I Read Therefore I Am discussion

I am planning to read all Dickens novels in the original monthly (sometimes fortnightly) installments they were published in.
If anyone would like to join me I'm just about to embark on The Pickwick Papers - I'll post the chapter nos for the 1st installment shortly

I don't think I'd be any good at this. If its good I would just keep reading I'm afraid.

Thats what I'm worried about, but I love Dickens and never seem to fit in any of his books anymore - well I'll give it a try and see how I get on.

1st installment - chapters 1-3 (up to the beginning of the strollers tale)

I might join you with this as love Dicken's but haven't read many! Is this first instalment a month?

Yes - (and I note, with a sinking feeling, that I've been spelling instalment wrongly!).
Don't know how this is going to pan out - but I thought we could give ourselves till Sept 15th to read this 1st one and then if we're still up for it decide if we want to carry on like that or increase the intalments per month. What do you think?

I'll give this a go as I haven't read the Pickwick Papers. As you say, let's see how it goes.

Yeah I think so too, we will just see how we all feel, I'll download it to my kindle now

I've just started this today!

Started it late yesterday - massive fight with taxi cab driver going on at the moment.

Falling behind on this as cant stop reading WE. What happened with the taxi driver?

Yeah that was quite random. This book seems just to be a set of loosely connected comic incidents so far - at this point Dickens doesn't seem to have an actual storyline in mind and is just feeling his way.

Ha ha Hilary - we must have been typing at the same time! At least reading in instalments we can catch up if we get behind!

Our lads were rescued from the violent taxi driver, only to get into another and even worse predicament!

Just finished the first installment - Dickens is much less daunting in small segments.

Finished this instalment and really enjoying it.cant wait until next month to read on though, I've got to find out just how many hangers on and ne'er do wells he collects.

We'll have to decide if we want to read 2 instalments a month from now on - or stay as we are.

How long is the next instalment?

it's another 24 pages

Chapter's 4 and 5? I'm reading on my kindle so not sure if the pages are the same.

Yes that's right

Instalment number 2 is from the beginning of the strollers tale to the end of chapter 5. What will the lads get up to next?

This month's instalment was just as daft as the last (view spoiler)[the Pickwick Club get caught in the middle of a military demonstration, have a nice picnic and then get into a fight with a couple of horses! (hide spoiler)] Quite amusing but I'm more interested to see how this progresses and at what point Dickens decide to turn this into a story rather than a collection of funny scenes or if that's how The Pickwick Papers carries on. (I haven't read it or seen any adaptations so I genuinely know nothing about this book other than what I read in the introduction to my copy)

It definitely does turn into a story (though still with plenty of funny scenes) - can't remember when though. I think it starts tightening up with the introduction of Sam Weller - thats when it started getting really popular anyway.

Cool - I think it's just interesting to watch his development as a writer by reading the books this way.

Definitely -and also fun to read them as they were originally written and issued - never read anything in instalments before.

Just finished this months instalment and really enjoying it. The last Dickens I read was Nicholas Nickelby and the lightness and humour of this story compared with the dismal atmosphere of Nicholas just shows what an outstanding author Dickens was. I would NEVER recommend Nicholas Nickelby, reading it felt like I was being punished for something!

Oh no, sounds dismal! Looking forward to that one then :S

I've only ever read Great Expectations, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and A Christmas Carol(and Oliver as an abridged version when I was about 10 but I'm not convinced that counts) so for the others I'm pretty much in the dark. I have deliberately avoided all the adaptations etc on the TV for the ones I haven't read as well so it doesn't spoil the story for me!

I haven't read that many but Hard Times I have read a couple of times and the most recent was A Tale of Two Cities when I was pursuing my French Revolution obsession. I've tried to read The Old Curiosity Shop twice but never got past the first few pages. My late husband bought me a set of leather bound Dickens but I'm ashamed to admit I've only worked my way through a half dozen or so in 15 years!

Well we will get through them all eventually! I thought this instalment's thing would be a bit too slow but I kind if like how it means we can read them together without it being a massive time commitment. Plus as it's only small doses then hopefully no-one will fall behind or get fed up!

I agree. I didn't think I'd be able to read in instalments and perhaps if the plot lines were riveting it would be difficult to leave them, but with Pickwick Papers its rather like a series of short stories (at the moment!) rather than a novel.

I don't know why but every time I think of Pickwick I see Harry Seecombe singing!!! Did he star in some musical adaptation at some point which he has advertised or is my memory playing strange tricks on me?

I don't know but he is very like the picture of Mr Pickwick that I had in my head...

