Is there any real reason to read Charles Dickens? It seems to me like he wrote books because he was getting paid to write them, and not because he wanted to create art.
If you like Dickens, what are your favorite books by him? If you had to recommend one book to someone who wanted to “get” Charles Dickens, what would it be?
Is there any real reason to read Charles Dickens...
Samuel Cruz
Asher Howard
>It seems to me like he wrote books because he was getting paid to write them, and not because he wanted to create art.
This is literally all writers in the western canon.
Sebastian Wilson
Dostoevsky?
Joyce?
are there any you consider to be sincere?
Joshua Lopez
It seems like his most famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is the least Dickens-like of all his works. I would recommend Great Expectations and David Copperfield
Gavin Rivera
There is good reason to believe that Dickens was trying to create art. He was enormously influenced by Shakespeare and tried to give his characters similar liveliness. While perhaps more political than artistic, he also endeavored to create pathos for the lower classes in almost all of his works.
I feel like GE is surpassing Two Cities now. More kids are assigned it in school and most folks don't know much about Two Cities besides "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...". These are good recs though. Two Cities is my favorite, but mostly because it has qualities that Dickens usually avoids.
Evan Nguyen
Getting paid and making good art are not mutually exclusive
Aaron Martin
Haven't read Tale, but I read some of GE and became bored of it (the writing was fantastic but it dragged out on pointless descriptions). My brother, who isn't much of a reader, read Tale in high school and loved it.
Ryan Moore
the descriptions are probably my favourite part of the book. he's constantly building this certain atmosphere. his description of miss Havisham and her house is truly haunting imo
Ryan Wilson
>seems to me like he wrote books because he was getting paid to write them
is this why every 1800s book is always a tomb, being published in series?
Grayson Barnes
Dickens was nothing BUT an artist. All his gifts were artistic. He was not a deep thinker. He wasn't a philosopher or a psychologist or a theologian. He was a writer, and as that he had more raw talent than anybody. He burst onto the scene at twenty-four with The Pickwick Papers and topped himself over and over until he died after finishing what might be his masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend. Like Shakespeare his career contains so many masterpieces that nobody can agree on which book is his best. Also like Shakespeare many of his characters have entered the popular imagination as archetypes. You can criticize Dickens for a number of things: Henry James said his characters lacked psychological depth (James's own strong suit) and nobody can read Dickens without rolling his eyes a few times at his sentimentality. But even as you're doing this you have to admire the skill with which he paints the scene. A master storyteller with a wild imagination and an ear for prose, he's the ultimate example of a writer who was all talent.