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Charles Dickens is not known for subtlety, and Martin Chuzzlewit is typically unsubtle, satirical, often quite funny, and, in this case, vastly improved by the expertise of Sean Barrett. There are so many distinct and consistent characters here, and Barrett nails them all, especially the two Martin Chuzzlewits, the gruff grandfather and the feckless grandson. The younger Martin goes to America with the most optimistic man in the world, Mark Tapley, who has a slightly Cockney accent and a 'never-give-up' tone. There they find racism, a land scam, and a fever that almost kills them. Barrett's gushing and wheedling portrayal of Seth Pecksniff vividly renders this hypocritical character whose fall brings about everyone's happiness in truly Dickensian fashion. Also noteworthy is Barrett's portrait of the deluded and drunken Sairy Gamp, a nurse you would not want in your hour of need. --AudioFile --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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Penguin Classics give you the best possible editions of Charles Dickens's novels, including all the original illustrations, useful and informative introductions, the definitive, accurate text as it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life and notes that fill in the background to the book. This Penguin Classics edition of Martin Chuzzlewit also includes an appendix on the infamous Mrs Gamp.
The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect Pecksniff, to seek his fortune in America. In depicting Martin's journey - an experience that teaches him to question his inherited self-interest and egotism - Dickens created many vividly realized figures: the brutish lout Jonas Chuzzlewit, plotting to gain the family fortune; Martin's optimistic manservant, Mark Tapley; gentle Tom Pinch; and the drunken and corrupt private nurse, Mrs Gamp. With its portrayal of greed, blackmail and murder, and its searing satire on America Dickens's novel is a powerful and blackly comic story of hypocrisy and redemption.
As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can possibly sympathise with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely connected with the agricultural interest. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Although the plot does tend to ramble at times, in the last quarter of the novel where the focus switches to the actions of Jonas Chuzzlewit, it moves along at a fair old clip.
This might not be Dickens' greatest novel (I would place at least four or five of the others before it) but it is, nonetheless, a minor comic masterpiece that has a great deal of wisdom and sheer pleasure to offer any reader. And oh! what characters you're guaranteed to meet on the way!
It's already been said how rambling this novel can be, but in many ways Dickens wrote it as ideas came into his head with only a mild inkling as to how it would all end. And although his characters tend to be wholly righteous or wholly evil, this does at least allow for excellent comedy, for it is by emphasising the extreme aspects of character at the expense of a more well-rounded disposition that we can laugh at some aspects of ourselves.
A good read.
Yet it has much to commend it: great characters (particularly the villains/ne'erdowells... Read more
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