharp porcupine, reproachful truth, since time began!" (261)

The Playtupus of Doom, The Porcupine of Reproachful Truth. What do you say, Arthur Byron Cover?

Day 11 (DDRD 1,795) September 30, 2022

Read to page 340.

So Martin has made it to America. I've read from various sources that this part of the novel is not only a huge digression, but a spurious one, and even people who loved the book at least implied that it would have been best if this had been edited out. And maybe that's true, I don't know, having just started in on it (with Martin's boat disembarkation and first tentative adventures in The New Land as described in Chapter XVI)...but I have to say that reading this is really the first time my interest has been sustained for more than a few minutes. There are interesting bits such as this exchange, for instance:

     'The New York Rowdy Journal, sir,’ resumed the colonel, ‘is, as I expect you know, the organ of our aristocracy in this city.’

     ‘Oh! there is an aristocracy here, then?’ said Martin. ‘Of what is it composed?’

     ‘Of intelligence, sir,’ replied the colonel; ‘of intelligence and virtue. And of their necessary consequence in this republic—dollars, sir.’

     Martin was very glad to hear this, feeling well assured that if intelligence and virtue led, as a matter of course, to the acquisition of dollars, he would speedily become a great capitalist. 

I mean, it's not only funny in that it exposes the naiveté of Martin, but also the ridiculous credulity of Americans. 

And speaking of having a bit of fun at the American expense, check this bit description of a group of Americans having at their lunch in noisy desperation:

     It was a numerous company—eighteen or twenty perhaps. Of these some five or six were ladies, who sat wedged together in a little phalanx by themselves. All the knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost in self-defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. The poultry, which may perhaps be considered to have formed the staple of the entertainment—for there was a turkey at the top, a pair of ducks at the bottom, and two fowls in the middle—disappeared as rapidly as if every bird had had the use of its wings, and had flown in desperation down a human throat. The oysters, stewed and pickled, leaped from their capacious reservoirs, and slid by scores into the mouths of the assembly. The sharpest pickles vanished, whole cucumbers at once, like sugar-plums, and no man winked his eye. Great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before the sun. It was a solemn and an awful thing to see. Dyspeptic individuals bolted their food in wedges; feeding, not themselves, but broods of nightmares, who were continually standing at livery within them. Spare men, with lank and rigid cheeks, came out unsatisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, and glared with watchful eyes upon the pastry. What Mrs Pawkins felt each day at dinner-time is hidden from all human knowledge. But she had one comfort. It was very soon over.

I actually had to stop and laugh when I got to the "flown in desperation" bit.

Dickens also seems to have anticipated the whole Trump thing:

He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled the loudest, and who cared the least for decency. He was their champion who, in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no stigma upon them for the hot knavery of theirs. Thus, Martin learned in the five minutes’ straggling talk about the stove, that to carry pistols into legislative assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other such peaceful toys; to seize opponents by the throat, as dogs or rats might do; to bluster, bully, and overbear by personal assailment; were glowing deeds. (334)

All in all, seems to me that Dickens caught hold of the American character quite well.

There was a reference to "nigger slavery" (322) which puzzled me. Not only did was the phrase uttered without rancor, as if it were merely a factual description, but hard on its heels Martin meets a Black character who is in some ways a caricature (slovenly speech, deferential attitude, etc.), yet Martin calls him the "pleasantest fellow" he has thus far met. 

Which doesn't sound like a bigoted attitude, does it.

Hmmm.

Lastly, this is a phrase I liked, and if I were still writing anything other than this blog, I would certainly have to make it the title of SOMEthing:

the fading prospects of domestic architecture 

Mmm-hmmm.

At any rate, this was by far my best reading days with Martin Chuzzlewit.

Day 12 (DDRD 1,796) October 1, 2022

Read to page 376 (end of Chapter XVIII). A bit more in America, then back to England...and I'm sorry to admit that almost immediately I felt my interest beginning to flag, as if I'd been hurtling downhill at a thrilling speed and then someone had put the brakes on. Not a full stop, but certainly a more tranquil pace.

Also, I peeked ahead (yes, seeing how many more pages I had to read in Volume I) and had a look at Note on Chapter XVI, which had this to say: "Dickens is, of all writers, the least addicted to literary allusions." (507) Which caused me pause. Every book I've read thus far in DikensQuest has had at least several allusions to Shake-speare. Not much else that I've noticed, admittedly, but that could just be because I didn't recognize the stuff. Point being, I'm wondering if Dickens' allusions are too subtle for some folks--like the person who penned this note--to get. 

