The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Book the Third Chapter 1 (XXXIV)

Hello Fellow Curiosities

Tristram and his family are enjoying a holiday this week so I have the pleasure to make the opening comments. Of all the Dickens novels we have read together, OMF has befuddled me the most. To me, the novel so far has been more of a maze than a labyrinth. Book the Third is titled “A Long Lane.” I hope that lane will be both clear and straight.

My commentary will suggest a symbolic focus. In this week’s readings we will find how Dickens is using fairy tales to support and develop some of the story lines in OMF. The fairy tale motif has been active earlier in the novel, but in this specific chapter it comes to the forefront. Throughout the novel I suggest three main fairy tale threads appear. They are Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Little Red Riderhood.

The first chapter is titled “Lodgers in Queer Street.” We begin in a foggy London, a London that Dickens personifies as the fog causes “smarting eyes and irritated lungs” and renders London into a “sooty spectre” that causes “blinking, a weeping, and choking.” London, like its historical twin the Thames, both function as characters in this novel. They interact with, define and relate to our human characters in many ways.

Riah goes through the fog to Fledgeby’s residence. Let’s follow him: “It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark.” Dickens carries on his description, and London gets darker, and danker, and more eerie until “at the heart of the city — which was called Saint Mary Axe — it was rusty black.” Dickens continues to narrow his focus and the fog’s presence to a “counting - house window” and then even narrower as the fog comes “creeping in to strangle it through the keyhole of the main door.” This is the place of Fledgeby’s business. The coincidence of the fog finding the keyhole of Fledgeby’s counting House is deliberate on Dickens’s part. There is little to separate the “chocking … sooty spectre” of the London fog and the nasty bit of business the Fledgeby is.


It seems appropriate that anytime we are in the presence of Fledgeby there should be some form of discomfort. In the conversation between Fledgeby and Riah they discuss the lodgers in “Queer Street” which is an expression to describe those who owe money.*** (I have included a link at the end of this chapter to explain the reference to Queer Street). Apparently, Fledgeby buys up bundles of individual debt very cheaply, at a “waste-paper price,” and then sets out to collect what he can from the debtors. Sounds somewhat similar to the sub-prime mortgage dealings of a few years back. What I found most intriguing was the phrase “waste-paper price.” Boffin’s business was dealing in waste, and we have learned that his business was very lucrative. He was called “The Golden Dustman.” It is also apparent that someone’s name on Riah’s list has caught the interest of Fledgeby. Does he intend to turn someone’s life into dust or waste? It seems like a convenient link or foreshadowing to me.

The chapter opens with one of Dickens’s great stylistic flourishes of description about London. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am now reading Peter Ackroyd’s London. Ackroyd comments about the city of London that “[d]arkness is of the city’s essence; it partakes of its true identity; in a literal sense London is possessed by darkness.” That got me thinking. OMF seems consumed by darkness. It will be an interesting exercise to keep our eyes open for spots or periods of good weather and sunshine in OMF. I think it will be a long wait. We might learn much about our characters by observing how Dickens places them within the frameworks of light, darkness, and the in-between shades of London.

The relationship between Fledgeby and Riah is stark. In an earlier week’s discussion Tristram raised the question of Dickens’s portrayal of Fagin in OT. In OMF, Riah is clearly a sympathetic character. From his subservient posture in Fledgeby’s presence to his acceptance of the crude comments from Fledgeby, it is evident that the reader is meant to sympathize with Riah. Riah has a heart of gold; in his case, gold is good.

Next, Mr Lammle arrives at Pubsey and Co. with bad news. The Podsnap’s have sent Lammle a letter where they inform him that they want to cease all communication with Lammle and instead wish “the two families [to] become entire strangers.” Both Fledgeby and Lammle wonder who would have driven this wedge between the families and both suspect each other. No honour among thieves? The men shake hands and vow to “mark the person” if they ever find out who turned the Podsnap’s against Lammle. Have all their plans they had to separate Podsnap from his money now ended? We’ll see. Then, in a not so subtle warning to Lammle, Fledgeby warns that it would be unwise, unhealthy and dangerous ever to fall into the grasp of Pubsey and Co. When Lammle leaves, Fledgeby selectively marks certain debts he wants Riah to purchase. Not good, I'm thinking for Mr Lammle. And as for Mrs. Lammle, the “deep throat” of this affair, well, I for one would not want to be found on the wrong side of Fledgeby.


Finally, we learn that Riah has found a situation for Lizzie “at a distance” where she would be “unassailed from any corner.” Fledgeby appears to have an interest in Lizzie Hexam as well. Why I wonder? It seems that Lizzie is attracting the attention of many men, and, I think, for varying reasons. Let’s hope Riah’s plans for Lizzie are successful. After thinking about Lizzie, Fledgeby returns his thoughts to the people who live on Queer Street. Money seems to be the centre of his universe. It seems that Fledgeby is taking Scrooge’s place at Christmas. “Look out fellow Christians” warns Fledgeby, “particularly you who lodge in Queer Street … When it comes to squeezing a profit out of you.”

So our chapter ends with a desire for money. From those who dredge dead bodies from the Thames, to those who live off the misery of others, to those who appear to be wealthy but are, in fact, paupers, to the fantastically wealthy, it's all about money, only money. To me, it seems that OMF goes beyond humour, beyond satire, beyond even anger. Dickens is vitriolic against those who seek wealth without concern for their fellow man.

In Chapter XXXI Dickens referred to Betty Higden as a “brave old heroine.” So many people in this novel could learn so much from this one honourable lady.


Here is a link to the meaning of Queer Street.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer...

Book 3 Chapter 2 is titled “A Respected Friend in a New Aspect” and begins in the foggy evening of the same day as Chapter 1. Riah is again on the move, but this time his destination is much more pleasant as he goes to visit the dolls’ dressmaker Jenny Wren. Their greeting has overtones of a fairy tale as Jenny says “Good evening, godmother!” to which Riah replies by calling Jenny “Cinderella.” If we scan through the chapter we see that Jenny refers to Riah numerous times as “godmother.” At one point Jenny does remark to Riah that “you are so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the rest of people and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape.” Later in the chapter Jenny says “[w]e’ll both jump into the coach and six and go to Lizzie.” I do not think these references and allusions to fairy tales are unintended.

This chapter has very clear overtones of a fairy tale. The fairy tale motif has been percolating throughout OMF but it becomes much clearer in this chapter where people and dolls and the world of the imagination become intermingled. The real and the make-believe begin to overlap. In this chapter Dickens further nudges us into a world with his choice of language and plotting. We have moved from the evil home of Fledgeby to the safe and enchanting home of Jenny Wren.

What is Dickens getting at? What is being suggested about people and society?


Can you think of earlier examples in the novel where there have been allusions to fairy tales?

If you can think of earlier examples, to what extent have they been a help or a hindrance to your understanding and enjoying the novel?


The central symbol that connects these two worlds is Dickens’s reference to a key. When Jenny takes out a key and “bustlingly closed the door” and thus satisfies herself that “her dwelling was safe” the key is described as being of “gigantic proportions.” This key is very large, and on one level Dickens is using it as an emblem of Jenny’s size. I also think Dickens makes the key so big to reinforce how important it is to keep one’s home safe. If we recall the previous chapter there was also a focus on a key, but then there were a series of three keys that Fledgeby used to keep his cheque book safe. Thus we see how one person wishes to guard the sanctity of a home while the other wishes to destroy people’s lives and take their homes away. I hear faint murmurs of fairy tales in such references one’s home.

