Tearjerky

I finished Little Dorrit. It took me over a month, but it is long, and I had a couple projects going. It never struck me as one of Dickens’ most famous, and I was thinking it might be so-so, but it was wonderful. Everything you want from Dickens - humor, well-drawn settings, colorful characters, orphans, villians, penalties to the bad and rewards to the deserving. And, man, there is a lot of deserving going on. I cried all over it.

To my surprise, Time Magazine rated Little Dorrit as Dickens’ 3rd best book. I don’t know the judge’s credentials, but I am glad to see there are some on the list I’ve yet to read. Before I’d ever read Dickens my favorite was Oliver Twist because of the 1968 movie, which I saw as a small child and adored. It surprised me that the book is only #10. Bleak House, #1, made me roll my eyes occasionally, but I read it in 2000, a year I spent in a very bad mood. Great Expectations, #2, was the first Dickens I ever read (9th grade), and I re-read it some years ago and do think it’s marvelous. I love that Dickens always has some mysterious secret going. Little Dorrit was not an exception.

Here’s the list, and the order. 1) Bleak House 2) Great Expectations 3) Little Dorrit 4) David Copperfield 5) Our Mutual Friend 6) A Tale of Two Cities 7) The Pickwick Papers 8) Hard Times 9) Dombey and Son 10) Oliver Twist.