Oh, also, while we were still in America, Dickens made several comments about the aforementioned Black character which made it very clear that he found the Peculiar Institution to be immoral, cruel, and unacceptable. So there's that.

Day 13 (DDRD 1,797) October 2, 2022

Read to page 415.

Hmmm. Here's another thing:

"...Dickens told a friend that he thought it was his best work thus far...but it was one of his least popular novels, judged by sales of the monthly instalments." (sic)

 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Chuzzlewit) 

Hate to think that I'm on the side of The Masses when They are on the other side from The Writer...but there it is.

And now, I must just do this:

"The very onions dangling from the beam, mantle and shine like cherubs’ cheeks. Something of the influence of those vegetables sinks into Mr Pecksniff’s nature. He weeps."

Day 14 (DDRD 1,798) October 3, 2022

Read to page 450.

Day 15 (DDRD 1,799) October 4, 2022

Read to page 482.

Day 16 (DDRD 1,800) October 5, 2022

Started Volume II, read to page 30.

Oh, and:

Day 17 (DDRD 1,801) October 6, 2022

Read to page 45. A mere 15 pages. All of which were read in New York City...after a very, very long day. 

Day 18 (DDRD 1,802) October 7, 2022

Read to page 60.

The Shaving Bailey Incident was pretty funny. Goes like this:

‘Poll,’ he said, ‘I ain’t as neat as I could wish about the gills. Being here, I may as well have a shave, and get trimmed close.’

 The barber stood aghast; but Mr Bailey divested himself of his neck-cloth, and sat down in the easy shaving chair with all the dignity and confidence in life. There was no resisting his manner. The evidence of sight and touch became as nothing. His chin was as smooth as a new-laid egg or a scraped Dutch cheese; but Poll Sweedlepipe wouldn’t have ventured to deny, on affidavit, that he had the beard of a Jewish rabbi.

 ‘Go with the grain, Poll, all round, please,’ said Mr Bailey, screwing up his face for the reception of the lather. ‘You may do wot you like with the bits of whisker. I don’t care for ‘em.’

 The meek little barber stood gazing at him with the brush and soap-dish in his hand, stirring them round and round in a ludicrous uncertainty, as if he were disabled by some fascination from beginning. At last he made a dash at Mr Bailey’s cheek. Then he stopped again, as if the ghost of a beard had suddenly receded from his touch; but receiving mild encouragement from Mr Bailey, in the form of an adjuration to ‘Go in and win,’ he lathered him bountifully. Mr Bailey smiled through the suds in his satisfaction. ‘Gently over the stones, Poll. Go a tip-toe over the pimples!’

 Poll Sweedlepipe obeyed, and scraped the lather off again with particular care. Mr Bailey squinted at every successive dab, as it was deposited on a cloth on his left shoulder, and seemed, with a microscopic eye, to detect some bristles in it; for he murmured more than once ‘Reether redder than I could wish, Poll.’ The operation being concluded, Poll fell back and stared at him again, while Mr Bailey, wiping his face on the jack-towel, remarked, ‘that arter late hours nothing freshened up a man so much as a easy shave.’

Day 19 (DDRD 1,803) October 8, 2022

Read to page 75.

Day 20 (DDRD 1,804) October 9, 2022

Read to page 78. That's right, three measly pages. A combination of two long subway rides (over two hours), church (an hour), The Lion King onstage (2 1/2 hours), and etc (including copious amounts of pain) conspired to make reading nearly impossible.

Day 21 (DDRD 1,805) October 10, 2022

I am now a true believer in the power of Alieve. About thirty minutes after taking one tablet this morning at 7:00, the pain that had been keeping me from sleeping and eating, subsided. And as of 3:00 pm, it has not yet returned. I even have hopes of getting a full night's keep tonight...and possibly not going to the emergency room when I get home Wednesday night. I am quite sincere when I say thank God for this medicine.

And as for MC...read to page 108. So that's more like it.

Day 22 (DDRD 1,806) October 11, 2022

Read to page 150.

Check Chollop passage reference "a free and enlightened citizen."

Day 23 (DDRD 1,807) October 12, 2022

Read to page 180.

End of Chapter XXXIV has this to say:

‘...I was a-thinking, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?’

‘Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.’

‘No,’ said Mark. ‘That wouldn’t do for me, sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like a ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it—’

‘And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!’ said Martin. ‘Well, Mark. Let us hope so.’