To what extent do you think the mention of keys is important in developing the plot and character in these two chapters?

Their conversation is light and friendly, and Jenny notes that Riah looks “ so unlike the rest of the people.” The concept of people looking like someone else, of assuming different personas, of dressing in clothes that mask or reflect their characters, and individuals who have a name that suggests or projects a personality, is a central trope in the novel. Further on in the chapter we learn that Jenny often gets the inspiration for her dolls’ clothes by close observation of rich ladies dresses. Jenny comments that “I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls.” Jenny’s phrase “they little think” resonates strongly. Dickens has much yet to unfold in OMF and some of the largest and most significant revelations may come from minor characters who are cast in the roles of various fairy tale roles. It will be interesting to trace their paths as the novel progresses.


Riah and Jenny make their way to the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters and deliver to Miss Abbey a paper drawn up by Rokesmith and signed by Riderhood which proves Hexam’s innocence and further establishes Riderhood as a rogue. What a visual image to conjure up in our reading minds. Riah in his robes, walking stooped over, and small-featured and crippled Jenny. These two people would probably be very out of place at the Fellowship-Porters. Dickens is truly a visual author.

One last observation on fairy tales. To what extent is it by chance that we have the name Riderhood in the novel which is certainly suggestive of fairy tale motifs? Hmmmm…

It's getting hard to follow young Harmon’s many personas. Let's see …first he was himself, John Harmon. Then he switched clothes with the sailor Radfoot who looked much like Harmon in order to feign being someone else when he arrives in London. The sailor Radfoot is killed and people think the sailor is Harmon. A mysterious stranger named Julius Handford is lurking around the docks. He disappears and the next thing we know a John Rokesmith appears on the scene. He becomes a border at the Wilfer’s and gets hired by Boffin to be a secretary and look after Boffin’s affairs which are really his own affairs since Rokesmith is really John Harmon who is not dead. The dead man is the sailor who was dressed like and looked like Harmon. Multiple identities. More changes than a butterfly’s metamorphosis.

Is there anything or anyone in the novel so far that does have a solid base and foundation?

What are we to make of all these seemingly divergent facets within so many characters?

Before the chapter ends there is a boating tragedy and a man is brought to the Fellowship-Porters. It turns out to be Riderhood himself. Has the Thames claimed yet another corpse? The Thames is proving to be just as unpredictable and deadly as any character in the novel.

In Book 3 Chapter 3 Rogue Riderhood does not die but Dickens, possibly trying to write an opera-like scene, keeps him on death’s door for a few paragraphs. It is clear that Miss Abbey is the central authority on the waterfront, not the police. Pleasant Riderhood is summoned to her father’s side and with a small chorus of pub patrons watches Riderhood come back to life. It is apparent that Riderhood is not welcome at the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, dead or alive, and so his daughter is forced to deal with her father who has “returned to life in an uncommonly sulky state.” The pub and its remaining patrons breath a sigh of relief as Pleasant takes her father home.

This was a short chapter and I thought the Thames was about to claim its third victim of the novel, but Riderhood, for now at least, has cheated the Thames and cheated death. I wonder what further use Dickens has for our friend Riderhood? He has been exposed for the shady person he is, although I doubt anyone at the ever thought he was a Saint in the first place. It is clear from this chapter that Riderhood is universally disliked and even Miss Abbey wants nothing to do with him. Since Miss Abbey apparently is the most respected and perhaps feared person on the waterfront, Rogue is out of luck and has no place to go.

Can we place Miss Abbey into any fairy tale role in OMF?

Sadly, it appears that Pleasant is saddled with a rather sour and soggy parent. What further dramatic use does Dickens have for Riderhood? Could it be that Pleasant Riderhood is to have her presence in the novel increased? And if so how, or with who, and for what purpose?The chapter does not further develop any one character in any significant way and it does not, in any obvious way, foreshadow future events in the story. Knowing Dickens there must be something still up his sleeve. What it is is beyond me.

What do you see as the central function of this chapter to be?

We have remarked in earlier discussions the trope of children looking after their parents. This chapter gives yet another clear example. And the name Riderhood … My inner bell is ringing Ridinghood. … as in Little Red Ridinghood?

Since the Thames had a central role in this chapter, and has been of importance through the novel I'd like to recommend two books for your consideration. They are both by Peter Ackroyd who wrote the massive biography of Dickens. The first is Thames: Sacred River If you want to read the history of the Thames this book will certainly be of great help. It is sweeping in its scope and full of information and anecdotes. None of the chapters are too long so it is a good book for a night shelf or table by your reading chair where you can nibble away at your leisure.

The second Ackroyd book is In this book London: The Biography. There is a part in this book which gives a brief summary of the unsavoury bits on the Thames. This would be an interesting read if you want a quick look at how Dickens used the Thames to help frame OMF.

In Book 3 Chapter 4 the title is “A Happy Return of the Day” but I'm not so sure. It is the Wilfer’s 25th wedding anniversary but not a very happy one. In fact, Dickens seems to wryly suggest that the Wilfer’s are not much happier than the Lammle’s, and we all know that the Lammle marriage is a little worse than awful.

Mrs Wilfer is in a “somber darkling state” and the anniversary day is more of a fast than a feast. Their children’s annual wish is that their parents had married someone else rather than each other. It is tempting to see a reflection of Dickens own state of marital affairs in the Wilfer’s life. To make the day as grand as possible Bella arrives in all her Boffin splendour and decrees that she will fix the anniversary dinner. We find that Rokesmith has declined an invitation to join the festivities but offered his apartment’s space for the party. Bella is delighted not only because Rokesmith will not be there but even more so because it will give her the chance to “make a close inspection of its contents.” And so she does.

Rokesmith’s room is most suggestive of a man who brings some of his work home with him at night, but two items get special attention from Bella’s roving eye. The first is a placard describing the murdered man who had come “from afar to be her husband.” The second was a print of a pretty lady who Bella assumes is meant to be her. Now, as readers we know what Bella does not yet know. Rokesmith is John Harmon. To me it seems interesting that Dickens has framed this chapter around a wedding anniversary. While Bella’s parents may not be perfectly happy in their marriage, what about Bella? Will she be happy when she marries? And if she dislikes Rokesmith as much as she proclaims, what is she doing snooping around in his room?

In any case, George Sampson arrives as a guest for dinner and we learn that he has transferred his affections from Bella to Lavinia which is convenient to know for Bella is now without an acknowledged beau. More emotional manoeuvrings by Dickens. Bella turns out to be a horrid cook which is not really a surprise since domestic duties are not of any pecuniary interest. The dinner commences and poor George Sampson is forced to listen to Mrs Wilfer ramble on about the darkness of marriage. Dickens tells us that “ The wretched Mr. Sampson’s position at this agreeable entertainment was truly pitiable.”

The key to this chapter (Besides Bella’s snooping) occurs when Bella tells her father she has “ [s]erious, grave, weighty secrets” to tell her father. These secrets are:

Rokesmith has made an offer of marriage to her and she said no.
Mr. Lightwood would propose to her if she let him but she doesn't like him either.
That the Boffins want to see her “ well married; and that when I marry with their consent, they will portion [her] most handsomely.”
Now the fourth secret is, I think, the most interesting. Bella tells her father that Mr Boffin “is being spoilt by prosperity and is changing every day.” She goes on as says that “ If ever a good man were ruined by good fortune, it is my benefactor.”

Secret 4 is important. It suggests that Bella does know that money can corrupt a person. She also knows that money seems to be the single item that motivates her life. To date, she does not seem to be able to reconcile what she knows intellectually to what she feels emotionally.

