I crossed the halfway mark in Martin Chuzzlewit today, right on schedule. You guys, it's SO GOOD. I will have to go back and add asterisked updates to the posts in which I complained about it.
The particular reason I wanted to read it this year was its American chapters, which I found unexpectedly resonant in 2001. It had been less than a year since we returned to the US after two years in the UK, and I kept laughing at his impatient descriptions of American mores. I wondered if those chapters would still be as engaging this time around, almost 17 years after our return home, but I am finding them so relevant. I think in 2001 I underestimated the degree to which racism remained a problem in the US: I just did not have any idea how hard it is to be black in this country. Dickens is flat-out savage about American racism in Martin Chuzzlewit. He wouldn't be so angry if it were just that people kept inserting themselves boastfully into conversations on this side of the pond, or Yank-splaining England to Englishmen. It's the part where racists keep spouting off about freedom and equality for all that causes him to incandesce. And nobody incandesces about injustice quite like Dickens.
I think it was last year, when I was reflecting on Our Mutual Friend, that I mentioned how much clearer Dickens' mastery of the craft of novel-writing had become to me over time. I'm seeing it here too, with his interleaving stories. Skillful and fun and thought-provoking, all in one free package.
So. My initial recommendation to read this book was pretty tepid -- tepid enough that I think there were only two takers -- but I am surprised every day by how much I'm enjoying it. Join me!
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