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Dickensalong 2023 : The Old Curiosity Shop

272 replies

Piggywaspushed · 29/12/2022 18:37

Come along and join me in this year's Dickens readalong.

We have chosen The Old Curiosity Shop which was originally published by Dickens across 88 weeks in his won periodical.

Obviously 88 weeks is a bit much for our modern concentration spans and multitasking minds , so I propose an 8 month read. There are 73 chapters in total, not split into volumes or books (thanks for this Dickens!!) but I found little stars every few chapters so think these indicate breaks:

January - Chapters 1- 8
February - Chapters 9- 16
March - Chapters 17 - 26
April - Chapters 27 - 36
May - Chapters 37 - 45
June - Chapters 46-53
July - Chapters 54 - 63
August - 64 - end

I hope that's all OK. It's not as long as some of the others we have done so 8 instalments seems to work.

All welcome - old curiosities, and new!

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gailforce1 · 01/01/2023 16:40

I have ordered 2 copies from the library so that I can read whichever has the better sized print and return the other. I often find that I struggle with the print size of the classics so hope that one of the two editions will be ok. What date do you you start discussing?

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Piggywaspushed · 01/01/2023 17:13

We discuss first bit on Feb 1st.

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Palegreenstars · 01/01/2023 22:31

Hi - just reading the blurb as didn’t know anything about this one and wasn’t sure but looks really interesting. See you on 1st Feb.

Letitrainletitrainletitrain · 07/01/2023 20:01

this is a Dickens I haven't read so I will give ir a go, I'm on the AK one as well so I will see how it goes

gailforce1 · 14/01/2023 19:02

I have started and already have got to Chapter 7 and enjoying. Thank you for the thread as I would not have chosen this otherwise. I am reading the Penguin English Library copy and the print is fine if anyone else finds finding a classic published in a reasonable sized print difficult!

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Piggywaspushed · 14/01/2023 19:33

I'm on Chapter 4. Was surprised by the first person!

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RafaistheKingofClay · 14/01/2023 21:58

I need to get started.

LadybirdDaphne · 15/01/2023 04:03

I started yesterday and it was all going well until I reached a character called ‘Dick Swiveller’ and had a very juvenile reaction GrinBlush

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Piggywaspushed · 15/01/2023 07:20

Dickens sure had a way with names...

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ChessieFL · 15/01/2023 08:18

He certainly did, Mealy Potatoes is still my favourite character name!

Still to get started on this, might make a start tonight.

InTheCludgie · 15/01/2023 08:31

@LadybirdDaphne haha same!

Midnightstar76 · 15/01/2023 10:29

Ordered but not started yet will squeeze a chapter in today.

FuzzyCaoraDhubh · 18/01/2023 10:07

I've read the first installment and enjoyed it. Dick Swiveller 😄Wondering what anyone sees in him, to be honest.

RafaistheKingofClay · 18/01/2023 23:47

Just came on to mention Dick Swiveller but see you’ve already got there. I may mature from a teenager at some point.

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Piggywaspushed · 29/01/2023 11:19

Bumping for 2 days form now having just finished the chapters.

I'm so naive I hadn't even thought about Dick Swiveller!

I did enjoy when his maid or whatever called him Mr Snivelling.

And I am struck by how much he reminds me of Boris Johnson. His types have been around for several centuries...

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StColumbofNavron · 29/01/2023 11:22

Also finished, last weekend. Possibly too far I advance as now I have to try to remember details. 🤣

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Piggywaspushed · 01/02/2023 06:33

Happy first February and welcome to the first discussion.

I am finding this one harder to get into, possibly because of the first few first person chapters and then the sudden change. What the Dickens was Dickens doing?

Poor Nell is surrounded by awful people. The bit where Quilp fawns all over her and lusts after her as his next wife is truly disturbing. Dickens is at pains to let us know she is 13.

A desire for people to did off to inherit riches or new wives seems to be a motif. I think it's Swiveller who complains about an aunt who has not died yet, despite promises, Quilp who wants his wife dead and Fred who wants his father dead. Deplorable.

As I said the feclkess Swiveller reminds me of Johnson with his faux innocence, his desire for popularity, feigned(?) dimness and his fake bookshelf! But he is having Nell foisted on him by her horrific brother.