Why does Dickens project such an apparent conflict in Bella’s life?

The news that Boffin’s personality is changing is a new revelation. What are some of the possible implications to the evolving plot?

Peter wrote: "to what extent have they been a help or a hindrance to your understanding and enjoying the novel?"

When I read Dickens and he references something so familiar to the modern reader as Cinderella, it's almost as though a hand is reaching out from the past and linking it with the present. It's hard for me to describe the feeling I get when it happens. Imagine travelling back in time 150 years when everything was so different - no TV, electricity, antibiotics, telephones.... so much of what we take for granted doesn't exist, and so much of their daily lives were different from ours. But all of a sudden, someone references Cinderella, and there is immediate understanding! It's as if they were speaking Swahili, but suddenly they break into English!

I suppose, then, that it must enhance my enjoyment of the book, but more than that, it both excites and comforts me to know that things like music (Handel's Blacksmith), religion, and fairy tales that were part of the culture so long ago are still relevant to us today and are a link we share with people long dead.

Peter - the names Riderhood and Riding Hood are indeed similar, but I'm not sure yet how they connect. If anything, I would think Pleasant was Little Red (did she have red hair?) and perhaps her dad was more like the wolf, but that's a stretch for me at this point. The Cinderella reference is an easier connection to make, as is Beauty and the Beast (but will Lizzie's beast -- Bradley? Eugene? -- become a prince? Does Bella have a beast? And if so, is it human, or is it her love of money?).

And speaking of Bella's love of money, I'm so pleased that she is more evolved than many of Dickens' other female heroines! While she's pretty, petite, and dotes on her dad, she also has this flaw -- actually a "deadly sin" -- avarice. Plus, she can't cook! Ha! But I love that she's also self-aware. She knows it's a flaw in her character and it bothers her, which tells me there may be a change of heart and some redemption down the road. Certainly her observations about Boffin indicated that as well.

Lizzie, as the other heroine, falls more into the Dickens ideal, but it doesn't irritate me as much for whatever reason. Maybe because her father is dead and her suitors are creeps.

Mary Lou wrote: "Peter wrote: "to what extent have they been a help or a hindrance to your understanding and enjoying the novel?"

When I read Dickens and he references something so familiar to the modern reader a..."

Hi Mary Lou

I, too, like, enjoy, and need to see allusions and intertexual meaning to help me through a book. Your word" link" is perfect. I was not really picking up the fairy tale motifs until this week's readings. Then, with Jenny almost belabouring the word "godmother" and then saying "fairy godmother" and then talking about a "coach and six" I thought there might be something here.

Next step was to think about young men-women relationships in fairy tales with the trope of love. Lots of those to be sure, but Dickens is not subtle too often. Dickens did know H C Andersen well, and while their time together at Dickens's home turned out to be a bit disastrous, I'm sure Dickens childhood readings of fairy tales and his time with Andersen was formative in some way.

We'll see down the road ...

Hello Everyone,

First of all, many thanks to you, Peter, for doing this week's recaps, which are so much more than recaps because of all the thoughts you suggest, the literature references you offer and the questions you make us ask ourselves. You really set me thinking once more about what I read a few days ago.

[Our holidays, by the way, were predominantly sunny (both with regard to the weather and to the mood of our children). We did a lot of bathing in the sea, of playing minigolf and chess, and I also found the time to read our Dickens assignments. In the evening I often regaled my son with ghost stories that I was inspired to tell from the sight of a forsaken and very mysterious-looking house in the vicinity. Quite as holidays should be like.]

You brought up the question I initially asked about Riah, and this is the first thing I've been thinking about. To tell you the truth, when reading these chapters, I was no longer very sure whether Dickens was really subtle in how he made amends for having pandered to prejudice in the creation of Fagin. I find the narrative voice way too keen on stressing Riah's venerability and his humility, and it also does not make much sense to me that Riah consents to playing along with his evil employer, in a way covering up his shifty business practices, just because he regards himself as standing indebted to him for keeping him employed when he took over his father's business. It also stands to reason whether his father's business had been any better - and Riah must have played the same part in it.

At the same time, this constellation - the avaricious Christian (by name) Fledgeby hiding behind the seemingly avaricious Jew Riah - perfectly mirrors the situation of many Jews in the Middle Ages. There often were moneylenders because medieval laws barred them from buying and owning land (and doing farming) and also from becoming members of guilds, and so one of the few things they could do was lending money, which was forbidden to Christians but at the same time necessary for them. Jews were also often forced to take especially and immorally high interest rates because they had to pay hefty fees to the lords of the realm for "tolerating" and "protecting" them.

Nevertheless, in the framework of the novel, I do not find Riah a very convincing character; or let's say, I do not think the narrator very successful in presenting him. This also extends to the relationship between Jenny and Raih. I hope you'll not beat me, but I found that "godmother" thing in the second chapter very embarrassing to read ;-) Dickens only gets clumsier when he is dealing out his Little Nell jelly.

I like the third Chapter a lot, especially since it made me feel very, very sorry for Pleasant Riderhood. It was moving to see how she enjoyed the other people's efforts to restore her father to life, because they made her experience a certain sense of "belonging". For a short moment, she could cherish the illusion of her father's not being shunned and abhorred by everyone else but of being part of the family of human being. All too soon, this dream bubble bursts when Riderhood wakes up and behaves like his old self - and then she has to face the truth that the efforts people made were not so much towards her father as an individual but towards the spark of human life that was still lingering in his apparently lifeless bulk. In this short chapter, Dickens really succeeded in creating feeling without becoming sentimental.

By the way, Pleasant's situation is not so different from Jenny's in that both of them are somehow tied to egoistic fathers who are shunned and avoided by everyone else, which also makes outsiders of theirs daughters.

Tristram

I'm glad to read that you and your family are having a good time on vacation. Sun, water, happy family, reading and telling ghost stories. A perfect recipe.

It was a pleasure to help. My hat is off to you and Kim for all the time, effort and love you put into these commentaries each week. It is only when one attempts to modestly duplicate your efforts does the reality of the skill, effort and time needed emerge.

"Little Nell jelly." Your wit and at least one opinion have not changed while on holiday. :-))

Like Peter said, I also think that the narrator wants us to see a similarity between the Lammle marriage and that of the Wilfers. However, I cannot imagine that the Wilfers are as much as daggers drawn as the Lammles, and there must have been a time when the Wilfers were or thought they were in love with each other, whereas the Lammle marriage has always been a marriage of (in)convenience.

Maybe, Mr Wilfer is still in love with his wife - there are husbands who actually enjoy being henpecked and being pushed around by their wives. I would also not be too surprised to find that Mrs Wilfer, behind all her airs of having sacrificed herself, might have a softer spot somewhere in her heart for poor Mr Wilfer.

As to Bella, she does regard her money-lust as a character flaw but I would not totally agree with her. To a certain extent, I think, it is quite sensible and responsible not to marry into poverty because unlike the love for a warm lunch on a daily basis, the high-strung emotions of love for one's One-and-Only may cool off once the hormons have done their duty. It's probably as irresponsible to marry just for love, when their are signs of poverty and trouble ahead (and no signs of how to master them) than to marry someone you don't love just because that person has money. - I wonder that Dickens, who was a sober and sensible businessman, should entertain so inane notions about love. Bella just needs to look at her parents in order to find out what can become of two lovers if they constantly live in dire straits.

Peter wrote: ""Little Nell jelly." Your wit and at least one opinion have not changed while on holiday. :-))"

Changing my opinion would be betraying good sense and sensibility ;-)

Peter, post in here or the Our Mutual Friend thread for Part III? I just want to double check. Thanks!

