NEW Dickens readalong Dombey and Son - the 2025 Dombeyalong!

[Piggywaspushed]

Join me in the next Dickens readalong, Dombeyalongadingdong! This is probably the last big Dickens we haven't done.
The novel was originally published by Dickens in 19 instalments, all exactly 32 pages long (I do find this obsession with 32 pages intriguing- writing to such an exact brief must have involved quite a lot of editing and , as I recall from Nickleby, much padding at times!) and then published in full in 1848. I know nothing of this one really - except the name Paul Dombey sticks in my head. Apparently , this one is more focused on marriage and is read as marking a change in Dickens' presentation of women. Seafaring is involved but this is also his first book about the arrival of railways which Dickens was not altogether sold on. This period was referred to as 'railway mania'. It's really quite hard to conceptualise the rapid progress and change surrounding Dickens.

This one has not been on TV for a long time. Andrew Davies had been working on a version - but it was ditched because it was felt we had had too many 'bonnet dramas'. I swear we have still had many since but rather heavily 'adapted' and maybe Sarah Phelps hasn't read Dombey...

I propose condensing this to an eight month read, using Dickens' shorter sections as a guide . We begin in May, as follows:
May - Chapters 1 - 7
June- Chapters 8-13
July- Chapters 14-22
August - Chapters 23-31
September - Chapters 32-38
October - Chapters 39-45
November - Chapters 46-51
and finishing for Christmas in
December - Chapters 52 - end

Considerably more chapters in this one, so I am guessing some must be quite short.

I'll link Katie's intro in my next post.

Anyone and everyone welcome!

Honestly, I'm so jealous. It's still 31 degrees here at 7pm!

I have enjoyed this seaside interlude with all the themes of education and also of social climbing. Dombey is an interesting character : he isn’t a complete ogre and clearly has a softer side so I am keen to see how that develops. His blind spot is of course clever , devoted Flo. Dickens is certainly more interested in gender in this novel and Flo is developing nicely. There is some danger of her becoming an angel of the hearth.
Paul is so devoted to her. I loved this little exchange. Mrs Pipchin asks : ‘Why are you fond of your sister Florence?’ and he replies simply , ‘there’s nobody like Florence.’ Which is just so lovely. Dickens breaks down the sentimentality with delicious humour :
‘Well..and there’s nobody like me, I suppose.’
…
‘I am very glad of that,’ observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully, ‘That’s a very good thing.’

In fact, if you can find it that whole section, not far into Chapter XI is wondrous.
I also enjoyed the section when an increasingly softening Susan procures contraband books for Flo where she ‘entraps’ a youth from a library to ‘accompany her in her quest’ and he tries hard to find the books ‘if it were only to get rid of her.’
Dickens really is the master of the dry sentence ending. It’s not bathos exactly but there must be a term for it!
And lovely Walter is off to the West Indies (shall ignore the context of exploitation of Black peoples here for the meantime..) and so in love with Florence, and pretending not to be!
‘and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle,and to glimpses few and far between of Florence Dombey – he meant Paul- and to all he loved’

The Carkers , junior and senior are very Dickensian. Old but junior Mr Carker promises much antidotal niceness.

Hello! I also enjoyed this section very much. It is a pleasure to read.

I liked Master Paul's question to his father 'What is money?' The innocence of the child who is wise beyond his years. The bond between Paul and Florence is lovely. I'm afraid that they will be separated at some stage.

I felt a bit sorry for Dombey who finds it hard to relate to his son. He keeps his distance from him, going past the guesthouse rather than going in to see Paul. I don't think he's a bad sort, maybe he's a bit blinkered.

I noticed the hierarchy at school and in the office. I wonder Walter Gay's father was mixed up with the incident that the older Carker was involved in. Poor Walter heading over to the West Indies! So far away!

It was also interesting to see the reprise of schooling in this book, following on from NN and Hard Times. At least Blimber and co seem a bit nicer and they feed their students, although their teaching methods are absolutely ridiculous. Handing a large bundle of books to a six year old and expecting him to extract the knowledge from them into his brain, as if that was going to happen!
I enjoyed the description of Paul getting muddled up.

I'm really enjoying the humour in the book.

That exact thing happened to me when I was in hospital aged 5 (not in Victorian times...). A 'hospital teacher' turned up, put some educational books on my bed and said 'do that'.

I cried and my mum discharged me!

Oh my goodness Piggy!! 😅

I really enjoyed this section too. Dickens is getting things cooking nicely with his little side-plots and extraneous characters - he doesn’t even need to, but he crowds the stage with so many memorable portraits just in passing, like Captain Cuttle and his suspicious landlady, and poor Bitherstone, saving his bread and cheese in hopes of running away to his family in India. I'm also very amused by the vengeful Joey B (“Tough, and de-vilish sly!”) sitting up all night in a rage of purple-faced jealousy over Miss Tox.

There are some great language things too - I looked up 'shampoo'd' because it seemed an amazingly early usage; it’s a borrowing from Hindi and came over to England in the late 18thc, so quite a new concept in Dickens’s day. Also - apparently he was the first writer to use the term 'oldster' meaning 'an old person' (Major Bagstock talks about youngsters and oldsters).

I'm also really appreciating being able to read my original serialised copies. This section takes us up to the end of the 4th part, and the 3rd was the December issue. There are lots of adverts for Christmas gifts including these (hopefully you won’t have to wait too long for the pics to load). Victorian Filofax, anyone?

I don't even remember Joey !

I knew that about shampoo, funnily. We get quite a few words from Hindi . She say, not bring able to name another one. Bungalow , I think, maybe also verandah.