I can't see tis going anywhere cheery. Dickens deft comedic writing did amuse me during the Swiveller chapters , however (apart form the bit about Nell)

I do find the dwarfism prejudice makes me a bit uneasy. Different times and all that but critics often find Dickens anachronistically sympathetic towards those on the margins of society (for example in Little Dorrit) but Quilp is a horrific Rumpelstiltskin of a man and a lot of the emphasis is on his condition as making him ugly of appearance and character.

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Midnightstar76 · 01/02/2023 07:37

I have managed to be drawn into this story however I can’t see how it will be a happy outcome for poor Nell. Dick Swiveller and was it her brother are such scheming toe rags. Quilp is not a savoury character and terrible how he want’s his wife dead to replace her with Nell. I think that the one true character on Nell’s side is Kit.

Terpsichore · 01/02/2023 07:52

Yes, with the exception of Nell (and perhaps Mrs Quilp) it’s a narrative of grotesques and extremes at the moment, isn’t it?

We also don’t know who the mysterious narrator of the opening is, and what his role in the story is, but that will be revealed, presumably. I’m finding it slightly hard to get into at the moment but I’m sure I’ll get drawn in as we progress.

Palegreenstars · 01/02/2023 07:53

Morning All!

Oof it’s a bit grim isn’t it? All these hideous men fighting over this little angel. The first scene did remind me a little of Muppets Christmas Carol where the ghost of Christmas past is guiding Michael Caine through the streets.

I also naturally got Tyrion vibes from Quilp but seems unlikely that he will have a similar redemption arc and I agree the ableism is unpleasant as a modern reader.

I don’t love it so far, but I’m enjoying the pictures in my copy and am glad I picked it up. It’s funny with authors like Dickens even when I don’t feel something is his best work I catch little turn of phrases that are really excellent and make reading worth while. I highlighted:

’There is a charm in drawing a potatoe from its native element (if I may so express) to which the rich and powerful are strangers’

When Swiveller accuses Sophy she is ‘found to be in the possession of a Cheggs!’

I do think I’d like to read everything he’s written at some point.

I enjoyed Quilps emotional violence. Eating the whole eggs and unshelled prawns and sitting in silence all night.

Finally I read that the only comparison to the excitement with which the final instalment arrived is the excitement of the final Harry Potter book. So I’d probably have got sucked into the hype and be queuing on Ye Olde Victorian street WAterstones equivalent for my piece as I did with HP.

LadybirdDaphne · 01/02/2023 08:11

Thanks for getting us started Piggy! The style did amuse me and I got into it easily enough at first. Particularly enjoyed this when we first meet Dick Swiveller:
“His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it.”

But Quilp creeped me out so much (the scene where he makes his wife stay awake all night) I put the book aside for a few days. I realised it was a bit ‘triggering’ due to past experience with a controlling man I was blindly in love with at the time. I think Dickens’ portrayal of the dynamic was too realistic for comfort. (I am a millennial so allowed to be triggered.) There are a lot of villains here, one amusing idiot (Swiveller) and Nell all alone radiating angelic goodness.

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Piggywaspushed · 01/02/2023 08:42

Oh,I forgot about Sophy. That bit reminded me of teenage parties when I snogged boys to throw unwanted suitors off the scent.

Not a millennial...

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FuzzyCaoraDhubh · 01/02/2023 09:38

Morning all! Thanks for getting us started, Piggy! I'm enjoying the discussion so far and agree with all points made.

I need to read it over again to refresh my memory. I thought it was very dark and grim and that the reader is being prepared for a tragic outcome and that Nell will be the sacrificial lamb. She is very angelic. It is very predatory how men are speculating about her. I also felt sickened by the scene with Quilp and Sophy, not that I can relate to it personally, but his controlling behaviour sickened me. He odious.

The first person narrator was strange. It felt like restarting the book in chapter three when it switched to the third person. I don't think the narrator will be back from what I know about the book. I'm staying away from looking up anything else about it.

I thought it was intriguing and I am definitely interested in reading on.

Palegreenstars · 01/02/2023 09:43

Everyone thinks it won’t end well! I didn’t think this at all. I just thought of escape with the kind gentleman (who I also think is a bit like the gentleman in the railway children). Arghh.

Terpsichore · 01/02/2023 09:53

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh ah, right, so the narrator was just a false start - an effect of Dickens writing the whole book on the fly, as it were, and changing his mind about it part-way through? I know he started it as part of Master Humphrey's Clock, and the original idea was that different stories would be related in a sort of compendium, then the OCS became so popular that he focused on that as a stand-alone story.