Dickensalong 2023- 2024 : Nicholas Nickleby

[Piggywaspushed]

Come along and join me in the next Dickens readalong.

We have chosen Nicholas Nickleby which was originally published by Dickens in 19 instalments.

I propose condensing this to a nine month read, using Dickens shorter sections as a guide. We begin in October, as follows:

October - Chapters 1 - 7
November - Chapters 8-14
December - Chapters 15-23
January - Chapters 24-29
February - Chapters 30-36
March - Chapters 37-42
April - Chapters 43-51
May - Chapters 52-58
and finishing in
June 2024 - Chapters 59 - end

Summoning old faithfuls and newcomers, one and all!

Oh no. I'll have to rummage for tissues!

Yes! :(

I won't be around until quite late on the 1st June and am planning on reading my remaining three chapters today and tomorrow.

Two choices - otehr people post away merrily on 1st until I return to the hols, or we discuss on Thursday evening? If posters-in - chief will be ready by then?

I'll be ready for Thursday but don't mind waiting!

I’m happy either way - I have 3 chapters left which I will have read by Thursday but equally happy to wait.

I’m ready and finished reading yesterday - I’m in NZ though so your Thursday evening will be my Friday morning - won’t start discussing anything til Piggy starts us off!

Also ready and also happy to wait!

Also happy either way, I just finished last night.

I have not been well last couple of days so not up.to posting much really. Feel free to chat away without me in erudite fashion.

I just have two words. Poor Smike.

Feel better soon @Piggywaspushed 💐

I'm also grieving Smike 💔

Get well soon @Piggywaspushed 🌻

I'll be back later. Yes. Smike 💔

I'm feeling a bit brighter now.

I don't know if this is a shingles relapse, or the lucky joys of being female but grrr...

Anyway, has anyone else got anything to add. A lot went off in this instalment- the rescue of Madeline, the burgeoning relationship of Frank and Kate (hooray!), more comedic awfulness from Mrs N... I did love her bewilderment as to why Madeline couldn't just marry one of the older Cheerybles and her own example of a iirc six year age gap.

I wasn't entirely sure what was going on with Gride and the papers but liked Noggs beating him on the noggin.

Smike was always fated to end thus, sadly. Much foreshadowing occurred. I do hope that awful Squeers meets a terrible doom.

Glad you’re feeling a bit better, Piggy, shingles is awful. Try to take it very easy if you can.

Yes, a lot happened here, didn’t it? I had no clue what was happening with Gride, Ralph and the horrible Bray to mean Madeline had to be forced into the marriage, but it was noticeable how Dickens lapsed into ridiculously high-flown language for the big confrontation. I was tsk-ing a bit at how hackneyed he suddenly got - all that 'Tis false! cried Ralph, shrinking back' and 'what I scarcely dare to hope it is, you are caught, villains, in your own toils!' It was quite surprising how unsubtle that was.

On the other hand, poor Smike 🥺 I'm reading a great book at the moment about customs around death and mourning, and there’s quite a lot about Dickens and the way he deals with death. It’s interesting that the death of Little Nell, which we tend to find way over-the-top nowadays, was greeted as both poignant and deeply consoling at the time by so many grieving people…..probably the same with Smike, who’s kind of gradually been forgotten once the action moved away from Dotheboys Hall.

Yes,I think we are supposed to find consolation in Smike's death- that's hard for us these days as it seems so futile.

But behind it is Dickens' ever righteous indignation at the abuse and manipulation of the vulnerable which lifts it above Little Women territory?

Oh yes, definitely. He's very tender over Smike.

I did think it was interesting to see the contrast in his different voices, though. He wrote some passages so brilliantly - like the chapter when Kate was being letched over by Sir Mulberry and co; that was genuinely skin-crawling and felt psychologically acute. I didn’t feel the same level of realness in the confrontation between Nicholas and Ralph. I wonder whether, on a purely practical level, there were instalments when he just had to get them done and couldn’t revise much because his deadline was looming?!

Yes, probably. It did feel melodramatically crowd pleasing!

I agree that poor Smike's demise was heavily foreshadowed. That's very interesting about Victorian attitudes toward death and mourning, @Terpsichore .

Piggy said: But behind it is Dickens' ever righteous indignation at the abuse and manipulation of the vulnerable which lifts it above Little Women territory?

Very true. I think that Dickens' portrait of Dotheboys Hall ultimately helped to get some of the worst Yorkshire boarding schools of the era closed down (I don't have the facts at hand though).

Terpsichore, I didn't think about how unsubtle the grand showdown between Ralph and Nicholas was, but you're right! Very melodramatic. There are also some satisfying but wildly implausible narrative coincidences: Gride falling down dead moments before the wedding (a fate that he had just himself foreseen in a dream!); Noggs and young Frank Cheeryble arriving just in the nick of time to grab the precious paper off Squeers and Sliderskew (whatever the paper is!). Squeers and Sliderskew in that scene are like comic-book villains.

I do think the theatrical / melodramatic aspects are part of the charm of the book. The Crummles family may have taken themselves back to America, but their mode of over-the-top theatrics is still present within the plot of the novel itself.

