DDR: Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens

Public Domain

I wasn't sure that I wanted to take another break from The Novels at this point, but after finishing Dombey and Son I was pretty close to the halfway point on The Complete Dickens Project...17 1/2 of 36 volumes...and since 11 1/2 of the remaining volumes were novels, and only 7 were Not Novels, I thought it might be time to make some headway on "the lesser" books so that I wouldn't end up getting "stuck" at the end of the project with said The Lesser, having finished all of The Greater. 

So. 

In the Introduction by Thea Holme, we're told that the publication of Dickens' first book, Sketches by Boz, was delayed by the artist, and--

"Its immediate success was almost immediately eclipsed; for some six weeks later the first number of The Pickwick Papers appeared." (VIII)

So another pair of Dr. Elliot Engel's Dickens Lies is exposed. In his admittedly fascinating lecture, "The Dickens Nobody Knows," Engel talks about how Sketches by Boz was such a flop that copies were stuffed onto the top shelves in bookstores, and that when famous artist Robert Seymour came to publishers Chapman and Hall with a book idea and wanted them to recommend an author, they despairingly looked heavenward and saw Dickens' name on Sketches and thus recommended him, then sought him out...which then led to Dickens' amazingly successful career.

Well. Clearly that's not what happened. Not only was Sketches not a flop, but clearly if The Pickwick Papers was published six weeks after it, it was already well underway long before Sketches appeared in print.

This is quite disconcerting for me. Not only did I enjoy Engel's lecture immensely (and purchased a dvd of him performing it from his website), I also used it in at least one of my classes back in the day. And it is just stuffed full of inaccuracies (a generous word--one might be tempted to say outright lies). I don't understand how Engels thought he could get away with this. I mean...he fooled me, for sure, but I never read anything about Dickens' life. There are lots of people who do. And he's a freakin' proFESSor. Why would he do this?

At any rate...I'm through with Engel, for sure.

Onward.

Volume I: xxiii + 393 pages; Volume II: iv + 414, total = 834 pages

Assuming that I stick with 30 pages per day, that means this will be a 28 day project.

Day 0:

Just to be sure I wanted to do this, I read the Introduction and the first 11 pages while finishing my last two days of Dombey and Son. (Thus the comments on the Introduction above.) And I found it quite interesting, actually. Dickens may have been young when he wrote these pages, but his wit was already quite sharp, and even a few pages of description of various people in the town was enough to show that his interests in social justice and the plight of the poor had already been awakened. So I'm feeling much more confident about reading the two volumes of Sketches now.

Day 1 (DDRD 1,912) January 25, 2023

Read to page 46. And I have to say...as might be intuited from the fact that I read 35 pages this morning...I am enjoying this quite a bit. I'd been lead to believe (by "Professor" Eliott Engel's lecture, as a matter of fact) that the Sketches would be a series of descriptions, as of a fallen tree (specifically described by "P" EE), and thus would be of little if any narrative interest. Au contraire. The emphasis on the first few pieces here is indeed character description, but the characters sometimes continue from one piece to another, and in the process of the character description anecdotes are relayed. And all in all it is quite delightful, actually. Dickens' wit it at the fore here, and he is quite able to squeeze out a pithy statement along the way. Witness: "The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none...." (34) I am beginning to think that this is not going to be a hard push after all.

Day 2 (DDRD 1,913) January 26, 2023

Read to page 80.

The first sketch in today's thirty was an 8 page piece entitled "Our Next-Door Neighbour." It started off with a light and humorous touch, describing the relationship between people and their door knockers. It then wound around a bit, and ended up telling a very sad story about a widow and her young son, ending with the death of the young man. That's quite a long emotional run for an 8 page story. And in a way it was a microcosm of Dickens' writings: his ability to write both comedy and tragedy, but moreover his ability to move from one to the other without a hitch. Quite a little masterpiece, actually. (And available @ https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Sketches_by_Boz/Our_next-door_neighbour if you'd like to give it a read.)

And...hmmm. When I found that Wikisource copy of "ON-DN," I noticed the George Cruikshank illustration that accompanied it, but it didn't hit me until a few minutes later that this illustration dud NOT accompany the text in the Heron volume I'm reading. Yet another gig against them in my view. 

Public Domain

Next time I get a spare $1,000,000, I'm going to do a Complete Dickens the right way: with books whose spines don't disintegrate, including all of the pieces that Dickens had a hand (or even a finger-tip) in writing, with proper editorial commentary (and no bullshit introductions), and with every illustration. Note to self: first, you get a million dollars....

Also, I found this line (from another sketch) amusing and Beckettian:

"...the little party [would] meet again in the same room, and say and do precisely the same things, on the following evening at the same hour." (76-77)

Day 3 (DDRD 1,914) January 27, 2023

Read to page 120.

