The Crabshack Gallery

Recent Reads: Nicholas Nickleby

19th April, 2009 - Posted by MashPotato - No Comments

Nicholas Nickleby is a young gentleman of “high spirit”, who tries to make his fortune against the odds of poverty, a rich uncle who plots against him, characters who harass his family, and the general foibles which come across his way.

I’m enough of a Dickens fan that I like Dickens even when I’m not liking Dickens, if you get what I mean ;)  Nicholas Nickleby is a example of that.As always, Dickens paints his scenes brilliantly, with a mix of vividity, sympathy and humour, while colourful characters (like the husband of sugar mama Madame Mantalini, or the shrewish Fanny Squeers) make the book enjoyable to read.  However, the main plot and main characters are rather undernourished in comparison.

The plot has little drive to it; entire chunks could be taken out, and the only things that would be missed would be the side characters.  The main characters, on the other hand, which I consider to be Nicholas and Kate, are rather boring in their “perfection”.  Nicholas doesn’t so much talk as declare things, and Kate doesn’t do much at all beside be proper.

I’ve read all of Dickens’ novels (this was actually a re-read, from many years back), and in my opinion, Dickens just got better and better as time went on.  As one of his earlier works, Nicholas Nickleby has the writing, but not the tight plotting, interesting storylines, and more complex characters of his later work.

Recommended if you like Dickens, not recommended if you don’t, and if you haven’t read any before, I would start with something else ;)