Hi Ami


Oops.

Please post here as it seems to be the proper place.

I fumbled around a bit(!) when I was attempting to post the commentary. I imagine somewhere on Goodreads there is a group dedicated to some esoteric books and they are wondering where the dickens the Dickens came from.

If/when Tristram or Kim read your post hopefully they will know how to de-list my mistake.

Peter wrote: "Hi Ami

Oops.

Please post here as it seems to be the proper place.

I fumbled around a bit(!) when I was attempting to post the commentary. I imagine somewhere on Goodreads there is a group dedic..."

Done.

It was an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy-chair taking his coffee, and the old man, with his grey head bent, standing awaiting his pleasure.

Book 3 Chapter 1

James Mahoney

Text Illustrated:

The old man [Riah] shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, and suppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr. Fledgeby was now pouring out for himself a cup of steaming and fragrant coffee from a pot that had stood ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy chair taking his coffee, and the old man with his grey head bent, standing awaiting his pleasure.

"Now!" said Fledgeby. "Fork out your balance in hand, and prove by figures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of all, light that candle."

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring to the sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible, told it out upon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care, and rang every sovereign.

"I suppose," he said, taking one up to eye it closely, "you haven't been lightening any of these; but it's a trade of your people's, you know. You understand what sweating a pound means, don't you?"

"Much as you do, sir," returned the old man, with his hands under opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table, deferentially observant of the master's face. "May I take the liberty to say something?"

"You may," Fledgeby graciously conceded.

"Do you not, sir — without intending it — of a surety without intending it — sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your employment, with the character which it is your policy that I should bear?"

"I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the inquiry," Fascination coolly answered.

"Not in justice?"

"Bother justice!" said Fledgeby.

"Not in generosity?"

"Jews and generosity!" said Fledgeby. "That's a good connexion! Bring out your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver."

The vouchers were produced, and for the next half-hour Mr. Fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on them. They and the accounts were all found correct, and the books and the papers resumed their places in the bag.

Commentary:

Despite the fact that it was his visual antecedent, Mahoney ten years later deviated from the choices for illustration made by Dickens and his original illustrator, Marcus Stone, so that, for the March, 1865 installment, the eleventh monthly part in the British serialization, there is no counterpart to this illustration of the Fledgeby's levee. Stone's plate for installment eleven (Book 3, Chapters 1 — 4), Trying on for the Doll's Dressmaker, the first illustration for the March 1865 monthly part in the British serialization, concerns Jenny Wren's using London society fashions as the basis for her dolls' dresses. And, although they had access to the Stone series, American illustrators Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867) and Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1866) chose other scenes. Both artists interpreted Fledgeby and Riah in a similar manner — for example, the self-important expression of the young socialite in Eytinge's Fledgeby and Riah. Nonetheless, Mahoney's depiction of Fedgeby's reception of Riah at The Albany is without parallel or precedent. Mahoney's depiction of the money-lender and his front man is consistent both with his own earlier illustrations and with such Marcus Stone illustrations as The Garden on the Roof (November 1864).

In his portrait of Fascination Fledgeby as a Turkish pasha, Dickens may have been relying on his readers' recognizing the negative aspects of Ottoman functionaries, the ?? enemies of Western culture in Eugene Delacroix's Massacres at Chios Greek Families Awaiting Death or Slavery (1824) and Greece Expiring on the ruins of Missolonghi (1826), two of the most celebrated French paintings of the Romantic era by one of the leading French Romantic painter of the early nineteenth century.

Readers of the Household Edition in 1875 might also have interpreted Fledgeby as a "poser," a pallid youth aspiring to possess a swash-buckling image like that of Pasha Hobart, a former British naval officer who became a blockade runner during the American Civil War and then an admiral in the service of the Ottoman Empire from 1867, when he immediately undertook the suppression of a nationalist uprising on Crete, for which service he was awarded the title of "Pasha" in 1869 by the Sultan of Turkey. The year before Chapman and Hall's issuing this edition, Hobart, whose name had, on representations made to Her Majesty's government by Greece, been struck from the British Navy List, was reinstated; his restoration did not, however, last long, since upon the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war he again entered the Ottoman service.

Trying on for the Doll's Dressmaker

Book 3 Chapter 2

Marcus Stone

Commentary:

Stone's illustration for Book 3,"A Long Lane," Chapter 2, "A Respected Friend in a New Aspect," reverts to the oddly sympathetic figure of the child-adult, the doll's dressmaker, Jenny Wren, who has great ladies unwittingly "try on" the dresses that she is making in the latest society fashion for her dolls. In other words, in a neat bit of class reversal, she exploits the rich and powerful as an extension of her art, using ladies of fashion for her models as the novelist uses people of his acquaintance as the raw material for his characterizations. As Jenny Wren explains to Riah just after they have crossed London Bridge and seen some of her wares in the window of a toy-shop.

Although the passage describes Jenny Wren's impressions of the appearance and fashions of society ladies "at a Park, or a Show, or a Fete," the illustration embodies a specific flashback, presumably to Lady Belinda Whitrose as she left the social function.

....as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: 'Now look at 'em! All my work!'

This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours of the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going out walking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life.

'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands. 'Most elegant taste!'

'Glad you like 'em,' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not bad and my legs queer.'

He looked at her as not understanding what she said.

'Bless you, godmother,' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that takes it out of me.'

'How, the trying-on?' asked Riah.

'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren. 'Look here. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say "You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scudding back again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature is staring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much more often yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, "I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;" and I am making a perfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for a full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However, there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. I made her do double duty in one night. I said when she came out of the carriage, "You'll do, my dear!" and I ran straight home and cut her out and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the men that called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, "Lady Belinda Whitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down!" And I made her try on — oh! and take pains about it too — before she got seated. That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for a wax one, with her toes turned in.'

The picture relies for its effectiveness upon the sharp contrast between the observant child (center) in the midst of an odd assortment of strangely disfigured people on the pavement (left rear) and the gorgeous dress which dominates the woodcut, contrasting the strangely distorted faces that form the chorus in the background, which, if the gas lamp is any indication, is the London street outside.

Charles Dickens's "Originals" and Jenny Wren's Dresses

Famously Dickens took such real-life figures as the chiropodist Mrs. Jane Seymour Hill (his neighbor at Devonshire Terrace) and the Romantic essayist and editor Leigh Hunt as the bases for Miss Mowcher and Harold Skimpole, in David Copperfield and Bleak House respectively. As in the case of another David Copperfield character, Tommy Traddles (based on Thomas Noon Talfourd, the playwright and jurist), such a transmutation was often benign in intention — although Mrs. Hill did not receive the character of Miss Mowcher as a compliment. Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield is a marvelous contribution to those enduring statements that writers from across the ages have made about human nature — expansive, theatrical, flamboyant, larger than life — a literary construct based closely on the novelist's own father. Not so delightful is the character based on the novelist's mother, Mrs. Micawber. Presumably, Lady Belinda Whitrose never recognized that her dress served as the basis for a doll's outfit in a toyshop window, and therefore was neither as chagrined nor as affronted as Leigh Hunt and Jane Seymour Hill.

Dickens's youthful protagonists, on the other hand, are generally derived directly from literary sources such as the novels of Fielding, Smollett, and Sir Walter Scott. Sometimes Dickens even based a character merely on a real- life personage's peculiar name — for example, Dr. Marley, a mere acquaintance in the autumn of 1843, unconsciously loaned his name to Jacob Marley, Scrooge's deceased partner and initial ghostly visitor in A Christmas Carol.

Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: "Now look at 'em. All my work!"

Book 3 Chapter 2

J. Mahoney

1875 Household Edition

Text Illustrated:

Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they traversed the ground that Riah had lately traversed, and new ground likewise; for, when they had recrossed the Thames by way of London Bridge, they struck down by the river and held their still foggier course that way.

But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: "Now look at 'em! All my work!"

This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours of the rainbow, who were dressed for presentation at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going out walking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life."

"Pretty, pretty, pretty!" said the old man with a clap of his hands. "Most elegant taste!"

"Glad you like 'em," returned Miss Wren, loftily. "But the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not bad and my legs queer."

Commentary:

The Harper & Brothers frontispiece refers specifically to the second chapter, "A Respected Friend in a New Aspect," in the third book, "A Long Lane," realizing the scene in which Jenny Wren shows Riah her handiwork in a toyshop window. Whereas the Marcus Stone illustration for this chapter, Trying on for the Doll's Dressmaker, relies for its effectiveness upon the sharp contrast between the observant, "knowing" child (Jenny, center) in the midst of an odd assortment of strangely disfigured people on the pavement (left rear) and the gorgeous dress which dominates the woodcut, contrasting the strangely distorted faces that form the chorus in the background, which, if the gas lamp is any indication, is the London street outside, the Mahoney illustration is not Jenny's recollection, but an illustration of the circumstances of the recollection, of Jenny and Riah in front of the toyshop window, whose dolls prompt Jenny to describe how she models her dolls' clothes from high-society fashions. The image perhaps functions better as a complement to the text than as a frontispiece since it conveys the extent of Jenny's work, and compels the reader to consider the implications of Jenny's being a Cinderella figure, destined to help others on their journeys to the gay events in life but never permitted to make such a journey herself.

Despite the fact that it was his visual antecedent, Mahoney ten years later deviated from the choices for illustration made by Dickens and his original illustrator, Marcus Stone, so that, for the March, 1865 installment, the eleventh monthly part in the British serialization, there is no counterpart to this illustration of Jenny Wren's displaying her talent for Riah. Stone's plate for installment eleven (Book 3, Chapters 1 — 4), Trying on for the Dolls' Dressmaker, the first illustration for the March 1865 monthly part in the British serialization, does concern how Jenny Wren employs London society fashions as the basis for her dolls' dresses. And, although they had access to the Stone series, American illustrators Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867) and Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1866) chose other scenes. Both artists interpreted Jenny and Riah in a similar manner — for example, the patient, slightly curious expression on the old man's face in Eytinge's Fledgeby and Riah and the highly perceptive gaze of the child, old before her time, who guides the senior. Perhaps the cane that he carries (replacing his textual staff) reinforces his role as "godmother" to Jenny's "Cinderella." Replacing the Dickensian tagline "even if my back were not bad and my legs queer" in these illustrations are Jenny's crippled appearance, sharp face, and crutch, details that render her immediately as recognizable as the long-haired Riah in his full-length gabardine (supplemented by a topcoat here), intended to render him "venerable" by implying a connection between him and his forebears, the Old Testament patriarchs.

Whereas the Chapman and Hall volume begins on the Thames with Lizzie Hexam in the frontispiece, Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the causeway that he might see her (a scene which prepares the reader for the main plot, the death of John Harmon and its consequences, as well as for the secondary plot, romantic triangle of Lizzie, Eugene Wrayburn, and Bradley Headstone), the New York Harper & Brothers volume begins instead with this picture of two secondary characters — rank outsiders — in a London street at night. The choice seems decidedly odd since the scene, like the characters in it, is peripheral. However, it certainly must have piqued the interest of American readers as to the nature of the story and the large societal cross-section of characters whom they would encounter within it. Whatever the motivation, the use of this illustration distinguishes the American publication from its British counterpart.

"It's summut run down in the fog."

Book 3 Chapter 2

J. Mahoney

1875 Household Edition

Text Illustrated:

As he stood there, doing his methodical penmanship, his ancient scribelike figure intent upon the work, and the little dolls' dressmaker sitting in her golden bower before the fire, Miss Abbey had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those two rare figures into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wake with a nod next moment and find them gone.

Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes and opening them again, still finding the figures there, when, dreamlike, a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she started up, and they all three looked at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voices and of the stir of feet; then all the windows were heard to be hastily thrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into the house from the river. A moment more, and Bob Gliddery came clattering along the passage, with the noise of all the nails in his boots condensed into every separate nail.

"What is it?" asked Miss Abbey.

"It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am," answered Bob. "There's ever so many people in the river."

"Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!" cried Miss Abbey. "See that the boiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some blankets to the fire. Heat some stone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down stairs, and use 'em."

While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bob — whom she seized by the hair, and whose head she knocked against the wall, as a general injunction to vigilance and presence of mind — and partly hailed the kitchen with them — the company in the public room, jostling one another, rushed out to the causeway, and the outer noise increased.

"Come and look," said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three hurried to the vacated public room, and passed by one of the windows into the wooden verandah overhanging the river.

"Does anybody down there know what has happened?" demanded Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority.

"It's a steamer, Miss Abbey," cried one blurred figure in the fog.

"It always is a steamer, Miss Abbey," cried another.

"Them's her lights, Miss Abbey, wot you see a-blinking yonder," cried another.

"She's a-blowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes the fog and the noise worse, don't you see?" explained another.

Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushing tumultuously to the water's edge.

Commentary:

The Harper & Brothers second woodcut for second chapter, "A Respected Friend in a New Aspect," in the third book, "A Long Lane," realizes the scene in the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, just after Jenny Wren has delivered Lizzie Hexam's evidence against Rogue Riderhood (and exonerating Gaffer Hexam in the murder of John Harmon) to Miss Abbey, the proprietor of the Thames-side bar. Their conversation is interrupted by the news that a steamer has just run down another waterman. The body, more dead than alive that Miss Abbey's customers pull from the river (as seen in the Mahoney illustration), proves to be none other than that of — Rogue Riderhood himself, a revelation that coincides precisely with the end of the chapter: "Why, good God! . . . that's the very man who made the declaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!", the victim's identity suggested by the fur cap drifting in the water, down right, in the Mahoney illustration.

Despite the fact that it was his visual antecedent, Mahoney ten years later deviated from the choices for illustration made by Dickens and his original illustrator, Marcus Stone, so that, for the eleventh installment in the British serialization (March, 1865), there is no exact counterpart to this illustration of the river accident. Stone's second plate for the eleventh monthly number (Book 3, Chapters 1 — 4), Rogue Riderhood's Recovery, unfortunately let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, as it revealed to the serial reader at the very beginning of the installment that Riderhood would, like John Harmon himself, rise again and return to life the same old reprobate, who nevertheless will experience significant changes in his life, as signaled by the loss of his fur hat. As Jane Rabb Cohen suggests,

Dickens was soon prevented by the demands on his time and dwindling energies from continuing to exercise such close supervision [of Stone as he exercised in the execution of the wrapper and the early illustrations]; yet the kind of latitude he allowed Stone in the course of Our Mutual Friend reflects neither negligence nor indifference, but rather understandable trust, partly necessitated by unavoidable absences.

Readers of the Household Edition in 1875 might therefore have enjoyed a moment of suspense denied their serial counterparts in March 1865, although Mahoney's dark plate, like Stone's stage set of Miss Potterson's first-floor bedroom and his focus on the irascible Riderhood and his distressed daughter (center), leaves something to be desired.

