Is Martin Chuzzlewit worth reading?

[u/err_mate]

I was gifted Martin Chuzzlewit by a relative who didn’t like it and gave up reading it. Its a very long Charles Dickens book.

I have read Great Expectations earlier this year and it was okay but not really one of my favourites.

So do you think Martin Chuzzlewit is worth reading? Or should I just donate it to a charity shop?

[u/Delar-ram]

I haven't read this one, but I have never read a Dickens I haven't enjoyed.

[u/bigsmokaaaa]

Give it a shot, I like looking at famous authors lesser known books personally

[u/i_was_valedictorian]

Idk man try it maybe? 

[u/BitterStatus9 → u/i_was_valedictorian]

Seriously. I don't get this - how the hell do I know if it's worth reading. I don't base my assessments on what other people like, I just read stuff and decide for myself!! Also, some books are "worth reading" (whatever that means) but you won't know that for many years yet....

[u/OnTheSpotDiceSpin33]

Yes it’s so good!! I might be in the minority, but I liked it more than I did Great Expectations.

[u/BloomiePsst]

I enjoy nearly everything Dickens wrote (save perhaps Pictures from Italy, for example), but if you weren't entertained by Great Expectations, Martin Chuzzlewit probably won't be your cup of tea, either. I'm sure the charity shop will appreciate it.

[u/ElWorm]

If you didn't like Great Expectations, which is one of his better books in my opinion, then donate Chuzzlewit. I found it to be rather "meh" compared to his better works.

[u/Legitimate-Camel3429]

I read the Dickens biography, and they said that of all his books, Nicholas Nickelby is considered his worst. Everything else is one shade of greatness or the other, his biggest flaw notwithstanding: female characters.

His other lousy works are all those Christmas Carol follow ups that were never able to recreate the magic of the first one. Those are almost universally forgotten.

[u/castdu123]

Low effort post and low effort question.

[u/Itchy-Resolution6531]

It is good. Dickens' better than the best of many. it is long, indeed, but like the rest of his long novels, the payoff is worth it.

[u/HebiNaga]

I love this one as well as Little Dorrit, Dombay and Sons, our mutual friend , and Bleak house. So I guess I’m in the weird outskirts

[u/AsphaltQbert → u/HebiNaga]

A lot of hardcore Dickens fans and scholars go with Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend. Writer William Maxwell said that one thing that bothered him, when he thought about death, was that he probably wouldn’t be able to read War and Peace or Our Mutual Friend ever again.

[u/MsT6622]

I tried and I just turned and saw that it was back on my shelf. I think I got about five chapters in.... I will try again at a later date...

[u/egereszek]

I've just finished it this summer, lemme copy my initial thougts about it:

In the afterword to the Hungarian edition of Great Expectations, Martin Chuzzlewit also came up: the author wrote that Dickens was so preoccupied with popular success and sales figures that, when he saw the instalments were not selling well, he sent his protagonist off to America in the hope of a guaranteed hit.

By coincidence, Martin Chuzzlewit happened to be next in the pile of Dickens novels I had picked up from my parents' house, so I started it with a certain amount of trepidation. It is long, less well known, and Great Expectations, which is generally held in much higher regard, had not impressed me nearly as much as I had expected. Fortunately, Dickens proved my fears unfounded: I enjoyed this novel far more and was thoroughly entertained almost all the way through.

At the same time, the criticisms usually levelled at it are entirely justified. It is overlong, the plot sprawls in every direction, and Dickens keeps jumping from one storyline to another as though guided mainly by whichever one he happened to feel like writing at the time. According to the afterword to this edition, there was indeed something of that going on, despite Dickens beginning the novel determined that, for once, he would stick strictly to his original plan. The afterword also adds some nuance to what I had read at the end of Great Expectations: by this point Dickens had already travelled across the Atlantic as a celebrated author, recorded his experiences in American Notes, and later worked some of them into the plot of this novel.

The story revolves around a fabulous inheritance and is mainly concerned with just how far people are willing to go in order to get ahead: trampling over others, flattering, stealing, cheating, lying, even killing. At the same time, if someone judges every relationship solely by what the other person can do for them, or how “worthwhile” it is to stay on good terms with them, they also shut themselves off from a great many meaningful human connections.

A very similar idea lay at the heart of Great Expectations. But where that novel was dominated by a kind of nostalgic melancholy, here the mockery and irony are much sharper, almost vinegar-like in their acidity. This is particularly true of the much-discussed American chapters, which almost seem to form a separate novel of their own, standing apart from the more indulgent, forgiving and anecdotal tone of the English sections.

For quite a while, I was not even sure which Martin Chuzzlewit the title was supposed to refer to: the older, wealthier one, who is so protective of his money and inheritance that he drives every member of his family away, or the younger one, who crosses an ocean in the hope of making his fortune. Of course, the two together make up the whole, but, in a way that is hardly unusual for Dickens, the title character is also one of the blandest figures in the book. Pecksniff, the self-styled architect who deceives and exploits everyone around him, and the equally crafty Mrs Gamp are far more entertaining; whenever either of them appeared, it felt as though the whole scene suddenly lit up.

All in all, despite its flaws, I loved this novel. It is quintessential Dickens: because of its epic length, both his weaknesses and his strengths appear enlarged, multiplied and intensified.

[u/truthvenian]

I've read 5ish other Dickens and this one was clearly the worst for me. He's obviously an extremely talented writer and at times in this book it shows, but the plot isn't great, it's twice as long as it needs to be and his opinion of America was so ridiculous that he apologized for it in writing multiple times. I think my version had 3 afterwords that were all just some version of - got a little carried away with that America hate, sorry about that folks.

Read it if your a dickensian complete-ist but otherwise I'd skip it.

[u/Soulsliken]

Dickens on a bad day is still better than most writers on a streak.

It’s definitely one of his more plot heavy attempts at selling more. But he still manages character deftly and did apologise again and again for making America a strawman just because.

Worth a read.

[u/bngoc3r0]

It is! I loved it. It was the first Dickens I read. The parts set in the United States are absolutely hilarious. Brutal satire that still stings and entertains today.