There really should be an annotated version of this book. Every page (literally literally) has at least one term which I'd like to have defined or explained...and I don't always have the wherewithal to stop and hit the tubes. Where have you gone, Isaac Asimov?

Day 4 (DDRD 1,915) January 28, 2023

Read to page 150. The last couple of days it's been a bit of a push. I don't know if it's the material or me...though there's some evidence of both. It's not painful, just not a joy...which it actually was for the first few days. But maybe that loving feeling is not gone, gone, gone. At any event, I'll still go on, on, on.

Day 5 (DDRD 1,916) January 29, 2023

Read to page 180.

Day 6 (DDRD 1,917) January 30, 2023

Read to page 211. Still just kind of meh. I guess it's the subject matter: May Day, coaches, parties...not the poor people stuff that captivated me earlier on.

Day 7 (DDRD 1,918) January 31, 2023

Read to page 240. Ask and it shall be given to you: today we were back to poor people and prisons and stuff.

Day 8 (DDRD 1,919) February 1, 2023

Read to page 270. This book has some goid moments, for sure...such as these two bits: 

"..they have gradually settled down into near passive creatures of habit and endurance." (252)

"Would that...the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!" (258)

So I'm sorry to say this, but Vero Nihil Verius, so: I'm kinda ready for this book to be over. Keeping in mind that I have over 500 pages to go, you see why that's a problem. 

In Other Dickens News, I just put in a request for Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. I ended up asking for the large print edition, as there were only about 60 people ahead of me for that one. The e-version and the regular edition had hundreds of people ahead of me. 

Yowza.

Day 9 (DDRD 1,920) February 2, 2023

Read to page 300. Good news: only 3 days before I finish this book. Bad news: it's back to inconsequential stuff: parties, etc. More bad news: Volume II is over 400 pages long, so there's another two weeks (give or take). I am pretty anxious to get back to the novels right now.

In other news: look at me coming up on 2,000 Daily Devotional Reading days. That's about 5 1/2 years' worth. And in all of those days, I've only failed to do my reading once...and that was because I was in the emergency room with heart failure. (So not a bad excuse.) I know that in the larger scheme of things it is seriously unimportant, but in my teeny tiny scheme of things not only is it of great importance, but it's something that gives me a sense of progress and even (dare I say it) accomplishment.  So there's that.

Day 10 (DDRD 1,921) February 3, 2023

Read to page 330.

There's a point in Act II of Waiting for Godot when Vladimir says, "This is becoming really insignificant."

Mmm-hmm.

On the other hand, I'm glad that I didn't leave this for the end of my Dickens Project. It would have been the epitome of anticlimactic. I'm also glad that I didn't start my Project with this book. I doubt that I would have kept at it very long. There's still time for a reevaluation, of course, but at this point I'm thinking that this is another Dickens book that I would not recommend anyone bother reading. Too much fat and bone, not nearly enough meat.

Can I really spend another 16 dats with this?

Sigh.

I'm tempted to settle down with some whiskey and just bear down on this thing and get it over with.

Day 11 (DDRD 1,922) February 4, 2023

Read to page 341. I'm not giving up for the day, but I had to take a pause, because this is just so wretched. And tedious. I'm in the final section of the first volume, which is entitled "Tales," the first "chapter" of which is "The Boarding-house." I put chapter in quotations there because within each "chapter" there are chapters, so who knows what that means. I've just finished Chapter the First, and in its 20 pages there are two fellows who are getting married, one to the mother of the other's intended. How delightfully droll. Fuck me with a quill pen. I am starting to think it would be an excellent idea to go to David Copperfield after I finish this volume and leave Volume II if Boz for some other time...maybe when I'm dying and have no other books close to hand. 

Okay. Deep breath. I'm going back in.

 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

🤤

Okay. Made it to 360. But it wasn't pretty. And bad news: Volume II is not only a continuation of the "Tales" section... it picks up with Chapter 4 of this story. So bailing out when I finish Volume I (tomorrow) might not make sense. 

But I might do it anyway. Cause right now this shit is kind of killing me.

Day 12 (DDRD 1,923) February 5, 2023

Read to page 379. Just finished Chapter II, which in 13 pages tells the story of a man who visits his cousins and loses his umbrella along the way.

Deep sigh.

I'm going back in. 14 pages to go in this volume. I think I can, I think I can. 

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

🤤

Gasp. Made it. Chapter III told the story of a young woman who went to a ball, ran off with a man, married, and then was not happy.

I, on the other hand, am VERy happy to have finished this dreadful book. I strongly recommend that you do not, as I have done, waste hours of your life reading this tripe.

September 1971 is written on the first blank page of this book.

November 1971 is written on the title page of Volume II.