Although Percy Muir contends that dark plates, whether on copper, steel, or boxwood, are never wholly successful because they are striving to attain an effect that only a mezzotint can achieve, both Stone and Mahoney? use such an illustration to ?convey a sense of the horrible, near-death experience that Harmon? lives after exiting the Riderhoods' leaving-shop.

A great deal has been made of the so-called dark plates in these books [i. e., Bleak House, Little Dorrit, and A Tale of Two Cities]. The fact is that they were neither entirely new nor entirely successful. What Browne ['Phiz'] tried to do with the dark plates was to produce the effect of mezzo tinting on an etched plate. It is usually a mistake to attempt to imitate one medium in a different technique and this was no exception to the rule. The effect was produced by having a background of fine, closely spaced lines mechanically ruled all over the plates, and then, by elaborate methods of burnishing the high-lights and stopping out the shadows, to increase the contrasts. The result when seen at its best, as in 'On The Dark Road' in Dombey, is not ineffective, but at its worst, as in 'The Mourning' [sic] in Bleak House, is a rather nasty mess.

Mahoney's dark plate of the resurrection of John Harmon, "Yet the cold was merciful, for it was the cold night air and the rain that restored me from a swoon" is more successful that this description of the river accident because it contains more detail and elicits the reader's sympathy for the victim of the conspiracy. Although it certainly generates some suspense as the reader wonders who the victim is and weather he has survived the collision, the bow of the steamer, which dominates the composition, is out of proportion to the drowning man and his boat, severed in two.

Rogue Riderhood's Recovery

Book 3 Chapter 3

Marcus Stone

Commentary:

The setting is Miss Abbey Potterson's riverside public-house, The Six Fellowship Porters, where the apparently lifeless body of the waterman Rogue Riderhood has been taken after a collision between his boat and steamer in the Thames. Having miraculouly been recalled to life, the surly Rogue Riderhood, just finishing dressing, is right; his daughter, Pleasant, is standing centre; and the three figures between her and Miss Potter, standing in the doorway, are Wiiliam Williams, Jonathan, and Bob Glamour. Tom Tootle, in all probability, is the other figure (the aproned waiter) standing in the doorway of the first-floor bedroom. The reader will look in vain for the attending physician, "the gentle Jew and Miss Jenny Wren", to say nothing of Captain Joey. Nevertheless, the passage realized is this:

Mr. Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with his daughter's help) exactly as if he had just had a Fight.

'Warn't it a steamer?' he pauses to ask her.

'Yes, father.'

'I'll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it.'

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to examine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has received in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly gets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his late opponent and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose is bleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and looks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance.

'Where's my fur cap?' he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his clothes on.

Rogue Riderhood, quarrelsome and obstreperous, is back. But, analyzing the illustration as a whole, one is tempted to question both the moment chosen for realization — rather than the highly dramatic passage in which "The low, bad, unimpressible face is coming up from the depths of the river" and the anxious onlookers withdraw in anticipation of Riderhood's resurrection — and the effectiveness of the overall composition, which does not exploit the possibilities for contrast in terms of poses, expressions, and physical types. Surely the focus should be on the hopeful solicitousness of Pleasant and the surliness of her irrepressible parent, but Stone wastes space on describing in the vaguest possible terms Miss Potterson's first-floor bedroom. Accordingly, one is tempted to speculate about the degree of supervision provided by the author and, indeed, whether he was much involved in the process of illustration at this mid-point of composition and publication.

Dickens was soon prevented by the demands on his time and dwindling energies from continuing to exercise such close supervision [of Stone as he exercised in the execution of the wrapper and the early illustrations]; yet the kind of latitude he allowed Stone in the course of Our Mutual Friend reflects neither negligence nor indifference, but rather understandable trust, partly necessitated by unavoidable absences. His young friend was so totally dependent on the author's patronage and so free from the pressures that plagued Seymour, the vanity that tormented Cruikshank, and the competing commissions that sometimes impeded the efforts of Browne and the Christmas book artists, that Dickens must have felt he could give him certain procedural freedoms, knowing they would not be abused. Moreover, this attitude may partly reveal the author's recognition that illustrations were more ornamental than integral to Our Mutual Friend.

"Oh, indeed, Sir! I fancy I can guess whom you think that's like."

Book 3 Chapter 4

J. Mahoney

1875 Household Edition

Text Illustrated:

"Mr. Rokesmith," said she, resignedly, "has been so polite as to place his sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella, be entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordance with your present style of living, that there will be a drawing-room for your reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr. Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account of a particular engagement, he offered the use of his apartment."

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room at Mr. Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. "We should only have put one another out of countenance," she thought, "and we do that quite often enough as it is."

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it with the least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its contents. It was tastefully though economically furnished, and very neatly arranged. There were shelves and stands of books, English, French, and Italian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets upon sheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring to the Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the placard descriptive of the murdered man who had come from afar to be her husband. She shrank from this ghostly surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and tied it up again. Peeping about here and there, she came upon a print, a graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the corner by the easy chair. "Oh, indeed, sir!" said Bella, after stopping to ruminate before it. "Oh, indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess whom you think that's like. But I'll tell you what it's much more like — your impudence!" Having said which she decamped: not solely because she was offended, but because there was nothing else to look at.

"Now, Ma," said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some remains of a blush, "you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for nothing, but I intend to prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook to-day."

Commentary:

The Harper and Brothers' woodcut for the fourth chapter in the third book, "A Long Lane," realizes the scene in John Rokesmith's rented sitting-room in the Wilfer home, when Bella, arriving in the Boffin coach to help her family celebrate her parents' wedding anniversary, inspects the room's contents minutely, and discovers what she interprets as a likeness of herself on the wall. Her assumption is that the Secretary has not renounced his romantic attachment to her, despite his vowing that he would bother her no further after Bella's rejection of his marriage proposal in Book Two, Chapter 13, "A Solo and a Duet." That it is not an actual study of Bella is implied in the text: "a print, a graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the corner by the easy-chair", exactly as Mahoney has situated it in the illustration.

Despite the fact that it was his visual antecedent, Mahoney ten years later deviated from the choices for illustration made by Dickens and his original illustrator, Marcus Stone, so that, for the eleventh installment in the British serialization (March, 1865), there is no exact counterpart to this illustration of Bella's studying the print in John Rokesmith's sitting-room.

Readers of the Household Edition in 1875 might therefore have enjoyed Mahoney's presenting Bella as conflicted, as torn between the love of ease, affluence, and wealth that living with the Boffins has engendered in her and her growing romantic interest in the Boffins' enigmatic Secretary, whose marriage proposal she seems to be re-evaluating in light of the discovery of avarice in herself and the psychological and spiritual damage that such an obsession can do as it is apparently doing in Noddy Boffin. That she rather than the portrait is the real subject of the illustration is rendered obvious by her central position in the composition and the fragmentary nature of the "print" which has become scarcely a sketch. To make her figure larger, Mahoney has interpreted her "ruminating" before the portrait as her studying it from the vantage point of the easy-chair which Dickens mentions.

Kim wrote: "Peter wrote: "Hi Ami

Oops.

Please post here as it seems to be the proper place.

I fumbled around a bit(!) when I was attempting to post the commentary. I imagine somewhere on Goodreads there is ..."

Thanks Kim. I've never met a computer I even remotely understand.

Kim wrote: "Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly-lighted toy-shop window, and said: "Now look at 'em. All my work!"

Book 3 Chapter 2

J. Mahoney

1875 Household Edition

Text Illustrated:..."


Kim. Thank you for the illustrations. I'm getting used to not finding a Browne, but I do miss him.