I think I knew it was from Hindi but I was surprised to see it being used in 1846!

Pyjamas is another one I think.

In my favourite Indian restaurant there is lots of stuff about Sake Dean Mohamed ( I haven't checked spelling) bringing the Indian restaurant to London. Shampoo is one of the things mentioned.

Oh yes, pyjamas too!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Mahomed

That's very interesting. Thanks Piggy.

I wouldn't mind being shampoo'd.

So many interesting comments here, I don't know what to add to what everyone else has said! But yeah, it was a great section. I agree with what you say Piggy about Florence being quite Angel of the Hearth-like. But at least Paul appreciates her, as you say.

And Paul speaking truth to Mrs Pipchin is indeed hilarious.

The novel is interesting in terms of children in literature. I believe that it's only in the 19th c. really that novelists start to focus on representing children. Dickens' portrayal of the young Dombeys is quite sentimental in some ways, but many details also feel convincing. I can see little six-year-old Paul perched on books at the table, to bring his seat up higher. Dickens shows very vividly how the children's perspective on the world differs from that of the adults, especially in the scene where the Dombeys are touring the boarding school.

I found the school sections quite painful to read. So much emphasis on knowledge and classical authors, and no sense of why all that knowledge should matter, or why anyone should care about learning it! That was a fantastic story of you in hospital Piggy! Hurrah for your mum.

It's true that Mr Dombey is not completely unsympathetic. He's a good illustration though of a (narcissistic?) parent who views their child as a mini-me. Which even the title of the book makes obvious I suppose! Today's theories of narcissistic parents say that there can be a golden child/scapegoat dynamic in terms of the way parents treat child siblings (I've read a bit about this as the family I grew up in was mega-dysfunctional, and my sister and I were treated massively differently). It occurs to me that Paul is golden child and his story shows how being golden child isn't always easy: the pressure put on him to achieve is enormous. Florence isn't really the 'bad' child so much as she's virtually non-existent. She's valued by her father purely because of Paul's attachment to her, not because of any identity she possesses in her own right. Of course Dombey's sexist prejudice lies at the root of everything, but he's like a model of how not to parent siblings. (This paragraph is probably a bit bonkers, sorry; I'm just thinking out loud!)

I love the Victorian ads, Terpsichore! And the info about Hindu words coming into English; I didn't know that.

'Joey' is better known as Major Bagstock. It's striking the way his servant is just called The Native. That has to be a bit of an imperialist critique on Dickens' part surely; to Bagstock, he's the Native and that's his whole identity.

I'm happy with Susan Nipper's cameo appearance 😀I wish my students were half at assiduous at tracking down the books they need!

And oh yeah it just occurred to me that with the Carker brothers we get another pair of contrasting siblings! (What the hell has Carker the Junior done, I wonder? Apart from not succeeding in business?) Yet while Paul and Florence are joined at the hip, Carker the Manager wants nothing to do with his brother.

I do think about the sibling thing a lot, because my DSis and I are estranged (her choice not mine), and as I said above, I think the roots of it go back to our childhood. 😢I have two sons now myself, and they have incredibly different personalities, but I try so hard not to compare and contrast them, just to let them be who they are. It's actually more difficult than one might think.

Actually I just looked at the novel again and the term 'native' first shows up in Ch 7 and is associated with Miss Tox: ... such Platonic dalliance, was effected through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's, whom Miss Tox was quite content to classify as a 'native', without connecting him with any geographical idea whatever.

I had noticed the 'Native' comment in chapter 7.
Interesting comments, cassandre!

Sorry - late with my comments - I also enjoyed this segment and wanted to read on at the end of it! Feel anxious for Walter as I’ve recently been reading about the history of infectious disease and the infection/death rate for newcomers to the Caribbean was very high at this point His crush on Florence is fairly harmless but a bit ick to our sensibilities - she’s now 12/13 and he’s what - late teens? Still don’t want him to succumb to yellow fever though.

I liked the inclusion of changeling imagery for little old man Paul - and now that awful hot-house school will be sucking out even more of his limited vital energy. I’m hoping Florence will have enough agency as she grows up to be more than just a Hearth Angel.

That's a good point about Walter, LadybirdDaphne. Clearly Dombey has no sense of gratitude to him for rescuing his daughter 😢

I hadn't realised Florence was still so young. I guess she's been 'parentified' to such an extent that I already perceive her as a mini-adult.

Yes, Florence was seven when Paul was born and he’s six by the end of this section, so I think she’s 13.

Just to confirm, July is Chapters 14- 22.

I probably will try and read this in a couple of sittings after 19 July. I'm off to the US before that to visit my sick mother .

Take care, Piggy. Safe travels!

Really enjoyed reading all the comments and noticing parts I had not picked up on such as the native reference and shampoo! Am continuing to really enjoy Dickens (first time in about 20 years!) Found the boarding school at aged 6 such a harsh situation for Paul, but I love how Dickens portrayed the characters at the school and it felt like he was doing it from Paul’s perspective, accenting their eccentricities

I'm sorry to hear about your mother, Piggy, have a good trip to the US.

It's very true @Summerbaby81 about Dickens accenting the characters' eccentricities; I feel like that's a trademark move by him, but it's even more powerful when he does it through a child's eyes.

I know I’m unfashionably late but if I commit to reading up to Chapter 22 before the end of the month can I join in? 🙏🏼
I’ve been on a few Dickens Readalongs but somehow lost track of them, and I’ve missed them. I know nothing of this particular book so it would be a voyage of discovery!