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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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This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Dr John Bowen, Department of English, University of Keele.
Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).
Martin Chuzzlewit is Charles Dickens' comic masterpiece about which his biographer, Forster, noted that it marked a crucial phase in the author's development as he began to delve deeper into the 'springs of character'.
Old Martin Chuzzlewit, tormented by the greed and selfishness of his family, effectively drives his grandson, young Martin, to undertake a voyage to America. It is a voyage which will have crucial consequences not only for young Martin, but also for his grandfather and his grandfather's servant, Mary Graham with whom young Martin is in love.
The commercial swindle of the Anglo-Bengalee company and the fraudulent Eden Land Corporation have a topicality in our own time. This strong sub-plot shows evidence of Dickens' mastery of crime where characters such as the criminal Jonas Chuzzlewit, the old nurse Mrs Gamp, and the arch-hypocrite Seth Pecksniff are the equal to any in his other great novels. Generations of readers have also delighted in Dickens' wonderful description of the London boarding-house - 'Todgers'.
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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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