Context

I do not remember enjoying Our Mutual Friend this much on my first time through it. This morning at swim lessons I was reading the chapter in which the Podsnaps throw a party for their daughter Georgiana, and I was thinking about the ways that my mood shapes my willingness to be amused and to suspend disbelief. 

Dickens does nothing halfway. In the run-up to retrieving a dead body from the Thames, his characters observe that under the pained light of a wretched dawn, even the signs on buildings look like tombstones over dead businesses. In the real world, one of the frustrating things about grief is that the rest of the world proceeds in its usual fashion, offering no indication that a hole has been torn in the fabric of the universe. Not so in Dickens, where your cutlery and cabinetry illuminate your character and perhaps the next plot point.

This evening, again at swim lessons, I was skimming the introduction before I decided that I didn't want to be reminded of any surprises I might have forgotten over the past 8 or 9 years. Before I bailed, though, I read that Our Mutual Friend was savaged by Henry James. In his view, Dickens didn't deserve to be called a great novelist. The literary world had moved on from his offerings to appreciate the more naturalistic works of writers like George Eliot. To this I said harrumph, because if I were trapped on a desert island with the works of Dickens, James, and Eliot to keep me company, I think the James compendium might wind up toasting my marshmallows. And though I might keep dipping grumpily into the Eliot, shouting FLEE FLEE FLYYYYYY to Dorothea Brooke while she married Casaubon yet again, it would be Dickens who would bring me solace while I waited to be rescued. I might have thought, "Oh, Henry James, you only WISH you could write (and sell?) like Dickens."

While in one mood I am charmed by the backup policeman whose name is Officer Reserve, in another I might be irritated by the troweled-on creepiness of Mr. Venus. There are many moments in a Dickens novel in which I can see that my emotions are being manipulated. Sometimes it works; sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes it vexes me.

Twice recently I saw Dombey & Son described as a particularly appealing and accessible Dickens novel, a description that made me say (articulate as always) "Huh?" I hated D&S -- rejoiced when it was over. Also in my personal lowest tier: The Old Curiosity Shop (the one whose readers flooded onto the docks in NYC, unable to contain their impatience about Little Nell's fate) (spoiler: she dies. It's a relief, actually) and Hard Times. I know of a woman who wrote her dissertation on Hard Times. I can't even imagine the torment.

This week I am wondering, though, whether those books deserve their rankings in my own system. Was I really grumpy when I read Dombey & Son? Is Hard Times as bad as I remember? Is Little Nell really that bathetic? (I think the answer to that last question is probably yes.)

Have you come back to a book and found it much better (or much worse) than you remembered? Don't you want to join me in the search for Mr. Rokesmith's identity? In contrast to Mrs. Lammle (c'mon, you know you want to find out more about Mrs. Lammle), I inveigle only for the enjoyment of the inveigled.