Each week I look at the various illustrations Kim posts and decide which one I like best. This week I was drawn to the Mahoney for Book 3 Chapter 2.

Riah and Jenny are both outsiders of some kind in OMF. Riah is the money lending Jew, but unlike the stereotypical Fagin, Riah is kind, gentle and thoughtful. Jenny is portrayed as both dwarfish and crippled. Both of these characters represent people who would be found on the outside fringes of Victorian acceptance and understanding. When Dickens portrays them together, he gives Riah and Jenny an aura of an other-worldly, fairy tale existence. Consider their language in this chapter as a guide and reference point.

What I find so evocative in this illustration is how they are portrayed as being mutually supportive. They need to rely on both their canes and each other to walk through the streets. Mahoney places only one other person in this illustration. This person is walking purposely away from them and disappearing into the night.

Jenny and Riah are passing a window through which we can see the dolls that Jenny has created. The contrast in the clothes on the dolls and the apparent comfort in which they recline is starkly different from the heavily and poorly dressed Riah and Jenny who walk outside.

Is it me or does the doll that is left-middle of the right window panel look like Queen Victoria? To me the window is a central emblem in this picture, just as keys seem to be in the novel. Keys let us in and out of places. Keys secure our belongings and our own safety. Here, the window clearly separates the world of cold and discomfort that Jenny and Riah must endure from the bright, comfortable world that exists beyond and separate from them through a window. The irony is that Jenny has created the dolls in the diorama for others, but neither she or Riah will be able to enter into that world themselves. They will always be outsiders. They will always be part of a transient world that will be able to only look into a world that must seem like a fairy tale to them. And there, I believe, is the essence to the illustration.

I'm just getting to Book 3.

I am still finding too many characters to keep track of and am having trouble focusing on what I should be focusing on or who.

I think I was actually hoping not to have any more new characters near the middle to end of Book 2, but Dickens denied my hope.

Slogging on.

John wrote: "I'm just getting to Book 3.

I am still finding too many characters to keep track of and am having trouble focusing on what I should be focusing on or who.

I think I was actually hoping not to hav..."

John

There is certainly much going on, new characters popping up and even, it seems at times, an endless procession of unrelated events. I'm confused at times as well.

Keep slogging. We will get to the end, look back with a sigh, and realize it's done! For many of us on this journey of reading Dickens I suspect OMF will not be our favourite - or anywhere near the top of the list.

Then it will be on to Drood which is short, but perhaps also frustrating because it is unfinished, but still, I think an excellent adventure. When we press the reset button to begin our reading again it will be "the best of times" since we can revisit old friends in the Dickens canon.

As you will have picked up by reading these posts there will lively debate on both the novels and characters. Even now I'm preparing a spirited defence of Little Nell from OCS.

Perhaps rather than trying to take in OMF in its entirety you select a couple of characters you enjoy or detest, find a couple of symbols that Dickens is using that you would like to follow, or focus on some of his writing style without needing or even trying to make it all fit and make sense. For me, I'm discovering how often Dickens mentions a person's hair and so I try to fit it into the context of the character. As you will note from my introductory comments above I'm now on the hunt for references to or suggestions about fairy tales.

Much like a fisherman who just catches and releases, I don't want to mount the trophy fish of OMF on a wall (no doubt to have it worked on by Mr Venus) or even cook it for dinner. I'm fishing just to enjoy the day. Perhaps a good day fishing through the bits and bobs of OMF will be satisfying. Keep posting your thoughts and insights on the book.

Your promise to defend Little Nell almost makes me look forward to reading OCS, Peter. Almost ;-) The last time the old group read it, I skipped the experience since it was not long ago that I revisited that novel, but this time, I am surely going to enjoy you and Kim trying to defend the accused protagonist from a charge of boredom - and to enjoy Everyman's crusty remarks about Little Nell, too.

I am actually enjoying the rambling character of OMF, its seeming lack of coherence and structure because it's like a microcosm to me. This novel also reminds me of Dostoyevsky, whose novels also present you with a bunch of characters that talk about things you at first don't really understand, whereas by and by, the connections become clear to you so that it would be best to immediately reread the novel in order to get its full effect. This feeling of enlightenment you get at the end is worth all the patience you have to invest in this kind of novel, I'd say.

Tristram wrote: "Your promise to defend Little Nell almost makes me look forward to reading OCS, Peter. Almost ;-) The last time the old group read it, I skipped the experience since it was not long ago that I revi..."

Yes indeed. I've read ahead in OMF and the "ah" moments are increasing. I am enjoying OMF much more than MC which is my least favourite Dickens. We all must have our least favourite in order to have a favourite.

Little Nell. Yes. It will be fun and exciting. :-))

Tristram, you and Everyman may as well admit defeat right now in your not so nice feelings about poor Little Nell, because with me and Peter on her side you haven't got a chance of winning the battle. (Peter, the only reason I like her so much is to bug those two, but don't tell them). Poor, poor Little Nell.

Kim wrote: "Tristram, you and Everyman may as well admit defeat right now in your not so nice feelings about poor Little Nell, because with me and Peter on her side you haven't got a chance of winning the batt..."

Having never read OCS, I can't wait! I know readers at the time were very engrossed in the story, and very attached to Nell, so I've always wanted to read it. Now, of course, I have voices whispering the opposite viewpoint in my ear. Well... more like shouting, or at least grumbling! I hope those with strong opinions (on both sides) won't sit out - that would take so much of the fun out of it that I've been looking forward to for so long!

Peter wrote: "John wrote: "I'm just getting to Book 3.

I am still finding too many characters to keep track of and am having trouble focusing on what I should be focusing on or who.

I think I was actually hopi..."

Peter, I like your approach. The first time I read OMF, I was drawn towards the Boffins and those in their orbit. I admit, I plodded through the chapters that spent more time on Podsnap, Twemlow, etc. with only half a brain. But this time around, being familiar with the characters and the story, I'm enjoying those characters much more, and picking up on lots of things (thanks, in part, to the group, as well) that I missed the last time around.

Oh, they can never bring themselves to actually like the person we are obviously supposed to like. They go for the grumps.

Mary Lou wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram, you and Everyman may as well admit defeat right now in your not so nice feelings about poor Little Nell, because with me and Peter on her side you haven't got a chance of winn..."

Fear not, Mary Lou. I will be in the front line of support for poor Nell. ;-))

Thanks to all, especially Peter for those remarkable insights as ever, and Kim for researching the great illustrations :)

Fledgeby in this first chapter reminded me of Christopher Casby in Little Dorrit, and his insistence that Pancks "squeeze" his tenants for yet more and more rent. Riah's relationship with Fledgeby seemed to echo the good-hearted Pancks's. There's an extra dimension to this, of course with Riah being Jewish as Tristram pointed out. It makes it even more unsavoury that Fledgeby took advantage. In this chapter we see a side of Fledgeby which has only been hinted at before. What a piece of work he is!

The conversation between Fledgeby and Lammle was interesting. I must confess that I'd forgotten these two were linked! There are far more plot threads as others have said, but I'm finding that Dickens reminds me of them by switching about so much. These first four chapters are all concerned with different characters.

I do like your suggestion, Peter, of concentrating on one aspect if we start to feel we are floundering. I often think this is how people read classics fast. eg Which story Is the main story in Bleak House? Sometimes people assume it's Esther's story, but there are so many! Yet it would be perfectly possible to read it concentrating on that one alone. Then the next time one could concentrate on another :)

Kim wrote: ""It's summut run down in the fog."

