Kay's Bookshelf

This is a book filled with very well shaped characters, each with their qualities and flaws and actions and reasons – rather natural in such a big book, I know, but quite enjoyable nevertheless. I loved the way the author didn’t overly-describe the character’s internal thought processes (he did but only when there was something important to tell), letting the reader wonder (and discover by himself) what were the reasons behind people’s declarations and actions (to take but an example I have often wonder about Mr. Carker’s exaggerated (fake) solicitude towards one or the other – be it Captain Cuttle or the second Mrs. Dombey (it was totally obvious he was after something but the purpose was rather mysterious = food for thought :P).

I think Mr. Dombey was a rather interesting person – the more we know him, the more certain we become that he didn’t love nor know both his two children. What he had a deep affection for though was the hope for his firm, the hope he saw growing every time he looked at little Paul’s face. He acts like a great love is involved between he and his son Paul – only it isn’t love for the poor little guy, but for his own hopes and dreams. We’ve been told Mr. Dombey is a very proud man – so much so that he cannot think about anything other than related to his own persona. When he marries, he chooses a woman to look good beside him and obey him, thus increasing his own greatness. When his wife shows her love for Florence (or when little Paul shows his), all Mr. Dombey sees are slights to his own… property (because that love should have been his! His wife must show devotion to him only, his son must love him only and so on.

And Florence… poor Florence, with a heart overflowing with love and having no one to share it with. It’s heart wrenching to see her childhood, spent watching other kids, the kids loved by their parents, in order to try and find out what do the know that she doesn’t and how do they manage to behave in such a way that their parents love them so.

I had some fun following the characters various quirks and peculiarities. For example Mr. Carker kept showing his teeth (in what almost everyone else took as an amiable smile), Mr. Toots kept saying “it’s of no consequence” and referring “the silent tomb”, Susan Nipper had her very own manner of speaking, sort of disjointed and running from one thing to another, Captain Cuttle kissed his hook every now and then and he talked in peculiar expressions too, and so on. :)

The book was partly predictable, being written in a time of morals I was very certain that in the end all the good characters will end up happily ever after while the bad ones will be punished in one way or another. Nevertheless I have to say I didn’t expect this exact ending and it was all the more enjoyable for me because of that :)

I think the book is named like this because of the high meaning the firm Dombey and Son has in Mr. Dombey’s mind. The firm in itself is only rarely mentioned, but it is the source of Mr. Dombey’s fortune and indirectly the source of his overpowering pride.

What I liked most: The vibe that I got at times, that Dickens was really enjoying himself while writing this, was simply delicious (though I don’t actually know what makes me say that – certain turns of phrase, certain little jokes – but I really enjoyed it nevertheless.

What I liked least:
**************SPOILER****************
Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence to have Walter come home in the very same day Florence moved in? Not to mention his coming home out of the blue after 5 years or so also left me a bit of a bitter taste – but perhaps this is because of me being used to the current speed of traveling/writing/communicating. I keep thinking about how sea travel in those days took months and about how the poor guy spent some time on a (deserted)? island but in my mind this just doesn’t add up to about five years :) (which is definitely my mind’s fault not Dickens’)
************END SPOILER**************

Recommend it? Yes – I really liked it myself. Be warned that it’s a huge book though :)

Some quotes:
I really like the way Dickens describes places – example:

The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking freshness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere silently manifest about it. Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, lost their old folds and shapes, and hung like cumbrous palls. Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up, shrunk like imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became perplexed and faint, like the memory of those years’ trifling incidents. Boards, starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and as the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete themselves.

And the quote about Florence that made my heart melt:

There were daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest at night, possessed of fathers’ hearts already. They had no repulse toovercome, no coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the morning advanced, and the windows opened one by one, and the dew began to dry upon the flowers and and youthful feet began to move upon the lawn, Florence, glancing round at the bright faces, thought what was there she could learn from these children? It was too late to learn from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put up her lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold.

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