'Little Dorrit' readalong

Chapter 19 was certainly a bit of a downer wasn't it! Poor Dorrit, feeling usurped in Amy's affections by his brother then coming over all peculiar, humiliating himself in front of the people he was so desperate to impress, and never regaining his mental acuity. At least he didn't stick around long enough for the awful Mrs General to get her claws into him, and his dosh.
I thought Frederick might come into his own once his brother had shuffled off this mortal coil, and wasn't around to convince Fredrick that he was in a state of frailty and ill health. (Bit of Munchausen by Proxy going on there!) Particularly as he'd started to look younger and happier in Amy's company, but no Fredrick was for the knackers yard too.
Not sure what to make of Miss Wade, was she just obsessive about her childhood friend or is Dickens suggesting that she was in love with her and there was a sexual element. Subsequently she gets engaged to a man and then has a twisted relationship with the repulsive Gowan. So she is possibly bisexual? Are we meant to think she purposefully put herself in a position where she ran into the Meagles on their travels or was that just another of Dickens coincidences? Amazingly she's also involved with the omnipresent Blandous in some way I couldn't quite fathom 🤷‍♀️
Favourite scenes in this section were, as previously mentioned by Ladybird, the Sparklers at home, and when Arthur (sorry, confirmed habit, Mr Clenham) asks Flora to request a tour of his mothers house so he can get Affrey alone and she immediately assumes he's going to pledge undying love and affects a need for him to support her and twitter's away that if he would like to hold her a little tighter she 'shouldn't consider it intruding'. Poor daft Flora, I'd like to see her get a 'happy ever after' ending, though obviously it can't be with Arthur. (sorry, pray excuse - Clennam and Doyce)
And we finish with poor Arthur cleaned out by Merdle and back in the familiar surroundings of the Marshalsea, I'm sure Little Dorrit won't be too sad to be back in the clink to tend to his every need. Has he lost all of Doyce's money or did he bankrupt himself to save Doyce from total ruin?

I think I've found the best line in the book;

'I don't know', said Affery. 'Don't ask me no more. Your old sweetheart an't far off, and she's a blabber'.

Yes! I think she's one of the most interesting characters in the book, though I'm wondering if she is always going to be peripheral to the plot.

Gosh, that was an uncomfortable dialogue between Harriet and Miss Wade with Arthur looking on awkwardly.
It's a well-written chapter. The two of them are locked into a battle of wills and Dickens suggests that perhaps they are too alike to get along. It doesn't seem as though Harriet is any happier with this woman as she was with the Meagles. Poor Harriet!
Miss Wade seems to have gone through life with a chip on her shoulder. She really does have 'an unhappy temper'. She's one to be reckoned with!

I hadn’t thought of that, that would be a depressing conclusion!

I don’t know much about Hard Times, but I’m willing to try it, as long as the title reflects the content not the reading experience.

This month I thought the scene with Fanny and Edmund was comic genius (with no nonsense about it) - I loved the description of Edmund as being absent minded in a more literal sense than is usually meant by the phrase - and then the abrupt drop into darkness as Mr Merdle appears and asks for a knife was very well done.

I just hope Amy doesn’t end up being Arthur’s carer in prison, just like she was for her dad

I would be happy with Hard Times, I haven’t read it before.

Hello! Checking in for later on

Well that was a depressing few chapters! Far too many deaths. And of course Merdle’s investments have collapsed which we all saw coming from a mile away. I’m glad we found out a bit more about Miss Wade, but unless something else happens involving her in the last few chapters I’m still not sure why she’s in the book. You could easily take her out and it wouldn’t change the storyline at all.

We only have a few chapters left and there’s a few things to be resolved - who/where is Blandois? Will Arthur get out of prison? Will he and Amy get together? What will happen to Mrs Merdle? What’s happened to the Meagles/Gowans? What happens to all Dorrit’s money?

And equally importantly, what are we going to read next?,

Chapter 19!

I know! She sounded like a Bridezilla

Yes Dickens is keen to impress upon us that Fanny has made a grave mistake. I've just read the Shmoop chapter summary's, which I've not kept up to date with so far, and they draw attention to this damming passage, which is a commentary on the bridal carriage trundling off into the distance post ceremony:
“So, the Bride had mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of wrack and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to have gone the same road, before and since.”

And Chapter 19 😳 ! Bit of a bolt out of the blue for me too despite the foreshadowing.

It seems to me from that passage, that Fanny is trying to convince herself that she's happy. She is definitely a social climber and as Desdemona says, it's a hollow victory.

I just finished chapter 18. Poor, poor John Chivery 😢 Dorrit really showed his beastly side in that interaction. And then to take his gift of the cigars, which Chivery could no doubt ill afford, and immediately give them away to his Footman 😡

ChessieFL beat me to it, I was going to refer to Merdle as Dickens version of Neil Woodford. I can see the Clenam, Sparkler and Dorrit wealth folding like a house of cards when he is inevitably unmasked as a charlatan who has been juggling a financial pyramid scheme. (Amy will no doubt be delighted to be transported back to gentile poverty though!)

I was also flummoxed by Floras visit to Dorrit in an attempt to track down Blandois, and also by Dorrit following this up with a visit to Mrs Clenham and Flintwinch. An action which seemed very out of character to me, as it placed him squarely in a house that was strongly connected with his poverty stricken past.
Although does he know Amy had once worked there, maybe not as he liked to pretend she was out partying every day and Flora only mentioned Amy working for her I think.

I do like Flora though, with her stream of consciousness way of speaking, she makes me laugh, as does Sparkler with his catch phrase of 'no nonsense about her'

On the other hand I can't bear the way Dorrit speaks with all the humming and harring, or the hawking and sniffing of Pencks. Although this is probably because I'm mainly listening to the book, read by Julia Stephenson, and although she's a brilliant narrator she certainly doesn't shy away from hamming up these two and can 'hawk' and snort like a good'un when required to!

I don't think Fanny is happy at all Piggy, she cried with Amy when she decided to marry Sparkler and once she's established in her married home Dickens says:

“In her mind's eye, as she lounged there, surrounded by every luxurious accessory that wealth could obtain or invention devise, she saw the fair bosom that beat in unison with the exultation of her thoughts, competing with the bosom that had been famous so long, outshining it, and deposing it. Happy? Fanny must have been happy. No more wishing one's self dead now.”
I took from that, that she looked around and realised what a hollow victory she had won and what a miserable life she had carved out for herself with an imbecile of a husband. Although I can't but feel that Sparkler has the worst of the bargain here! He may be stupid but there's no malice in him (if some nonsense about him!) and I don't think the same can be said for Fanny!

I also want to push on with chapter 19 now to see what's coming!

Ooh no, definitely not during Strictly!

I don’t usually read my chapters until the end of the month but I might have to crack on with chapter 19 to see what you’re going on about!

Yes, we'll see!