Voracious Biblio Maniac

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THE PICKWICK PAPERS

Hello Young Reader, I'm the Voracious Biblio Maniac who relishes in devouring literature. In this video, I'll be talking about the work which I read recently:
THE PICKWICK PAPERS

This is my fourth Dickens' novel that I've read; and it's after a very long time that I've commenced to peruse literature owing to certain circumstances in my private life that , I've been deferred nearly three years before I could pickup a work to read. However without further ado , let's plunge into the topic in discussion.

To begin with, I don't consider this work - 'a novel 'precisely - it's more like a humourous Serialization of adventures of a reknown Mr. Pickwick and his followers . It resembles Jerome K Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" on the point that, It has less of plot and more of humour, the difference being , "Three Men in a Boat" is a short work of 200 pages, while "THE PICKWICK PAPERS" is nearly 750 pages long . Despite it's daunting length, every page is a delicious treat of humour to readers. What it lacks in plot, it compensates exceedingly by humour, mirth, satire and jollity .

The novel begins by the sentence :
" The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted."

And the plot follows the travels of our protagonist Mr Pickwick and his three companions which include - Mr Tupman , Mr Snodgrass and Mr Winkle. In their travels, they get entangled in a variety of comical and ironical situations.

In a chapter where Mr Tupman, romantically declares his love for Miss Wardle, Dickens writes 'ardour' as one of the sweet retreats which humane men errect for the accommodation of spiders. And in this chapter we also come across, for the second time the remarkable Alfred Jingle who talks words without punctuations. And he happens to artfully deceive Mr Tupman under the garb of assistance and steal his lady love.

Later when Mr Wardle Mr Pickwick undertake their mission of pursuit, we are then acquainted to the - perhaps most people's favourite as well - character of Mr Samuel Weller who later becomes Pickwick's manservant. In their search of the fugitive, they come across an inn where Sam is polishing shoes , and the lawyer who accompanies then says "This is a curious old house of yours. " To which, Sam replies: " If you'd sent word you was a-coming, we'd ha' had it repaired ."

This work was published in a serialized manner, and it's told that the sales increased fifty fold after introducing Sam Weller as a character. This is hardly astonishing, as his humorous comparisons tickle every nerve of you.
Few of his numerous ludicrously funny dialogues are:

Then the next question is, what the devil do you want with me, as the man said, wen he see the ghost?'

'There's nothin' so refreshen' as sleep, sir, as the servant girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful of laudanum'

'All good feelin', sir--the wery best intentions, as the gen'l'm'n said ven he run away from his wife 'cos she seemed unhappy with him,'

'Oh, quite enough to get, Sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes'

'Avay vith melincholly, as the little boy said ven his schoolmissus died'

"Sorry to do anythin' as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin's, as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament."

And many more which I would undoubtedly have desired disclose, but if I disclosed few more here , it would spoil you the curiosity of novelty.

This is not just a tale; but it's a tale of tales, as there are numerous other stories within told by the characters. of course there's no connection between the main story and the substories, but nevertheless , they are very amusing. Eg: Stroller's Tale , The Bagman's uncle's story, The Story of the goblins who stole a Sexton and many more.
However, one fastidious observation which I could conceive is , The Bagman's Uncle's Story and Tom Smart's Story was told by the sam character : The Bagman. And the narrative is so surprisingly similar that , if you heard there two stories separately , you could swear that it's the same person who told these both. We can only praise the author for his caliber of maintaing this minutely.

Overall, this was a very pleasant read; I enjoyed it very much. Wellerism - the humorous comparisons of Sam Weller will leave you wanting for more. On reading this, I'm sure you will agree that there's no doubt such an amazing work would make a budding author popular. A few, also draw a semblance to Don Quixote ; as I've not read the latter I can present make no comment. I hope you'll enjoy this.

If you've already read this , do let me know in the comments how you felt on perusing this.

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1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 1