Book 3 Chapter 2

J. Mahoney

1875 Household Edition

Text Illustrated:

As he stood there, doing his methodical penmanship, his ancient scribelike figure inten..."

This illustration by Mahoney is an example of a thread one could follow as we read through the book. To make a bad pun, perhaps if some of us feel we are drowning with too much material that is seemingly disjointed, if not totally unconnected, we might turn to the Thames for some continuity and substance.

OMF's frontespiece establishes that the novel will have a connection to the Thames as Lizzie and her father fish out a body. As we have read the book the Thames continues to make appearances. It was the place where Harmon supposedly died, the place where the real Harmon emerges from half-dead, the place that borders the Fellowship-Porters and so on. In the first 4 chapters of Book 3 the Thames is, once again, a central focus.

I don't think it a spoiler to say that we are not done with the Thames, nor is the Thames done with the readers. To follow the Thames and its interconnections with both the characters and the plot will, I believe, yield much to enjoy and discuss. Within this context, the entire novel will have a central thread around which a reader can join much of the seemingly unconnected bits of the novel.

Peter wrote: "John wrote: "I'm just getting to Book 3.

I am still finding too many characters to keep track of and am having trouble focusing on what I should be focusing on or who.

I think I was actually hopi..."

Thanks Peter.

I am generally enjoying my return to Dickens. I think it is a matter of getting used to him again after not reading any of his fiction to completion for 30 years (save for a brief wade into Pickwick). I've found OMF to be as complex as any fiction I have ever read, so wading back in has been more of a challenge from that standpoint. For me, it's one chapter at a time, then with some reflection and some other reading to clear the mind -- and then the next chapter. Perhaps a help is that I am reading Jane Smiley's biography of him side by side with my reading, and thus I find that helpful in addition to the guidance here.

I was quite taken aback by Mahoney's illustration for Fledgeby. I had forgotten for the moment Dickens's description of his eccentric attire! That hat ... and those shoes ... actually they put the Dickens flip-flops to shame, and look like some sort of strange trainers!

Levity aside, I'm liking Mahoney's illustrations more and more, and think him a worthy successor to "Phiz" in these later, darker novels. Some of the others like Marcus Stone tried to emulate more of the caricature style, and I think it only works sometimes.

So the Thames has claimed another victim ... or rather has not quite claimed him although I'm sure most of us would have liked it to! What an unpleasant piece of work Rogue Riderhood is to be sure. (Pun is intended there, as his daughter has a very hard time of it indeed.) I do feel that Pleasant's attempt to get close to her father, at perhaps the only point in his life when he would ever have let her - or rather, not been able to prevent her - is very poignant. Probably he only other time she experiences this sort of intimacy would be when he wallops her.

I actually found Dickens's observation of human nature in this chapter very keen. When it seems a heroic thing to do, to almost bring a person back from the dead and save their life, everyone pulled together and did their utmost. But when it looked as though they would succeed, and he would indeed cheat death, their enthusiasm waned, and they reverted to the dislike they all had in common.

I'm not sure either why this character has another shot at life, as I would have thought he'd served his purpose in terms of the plot ... but perhaps Dickens has something else cooking for him. He is turning into quite a good villain.

Then the installment ends with another sardonically humorous chapter, about the Wilfers' wedding anniversary dinner.

The chapter is very entertaining, re-introducing the old beau George Sampson, who can apparently be switched around as necessary. It also serves a useful device in moving the plot along, affording Bella the chance to snoop around John Rokesmith's room and discover a couple of things. Of course, we are more in the know than she is, but it also consolidates what we suspect she feels about John Rokesmith, despite her protestations.

The fourth secret she tells her father comes out of the blue, and seems hard to believe. Is Bella to be trusted in this? She is very arch with young men, but has not told an untruth to her father before, so perhaps we should take this as foreshadowing.

If the idea of Noddy Boffin going bad isn't a cliffhanger, I don't know what would be!

This latest installment 11, or the first venture down the "Long Road" of Book 3, has been quite a whirlwind of "catching up" with various of his plot strands. I think there are more of them in Our Mutual Friend than even in Bleak House, and I didn't know how he kept all the balls in the air for that one either. Somehow I suspect that when I finish reading this one, I might want to go back to the beginning and start it all over again!

Jean wrote: "Then the installment ends with another sardonically humorous chapter, about the Wilfers' wedding anniversary dinner.

The chapter is very entertaining, re-introducing the old beau George Sampson, ..."

Hi Jean

I had the same thought as you. A second read soon after we have finished OMF would help consolidate the novel in my head.

Mary Lou wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram, you and Everyman may as well admit defeat right now in your not so nice feelings about poor Little Nell, because with me and Peter on her side you haven't got a chance of winn..."

But remember: The discussion will have to be led in a purely Pickwickian sense! ;-)

Mary Lou wrote: "Peter wrote: "John wrote: "I'm just getting to Book 3.

I am still finding too many characters to keep track of and am having trouble focusing on what I should be focusing on or who.

I think I was..."

Different folks, different strokes: I always enjoy the Wegg-Venus sections most but also the society chapters, and, of course, the dramatic love triangle. What I find very hard and boring, though, is going through the Betty Higden story, and I cannot say that I like the Jenny Wren stuff too much.

Peter wrote: "Mary Lou wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram, you and Everyman may as well admit defeat right now in your not so nice feelings about poor Little Nell, because with me and Peter on her side you haven't got..."

And she'll need all the support she can get: As a very flat character, she is likely to be blown away by the first gust of common sense a critical reader might direct at her ;-)

Tristram - Your comment about us all liking different parts, makes me realise anew, how skilled Dickens was to write a novel which appeals to all tastes, and keep the various threads going each month (or week) so that his readers would "coast" through the areas which interested them less, so that they could get to what they considered the really good bits.

Jean wrote: "Tristram - Your comment about us all liking different parts, makes me realise anew, how skilled Dickens was to write a novel which appeals to all tastes, and keep the various threads going each mon..."

That is exactly why I think of Dickens as the Shakespeare of the Victorian age, because just like Shakespeare, whose plays contained love, crime, private turmoil, political intrigue, the war of the sexes, high thoughts and ribald banter because Elizabethan audiences comprised people from all walks of life and social strata, Dickens was a man of many voices, topics and styles.

Yes! And it continues to this day, as we clearly all prefer different parts. I am very bored by the love triangle, and wish they'd be done with it and set up as a menage à trois, but sit up when one of the more amusing parts starts up - either grotesquely, or one of the ridiculous families/society parts. And the mysteries!

Then you should be very pleased right now, Jean, because this week's reading is clearly comic. I thoroughly enjoyed last night's reading about the friendly movers.

I'm really looking forward to it! Now I feel a bit more acquainted with all the characters I am enjoying this one hugely :) Thanks Tristram.

I have Michael Schmidt's The Novel, which is a history of the novel and is excellent.

I decided to reread the Chapter last night devoted to Dickens. I did not finish the chapter, but what I found interesting was, given it was a "long look" at the entire career of Dickens, within the first five or six pages, there were three references to OMF. Mainly in regard to characterization, sometimes good, sometimes uneven.

The three characters getting the "prize:" Betty Higden, Jenny Wren, and Podsnap.

I'm curious if anyone has any comments regarding the "Book" set up. in OMF.

Was it done for thematic reasons/separations? Can an argument be made that it was done for other reasons -- perhaps the format on how the book was released to the public at the time?

I'm curious because I don't recall the book format in GE, the last one I read by him, which was a long time ago.

We're starting our third "Book" and I am hopeful of ascertaining how the Book format is meant to work thematically.