Is My Book Half-empty or Half-full?

Book the First is read and, with 396 pages to go, I feel my glass is half-empty and am very sad to see that I only have half left. When it comes to Dickens, Little Dorrit has been little mentioned among my readings and listenings regarding others' love for Dickens' work but I am perplexed as to why. In spite of its great length, if anyone asks me where they should start with Dickens, my answer will emphatically be Little Dorrit. It is sooo good, I am employing different ways to draw out the reading...mainly rereading genius passages (eg. the entire chapter regarding the Science of Government...hilarious because it is so true, as true now as it was then).

I was thrown off for about two seconds with the opening chapter set in a Marseilles prison but, as per my experience with Dickens, the setting is secondary...it is always the characters that get me and hold me. I finally did meet Little Dorrit, Amy being her Christian name, and she is killing me, killing me. I understand Arthur Clennam's feelings towards her because I too want to protect her, provide for her, teach her, warn her, all while knowing she will do what her heart and mind guide her to do even if it hurts her in the end.

There is quite a bit of underlying tension in this work as Dickens introduces several sinister characters who are now cooling their heels in past chapters and I am just waiting for them to spring up at some point. The tension also stems from certain characters, like Amy's father, who continue to show their true character in episodes that astound this reader.

So I move on to Book the Second rich with riches...

Although wanting to stay as long as I can in the Dorrit story, I have put some thought to what I will be reading next. Specifically those thoughts are centered on the rereadability of Dickens. I have reread A Christmas Carol and found that I liked it the second time around. The first time I was ambivalent due to reading the classic in the wee hours of Dewey's read-a-thon when I am pretty sure I was not fully conscious. I want to know if my first Dickens read can withstand a rereading and will have the added benefit of reading it with others by joining A Literary Odyssey's Oliver Twist readalong.

Snowy Notes

We had snow last night and the roads are a mess but no snow day for my oldest who let it be known how aggrieved she was. I white-knuckled my way to drop her off and didn't relax until I was safely parked inside the garage. I am a newbie when it comes to driving in the snow, so for all the experienced out there, I am the snail moving ten miles an hour that you are stuck behind. My youngest and I had a snow day of our own sledding down the steep hill in our backyard and throwing snowballs at one another finishing up with a happy face snow angel. Except for the driving, I love snow!

Moving along through Little Dorrit, I remembered a post from Thomas at My Porch about his progress through War and Peace. He created a character tree to follow events and associations. I knew I needed to do something similar because sometimes I lose or confuse characters and events when reading Dickens. Taking notes after each chapter to which I can refer seems a heck of a lot easier than digging through past pages to find the lost threads.

Where is the Main Character?

It isn't often that I get to thinking about the trustworthiness of an author. I usually have a feeling of being able to rely on an author if I consistently love their works. But Dickens makes me contemplate what it means to trust an author.

So far I have been able to trust Dickens to carry me through an epic length novel without losing my interest in the story or my investment of feeling into the characters. At this point, I can trust him to deliver a good story chock full of characters to love. Now, I know I can trust him to bring me through the first forty pages of a book in which I have yet to meet the main character.

I expect to meet the main character of a book within the first few pages and realized that after reading the first two chapters of Little Dorrit, I still hadn't met Little Dorrit. Let me tell you, I wanted to meet this chick, because after reading reviews on blogs and on amazon, I wanted nothing more than to get to know this character created by Dickens. So after waiting the few days to receive the book in the mail and setting it aside until all were tucked in bed, I began this book and found myself not in England but on the hottest day in Marseilles, and not meeting Dorrit but two of the scrungiest prisoners this side of Magwitch.

But what do I care? I am now on page 41, in London, with a promise of meeting Dorrit soon made on page 40. I am once again lost in a world of Dickens making and he can do with me as he pleases. One thing I know now is not to have any expectations, great or small, when it comes to Dickens. I should have known better to have expectations regarding Dorrit when, looking back, I have come to love the peripheral characters most...Wemmick in Great Expectations and Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield...and now we will see with Little Dorrit.

I'm Not Afraid...

