Barnaby Rudge | 
The Dickens title was a gift but the Martin Amis and Robin Hobb books are the result of a Goodwill donation I made today...I decided to take a quick look around before I left and bought them. Luckily I only had $5 in me or the “damage “ might‘ve been worse 😬
pickSet against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, this is Dickens's first historical novel and one of his lesser known. I can't understand why though after reading it bc it was an excellent book. As always, Dickens puts forth a cast of characters that the reader follows throughout the story loving some and hating others. Public violence, gothic leanings and family secrets make this a most excellent read. #litsyclassics #Dickens
so-soGlad I read this but it wasn't my favourite Dickens, so far that has to be Nicholas Nickleby. I think Dickens was still experimenting with genres at this point, and the story lacks some of the vivid characters he was so famous for. Nevertheless, an interesting dip into the waters of a historic event I don't know all that much about.
#DickensianDecember I had to look this one up. #LordGeorgeGordon gave his name to the Gordon Riots of 1780 featured in Barnaby Rudge. I haven‘t read this one yet. @jenniferw88
pickHistorical fiction mixed with gothic melodrama.
The first half of the book needed a brutal trim of about 200 pages. Once the story hit the Gordon Riots of London in 1780 it was fascinating.
Barnaby Rudge is a difficult book to assess, just like its eponymous character. Barnaby is a young adult with intellectual disabilities, yet he is complex. The Gordon Riots were against Catholics, and were horrifying and absurd.
An odd, troubling book.
From the Introduction:
“All writing has a ghostly quality, conjuring up the presence of of things when there is nothing there, but historical novels, particularly one as haunted as Barnaby Rudge, provide a peculiarly intense version of this experience, a story of ghosts of ghosts of ghosts.”
👻👻👻
“Having made this communication, and furthermore thanked Heaven with great fervour and heartiness, the good lady, according to the custom of matrons on all occasions of excitement, fainted away directly.”
Sigh.
#MisogynyMinute
“I have had my share of sorrows - more than the common lot, perhaps - but I have borne them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God‘s great creation. The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. I have turned from the world, and I pay the penalty.”
This is challenging.
This article on the BBC website tells the story of how CD‘s pet raven, Grip, may have inspired other works of art, including Pope‘s The Raven.
Grip also appears as a character in Barnaby Rudge.
Thanks for bringing this story to my attention, @TobeyTheScavengerMonk and @rohit-sawant .
IT GOT WORSE.
“Do what she would, she only looked better for it and tempted them the more. When her eyes flashed angrily, and her ripe lips slightly parted, to give her rapid breathing vent, who could resist it?”
It goes downhill from there.
I have never liked Dickens‘s depiction of women but this is the worst by far.
It‘s not #MisogynyMinute it‘s more like #MisogynyHour .
“Beautiful, bewitching, captivating little (female character) - her hair disheveled, her dress torn, her dark eyelashes wet with tears, her bosom heaving - her face, now pale with fear, now crimsoned with indignation - her whole self a hundred times more beautiful in this heightened aspect than she had ever been before...”
Seriously, Dickens? The woman is in fear for her life and you focus on her heaving bosom?
FAIL.
#MisogynyMinute
This is a prison scene in Barnaby Rudge.
It‘s so much worse when animals are sad, isn‘t it?
Trying to read Barnaby Rudge in a noisy Belfast burrito bar.
Olé!
Really, Charles Dickens?
"That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men [and women] who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate, and unmerciful; all History teaches us."
About to start this big beast before picking up the child from school in an hour.
I'm twitchy and indecisive and sad today and was beating myself up about this a bit. Then I remembered the cat just died a couple of days ago. We need to be kind to ourselves, don't we?
I want these book cases. And the wallpaper. 🤤
The tagged book has nothing to do with beautiful wall displays. I will be starting it today so it will be my #CurrentRead .
My Dickens Read 2017 has been selected!
Each year for the last number of years I've chosen a Dickens novel to read every September. I may not finish it this month but I will try.
Do you have any bookish routines or traditions?
I was sold on this one by the blurb on the back cover that calls it "a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama".
Bring it ON!
#ReadingTheClassics
#DickensInSeptember