So that holds up, doesn't it?

Day 24 (DDRD 1,808) October 13, 2022

Read to page 185.

Day 25 (DDRD 1,809) October 14, 2022

Read to page 215.

'...Upon my word,’ thought Tom, quickening his pace, ‘I don’t know what John will think has become of me. He’ll begin to be afraid I have strayed into one of those streets where the countrymen are murdered; and that I have been made meat pies of, or some such horrible thing.’

And there's aNOTHer meat pie reference just a few pages on.

Day 26 (DDRD 1,810) October 15, 2022

Read to page 245.

"Everybody else's rights are my wrongs. What's the use of my having a voice if it's always drowned? I might as well be dumb, and it would be much less aggravating." (216)

So NYC + Kidney Stone = a big hit on my reading progress. I "should" be on page 330 today, which means I'm 85 pages behind my goal. And I have to confess that there's a part of me that would like to catch up on those pages. But you know...today I had to push pretty hard just to read my daily goal of 30, so I don't know if there's any chance of that happening. Funny how competitive I am with myself, though. I mean...those were some pretty heavy mitigating factors that put me behind my goal, after all.

Day 27 (DDRD 1,811) October 16, 2022

Read to page to 285...so 10 pages into The Deficit. 75 to go. Or "to go," I suppose, as I really haven't committed to that yet.

Day 28 (DDRD 1,812) October 17, 2022

Read to page 330.  Which puts "The Deficit" at 60. 

"How could you ever go to America! Why didn't he go to some of those countries where are the savages eat each other fairly, and give an equal chance to everyone." (288)

And does this remind you of anyone?

"It was a special quality, among the many admirable qualities possessed by Mr. Pecksniff, that the more he was found out, the more hypocrisy he practised." (313)

Day 29 (DDRD 1,813) October 18, 2022

Read to page 370. "Deficit" = 50. And hmmm...139 pages to go. That means only 3 more reading days if I actually manage to catch up ("catch up").

Oh, almost forgot. Dickens has a character bring in an "oblong box" (331) full of foodstuffs which reminded me of the "microwave oven" thing that made an appearance in The Old Curiosity Shop.

P.S. Read a bit more...to page 390. So "D" = 30. Which almost seems do-able, dunnit?

So it looks like even with my "deficit" (assuming one continues to exist in a few more days) that I'll finish ahead of schedule (my original estimate was 35 days) at 33 days.

Day 30 (DDRD 1,814) October 19, 2022

Read to page 422. "Deficit" = 28. Getting known.

P.S. Read a bit more...to page 441. "Deficit" = 9. So that happened. And it looks like only two days to go now as well. And you know... I find myself pretty anxious to finish this one off. It's definitely my least favorite Dickens novel so far, and even though it has certainly had some fine moments, for the most part I've found it tedious work this time around. And I keep thinking, "And THIS is the book that Professor Eliot Engels chose to foist upon his students? Did he not want them to like Dickens?" I realize that this may sound like a pot calling the kettle black thing if I confess that I had my AP Seniors read Bleak House, but I don't think that's so for two reasons: (1) Bleak House is a great novel and (2) I love Bleak House and am looking forward to reading it again...and that will be at least my third time around with it.

Day 31 (DDRD 1,815) October 20, 2022

Read to page 479. Which means a mere 30 pages to go. Which means that my "Deficit" is now effectively 0, as I'll be finishing the book up tomorrow. Well. Who'd have thunk it? 

I'm thinking about reading American Notes next. For one thing, it was written around the same time as Martin Chuzzlewit. And for another thing, it informed the American part of that novel. And for one more thing, I'm kind of the mood for non-fiction, and this would be a way of satisfying that urge without departing from the Dickens canon.

Day 32 (DDRD 1,816) October 21, 2022

Read to page 509. And you know, I'm not at all sorry to have read this book, and it certainly did have a few moments, but I'm glad that it's over. And I've decided to go for a lateral move and read American Notes next. In THE CENTENNIAL EDITION that book is paired with Pictures From Italy, and I am pretty sure that I'll just carry on through that as well. News as it happens.

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages

(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages

(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages

(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages

(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages

(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages

(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages

(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages

(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages

(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages

2nd 1K Total: 21,353 (to BR) Average Pages Per Day: 27.38 

Grand Total: 34,802. Average Pages Per Day: 19.55

(29) Master Humprhey's Clock 4 days, 145 pages

(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages