OK, well I will dive in and post my thoughts! This instalment was very long so I am probably forgetting the beginning bit which might even have included the surprise deaths. Poor Frederick. 
This is what I wrote yesterday:
Finished!
And what an interesting conclusion.
May I just point posters towards the excellent Wordsworth introduction by Peter Preston, if this is the edition you have, which articulates so well many of the themes and ideas of the novel and deals particularly thought provokingly with the frustrating plot of Miss Wade and Tattycoram, which I know has bothered so many of us.
It also points out the ‘Brtiannia’ figures in the novel (which I had not noticed, as illustrated satirically on the original frontispiece. Of particular note is Mrs Clennam, (nearly)always seated and presiding over her bitter world and, of course Messrs Merdle and Casby – and even Affery with her toasting fork! Here ,we also focus on grime and cleanliness , with the most morally corrupt character, Merdle, dying in a bath and Blandois reduced ( so dramatically!) to ashes. The grime of England – metaphorical and literal, is often pointed out. And what was with all the parentless children and twins?
The marriage of Little Dorrit and Arthur was inevitable. Orwell described Dickens’ endings as inevitably featuring a happy family, preferably their children, and a gravestone marking those lost on the way. This ending is definitely darker and more ambiguous. Meagles is lovable but no simple Mr Brownlow and the Circumlocution office still reigns – as Ferdinand warns :’the next man who has as large a capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling will succeed as well’. Doyce basically has to go abroad to be appreciated and corruption has only partly been challenged (sound familiar!?!)
I was so annoyed that Little Dorrit did not want to be Amy but I get it symbolically. She is a grown woman who has been infantilised but is strikingly mature , where Maggy is a physically grown woman frozen in childhood.
Anyway, I did find some rather lovely bits. First of all, I loved Miss Wade :
‘I thought you knew’, she interrupted with a smile, ‘that my good nature is not to be calculated upon.’ I may use that next time someone appeals to my ‘good nature’!
I loved John’s final ‘pillow inscription’ but before this did love the moment of realisation. What he (although authorial voice is interesting here - it could also be Dickens really, Or Arthur) thinks about LD is actually rather beautiful :
… she was its vanishing point. Everything in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled thousands of miles towards it ;… it was the centre of the interest of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and pleasant in it; beyond there was nothing but mere waste , and darkened sky.’ Sob
This is the part of the book that says
Little Dorrit. Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little Dorrit
Lovely. And seems to capture the perspective of both Arthur and John.
So, John, ‘for the sake of the loved one’ , ‘became magnanimous’ . Dear blessed John! Silly Dickens to give the finest romantic prose to John, and not Arthur.
I enjoyed the novel well enough but did find the plots convoluted and the cavalcade of characters a bit much (Rugg? Tip? Meagles and Merdles? Plornishes? Nandy?) . I thought the themes of money, greed and decay were well done. Think I preferred it to Our Mutual Friend, but would put it well behind Bleak House for atmospheric claustrophobia and cutting edge style, and David Copperfield, which I just thought was joyous.
I ahve lsitened to Katie since and founfd what she said about Amy and her maturity and fight , her independence compared to earlier Dickens' women interesting, although I am not sure I entirely agree. She also has insightful comments about the characterisation of Arthur.
Thank you all for joining me on this readalong and keeping me company!