I think he was in "Oliver!" the musical as the Beadle - he does look very like Mr Pickwick though.
Hilary - I really enjoyed Nicholas Nickleby when I read it - I thought it was really funny - except for poor old Smike - I particularly enjoyed Mr & Mrs Mantalini. The one I'm not looking forward to is Barnaby Rudge. As Laurel said, though- small doses is going to be an excellent way to get through the less appealing of the books.

Heres a bit of Mr Mantalini - trying to pacify his older, richer wife after being caught flirting with another, younger, lady:


'Do not put itself out of humour,' said Mr Mantalini, breaking an egg. 'It is a pretty, bewitching little demd countenance, and it should not be out of humour, for it spoils its loveliness, and makes it cross and gloomy like a frightful, naughty, demd hobgoblin.'

'I am not to be brought round in that way, always,' rejoined Madame, sulkily.

'It shall be brought round in any way it likes best, and not brought round at all if it likes that better,' retorted Mr Mantalini, with his egg-spoon in his mouth.

'It's very easy to talk,' said Mrs Mantalini.

'Not so easy when one is eating a demnition egg,' replied Mr Mantalini; 'for the yolk runs down the waistcoat, and yolk of egg does not match any waistcoat but a yellow waistcoat, demmit.'

'You were flirting with her during the whole night,' said Madame Mantalini, apparently desirous to lead the conversation back to the point from which it had strayed.

'No, no, my life.'

'You were,' said Madame; 'I had my eye upon you all the time.'

'Bless the little winking twinkling eye; was it on me all the time!' cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture. 'Oh, demmit!'

'And I say once more,' resumed Madame, 'that you ought not to waltz with anybody but your own wife; and I will not bear it, Mantalini, if I take poison first.'

'She will not take poison and have horrid pains, will she?' said Mantalini; who, by the altered sound of his voice, seemed to have moved his chair, and taken up his position nearer to his wife. 'She will not take poison, because she had a demd fine husband who might have married two countesses and a dowager--'

'Two countesses,' interposed Madame. 'You told me one before!'

It's obviously Oliver I'm remembering, Lee. There were lighter moments in Nicholas but I found it a real challenge. The plot seemed so convoluted, although I know in Dickens it generally is, I got really irritated by the changes. I would have preferred him to just stick to the story line of Smike's history, which was so strong, rather than introduce all the theatrical bits.

You're making me feel all defensive Hilary :o) I love Dickens - but I will admit that his plots are not always the tightest.

Just finished - giggled a lot through this instalment - I particularly enjoyed the lads attempts at travelling by carriage and horse back.

Yeah bless them - the horses won that round :)

It's a bit like Last of the Summer Wine!

It's Dickens time - part 3 ends at the end of chapter 8.

I was reading up on The Pickwick papers and found this on Wikipedia:

There was also a London stage musical version entitled Pickwick, by Cyril Ornadel, Wolf Mankowitz, and Leslie Bricusse. It starred Harry Secombe, later to become more famous as Mr Bumble in the film version of Oliver!. But Pickwick (the musical) was not a success in the United States when it opened there in 1965; in 1969 the BBC filmed the musical as the TV movie Pickwick. Both versions featured the song If I Ruled the World, which became a modest hit for Secombe.

So Hilary you were right Harry Secombe has played Pickwick ;)

Well found Laurel and well remembered Hilary!

Have finished this month's instalment, reading up about it a little, when originally commissioned it was supposed to be more pictures than text or at least equal I think with the stories expanding on the illustrations but it looks like Dickens just completely took it over and forced them to illustrate what he was writing about. It's still just loosely connected stories about the Pickwick club although this months storyline is being carried over into next month's (view spoiler)[ with the Mr Tupman, Miss Wardle, Mr Jingle love triangle (hide spoiler)] but what I love about reading all his works in chronological order is that you can see how his style develops over time - even in this first work, very loosely plotted as it, you can see the beginnings of Dicken's great skill of creating memorable characters.

It's getting going nicely now isn't it?

Yeah!

I didn't realise that this was his first novel or have I misunderstood? I think because this seems to be episodic it works really well to read it in instalments. You're not really tempted to read on to see "what happens next" in the same way as if it was one storyline. Looking forward to the next section.

Yes thats right - he'd written some "sketches" and short stories (and loads of articles) but this was his first novel. It's amazing if you think about it - as soon as he'd written the months instalment it was published - no time for revisions or 2nd thoughts about the way the storyline was developing - and he wrote all his novels this way. During the last quarter (I think) of The Pickwick Papers he was also writing Oliver Twist??!!

I forgot about Mr Pickwick and only just finished instalment 3! Now it's time for 4 which starts at chapter 9 and finishes at the end of chapter 11.

Me too, I'll catch up though!

Poor old Mr Tupman!

Decembers instalment starts at the beginning of chapter 12 and ends at the end of chapter 14