My first year blogging was all about challenges. I longed to sign up for the Chunkster Challenge but I truly was intimidated. My second year blogging I signed up for only a handful of challenges including the Chunkster but failed. I suppose it is fitting that the year I finally feel up to the challenge is the year the Chunkster Challenge will stand alone as my only reading challenge of 2011. And this year instead of cowering I am giddy with excitement to get started. The challenge begins February 1, 2011 and ends January 31, 2012, and is hosted by caribousmom.

There are four levels to the challenge and I am signing up for the Mor-book-ly Obese one which challenges me to read eight or more chunksters (defined as a book containing 450+ pages) of which 3 tomes must have 750 pages or more.

One is not required to make a list of books to be read which works good for me because I want some freedom within the confines of the challenge but I do know there will be Dickens, possibly Trollope and maybe a knight tilting at windmills.

Too Good to be True

I received a gift card for Christmas from my in-laws and headed directly to amazon to order two CDs (Perry Como and Dean Martin Christmas albums) and a book or two. I found a copy of The Best of James Herriot which was described as "Very Good Condition with Very Good Condition Dust Jacket". All that for a dollar. So I placed the order and waited all so patiently for the slowest of all postal delivery options...economy mail. The book arrived yesterday and, needless to say, the description was too good to be true. Underneath the packing slip, which clearly stated the glowing description of the book, was a book without a dust jacket covered with grime, a discolored cover, and hundreds of light brown moldy spots along the page edges. And the worst offense was the smell of mold and damp when I opened the book. I am still ticked but more than that I am befuddled over the conscience of a person who could place that book and the packing slip together and ship it off to a paying customer. Yes, it was only a dollar but how much does honesty cost?

This is me sulking...

New Year, Old Book

I wrote this post on the 2nd but couldn't decide whether or not to publish it because it felt too personal but as my thoughts are with Nan today I thought it apropos.

I began the new year with an old book. Heading out with the fam to celebrate the incoming year at my sister's, I passed up all the never-been-read books on my shelves and pulled out James Herriot's Dog Stories for a reread. Feeling the need for a comfort read, indeed. I am always a little sad after Christmas passes. It is my favorite time of year and knowing that it won't be around for 11 more months provokes a small case of melancholy. I still have the decorations up and turn on the lights as dusk ushers in the night and play the occasional Christmas cd if I can get away with it but, on New's Year eve morning, my husband took down the outside Christmas lights and I knew it was the beginning of the end. Bah! On Monday morning, my husband and eldest will return to work and school, respectively, after their holiday breaks, and the youngest and I will round up and put away the Christmas decorations. Bah again!

God, I love these stories! In Herriot's introduction, he writes about his own dogs saying "I often think of them all, of their different characters and the happiness I had with them." This is something I do as well and wonder if other dog lovers do the same. Each and every one had their own character and this amazes me still. I always run through them chronologically, in the order they came into my life, my timeline of dogs.

The first was a shephard-collie mix named Crystal. Although she later came to live with my grandparents, I still considered her mine. She was beautiful but she was a rascal which made all of us love her more. As kids we rode our Big Wheel up and down the long driveway of our grandparents' home and if you had the misfortune of Crystal standing guard over the roadway, she would run up to the Big Wheel and begin biting the huge front wheel. No matter how much you begged her to stop, she would not let go and we would abandon the toy in despair either to find another or plead with an adult to put Crystal in the backyard. She also loved to smile by bearing her front teeth while simultaneously wagging her hind end furiously. She mostly did this when she was in trouble...like the time she ripped my grandmother's clean sheets off the clothesline and dragged them through the dirt. You could try disciplining a dog while they smile up at you but it is impossible.

But the one thing I had a difficult time forgiving her for was nipping at my heels. She was so unpredictable at this pastime of hers that one never knew when to expect it. Sometimes she let you walk by without harassment and the next time she would stealthily creep up behind you and nibble your Achilles which resulted in my jumping in the air and attempting to run back inside. Only this attempt at self-preservation seemed to instigate her bad behavior further and she would keep nipping as my running turned into shuffling in an attempt to avoid kicking her. It took a while to shuffle to safety but once I had the door in between the two of us I would try to tell her how naughty she was but on came the pearly whites and all was once again forgiven.

The day Crystal passed away, my mom picked me up from my part-time job after school. I felt so grown up earning my own money and working in an office among adults but I was reduced to a little girl again as I wept openly and my mother's arms around me were as comforting as Crystal's presence always proved to be.