“The pony made a moment's pause; but as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street-corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own accord.”
😂😂 Over the course of this book, Whisker the pony has become one of my favorite characters. #WhattheDickens
pickThis one falls somewhere in the middle of the Dickens books I‘ve read. I didn‘t love it, but I found plenty to enjoy as I listened. Most of the main characters are very much good or evil, but throughout the book there are many interesting characters.
#WhatTheDickens #audiobook
pickThis is a difficult book to love, but I do. Quilp is among the very worst of villains in Dickens‘ novels, which says a lot because there are so many wicked people in his novels. One of the main characters, Little Nell, almost 14, must lead her grandfather with dementia out of London and into the wide world. She learns in the harshest of ways his horrible dark secret, which persists along with his dementia. The most heartbreaking scene I‘ve read ⬇️
“…the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies.”
😂
#WhattheDickens
pick(1862) It's a Victorian sensation novel about a young gentleman who returns from the Australian gold fields having struck it rich, only to find on his return that his wife has died. Except the stories about her death don't add up, and there's something suspicious about his friend's new stepmother... There are several interesting things going on here but its heart is a sensation novel, and as such it delivers.
#wordoftheday #whattheDickens @Cuilin
The definition sort of begs the question doesn‘t it?
“Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.”
Speaking on behalf of lawyers, to some extent this is true!
#whattheDickens @Cuilin
pickThis last finished novel of Dickens has the playfulness of (and hints at breaking the 4th wall like) Pickwick, but shows a maturity of purpose in exposing wrongs and a changed (for the better) view of Jewish people since Oliver Twist. I think it deserves to be better loved and more often read than it is and can only suppose it is its length that keeps it from being so. Myself, I thoroughly enjoyed it. #readyourkobo @CBee
Book coincidences are crazy! I read this word for the first time this week in Joan Didion‘s Democracy (above). Now, it‘s in Dickens!! What the heck!
“Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a phantasmagoria.”