I did think it was a nice psychological touch that Nicholas is so wrapped up in himself, he doesn't notice that his sister and Frank have a thing for each other! And Mrs Nickleby, who is normally so daft, happens to be right about that for once!

Then Nicholas goes all goody-two-shoes and explains to his mum that it would never, ever be OK for the beloved nephew of the generous Cheeryble benefactors to marry down financially. Hmm. When it comes to pursuing love, is it one standard for him, another for Kate?

I thought Smike's death scene was beautifully written; very tender and gentle, as Smike was himself. The last lines in particular were really lovely when Smike had a vision of Eden and happy families. It was much better than Little Nell's death which I didn't find as moving in comparison. I agree that we were supposed to find it consoling but we didn't I wish he could have always stayed by Nicholas's side.

I liked the melodrama although I agree that the writing wasn't brilliant in comparison with other scenes, I think I was too fixated on the plot to notice it. Nicholas's indefatigable energy is admirable. He hasn't changed much in the course of the book. He started out as a dashing young man and he still is. I like him though. He's brave and fearless but caring with it.

Newman Noggs has been amazing. He's the real hero, I think. So selfless. He had some great lines in this section especially to Nicholas when he urged him to not stop hoping, which was a very powerful moment. And he has a great line about covwebs, spiders and flies when speaking with Gride. He's a brilliant character. I enjoy all his scenes.

I also got confused about Gride's papers, the bond, the marriage...what was going on...I was glad to see the awful duo defeated in their plans. I'm also hoping that Squeers comes to a very squeaky end.

It was an exciting installment and now we only have one more left!

I hope you're still on the mend, Piggy and able to take it easy.

Typo: cobwebs

Fuzzy, I'm also a huge fan of Noggs, bless him!

I was also muddled about the Gride/Bray/Ralph Nickleby money and paperwork plot. I thought maybe I had missed something that would make the whole thing clear. But now I suspect the mystery will be cleared up in the final segment.

I found Smike's death scene moving too. I felt like the Nicholas/Kate/Smike 'queer family' scenario loomed large in this section of the novel. There's the moment when Nicholas and Kate stand side by side confronting Ralph, and they're said to look so alike. (Though of course they look like Ralph too.) Smike's romantic love for Kate and his deep friendship for Nicholas are deeply interwoven together. Part of me was sad that he died without Kate there... but he was with Nicholas, his first true love (nod to the queer reading of the novel here!), and because Kate wasn't there, he could finally open his heart and reveal to Nicholas how much he loved her. It interests me that for Smike, Nicholas is partly a stand-in for Kate (Smike can confide in Nicholas about his love for her, rather than confiding in her directly), but Kate may also be partly a stand-in for Nicholas (loving a woman romantically is socially acceptable, but loving a man romantically, less so).

That was all a bit incoherent, sorry, it's me running with the queer theory! 😁

Smike would be an interesting character to analyse from the point of view of disability studies too, I suspect. Dickens does make him an enormously compelling character in his own right, but to some degree he's a pawn in the struggles for power of the able-bodied men: Squeers and Ralph both want to use him to get revenge on Nicholas. Nicholas of course sees him as a human being, not just a pawn. However, he dies and makes way for Nicholas and Kate to form their own love relationships, which feels like a something of a cop-out on Dickens' part, even though you could see that ending being foreshadowed for so long.

Hope you're not too poorly, Piggy, and that you have a good weekend.

He was with Nicholas, his first true love.

Yes! I thought the same. So true.

That's very clever @cassandre Not at all incoherent :)

I felt a bit cross in the death chapter that Smike had someone trailing him even as he was on his deathbed. For heaven's sakes, Dickens! Leave the boy his peace!

Thanks Fuzzy, I'm glad it sort of made sense to you. It's Friday night and I think I'm letting myself get a little carried away with the literary interpretations, ha.

Good point about Smike being hounded on his deathbed! I think there's another plot twist coming. Another example of, ahem, what looks like extremely unsubtle foreshadowing on Dickens' part!

Late to the chat and not much to add to what everyone else has said!

Smike’s death was sadly inevitable and agree that it was very moving. I’m another one who found the whole Gride plot rather confusing, but I have now read on and finished the book and it does become clearer!

Overall this was an action packed instalment starting to wrap things up before the end.

Im enjoying the discussions above about the queer reading of the book. I suspect in Dickens’ time there were a lot of friendships like that, where people couldn’t reveal their true feelings (or possibly didn’t even realise their feelings were anything more than good friendship). This is one reason I really enjoy these readalong threads - things like that would completely pass me by otherwise!

I know there is still a further instalment to read/discuss but we’ll have to start thinking soon about what our next readalong will be. Any suggestions? I haven’t read The Pickwick Papers, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, or Edwin Drood so would be happy with any of those. I also haven’t read Great Expectations or Oliver Twist for years so very happy to have a reread readalong of those.

If we want to go outside Dickens, I enjoyed The Woman in White so how about The Moonstone? Or Vanity Fair?

I would be happy with any of your suggestions Chessie. Your Dickens list is the same as mine although I haven't read David Copperfield yet. It's on my list for this year.

I have read The Moonstone before but would read it again. I've never read Vanity Fair but would like to.