So I conclude that my reading predecessor (MRP) read Volume I in about two months. Which in itself seems strange, since I read it in 12 days, and wasn't exactly wearing myself out on it. Of course, since there's no date specified, it's possible that MRP read the book in less than two months. Let's postulate the shortest possible time: 31 days for October, and 1 day each from September and November. 33 days. That would still mean almost three times as long as it took me, which would imply a rate of about ten pages per day. Also, Volume II has clearly never been read before. The pages are very tight, the spine is not even slightly cracked, and the bookmark had clearly never been moved from its original spot. So...I'm thinking I'm not the only one who had a hard time making it through Sketches by Boz. 

And now I have to decide whether to push myself through Volume II or abandon it (for now only, of course, as I do intend to finish all 36 volumes of The Complete Dickens) and move on to David Copperfield. 

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to read thirty pages' worth of Volume II today. If I make it and it doesn't seem too horrible, I'll push on through. If I don't make it or if I do make it and it seems too horrible, I'll move on to DC.

The tensions mounts.

News as it happens.

News: Finished Chapter IV--24 pages long. It didn't seem related to previous chapters in any way. It also wasn't horrible...though definitely not compelling. I may have to do another chapter before I decide if I should stay or go.

More news: read to page 42...the end of Chapter V. Like the (unrelated) story in IV, this is a tale of bamboozlery. And it was not horrible. It would take me 12 days to finish this Volume off.

I think I'm going for it.

Day 13 (DDRD 1,924) February 6, 2023

Read to page 70. The first story I finished (and they are actually stories now) was okay: "The Black Veil," a story bordering on (but not crossing into) the realm of horror. The second story, which I've not yet completed, is not as good. Its about a party on board a boat, and it would be hard for me to care less about it. 414 - 70 = 344 pages to go.

Day 14 (DDRD 1,925) February 7, 2023

Read to page 100. 314 to go.

Day 15 (DDRD 1,926) February 8, 2023

Read to page 130. 284 to go.

ADDENDUM: waiting room at the doctor's office, 20 more pages. (To 150.)

Day 16 (DDRD 1,927) February 9, 2023

Read to page 180. By the way...how on earth can it be 2023? That's beyond 1984, 1999, and 2001...all big signposts of The Future in science fiction (NEVER Sci-Fi, please) history. 2023 is the far future, when we have flying cars and cities in Mars. Stop bullshitting me, calendar.

Later: waiting for son to get off work, read to page 202.

Day 17 (DDRD 1,928) February 10, 2023

Read to page 234. 180 to go. Hey, that's less than a week! Very exciting! Plus I have to say that while this is far from my favorite Dickens, and though it still irritates me constantly with its insouciance, it hasn't actually been causing me the Cheese Grater pain that Volume I did. Either I'm getting comfortably numb or Dickens us gradually getting better.

Day 18 (DDRD 1,929) February 11, 2023

Read to page 262. 152 to go.

I take back what I said yesterday. Today's reading was painful. Lots of "funny" stuff about marriage. Bleh.

Day 19 (DDRD 1,930) February 12, 2023

Read to page 302. 112 to go. Read extra this morning because I'm so anxious to be finished with this book. Tedious, tedious, and tediouser.

BTW, I'm thinking that I should be able to get about 1,980 more pages in before Day 2,000 after I finish SbBII. So that David Copperfield and then some. Pretty exciting!

ADDENDUM: Ended up stuck waiting, so read a bit more: to 316. 98 to go. I think I can, I think I can....

Day 20 (DDRD 1,931) February 13, 2023

Read to page 350. 64 pages to go. Going to ttry to read more later today since Joe has basketball practice. I really need to finish this book as soon as possible and get to some good Dickens.

Day 21 (DDRD 1,932) 💘February 14, 2023💘

Read to page 380.

Hey, check this out:

And it's not a typo, because it appears that way in another spot as well. Could Dickens have been an Anti-Stratfordian? Probably not, but I'd like to think it's possible.

Day 22 (DDRD 1,933) February 15, 2023

Read to page 414...The End. It was a long haul, for sure. In fact, the last couple of sections were just exhausting. Silly name choices. Absolutely inane plot lines. The worst of Dickens, for sure. Don't even bother with this one, kids.

Onward to David Copperfield.

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read, 13.45 Average Pages Per Day

A History of Philosophy Volumes I - XI

History of Civilization in England by Volumes I - III

Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Volumes I - III

Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century Volumes I - III

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip IIl Volumes I - III

This Happened In My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611

The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

Peat and Peat Cutting

+

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
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages

2nd 1K Total: 24,006 pages (to CSII) = 27.98 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 37,455 pages,  20.16 Average Pages Per Day

(35) Christmas Books 17 days, 525 pages

(36) The Annotated Christmas Carol  7 days, 380 pages

(37) Dombey and Son 30 days, 1,089 pages

(38) Sketches by Boz 22 days, 834 pages

2nd 1K Total: 26,834 pages (to SBBII) = 28.76 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 40,273 pages, 20.83 Average Pages Per Day