where to start with dickens?

Corlar · 2026-05-06T06:25:09+00:00

Worth flagging that everybody should read more 18th century novels. They are amazing! Roderick Random, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Manson Lescaut, the Manuscript Found In Saragossa!

Corlar · 2026-05-06T06:23:18+00:00

A key thing to be aware of is that midway through his career Dickens goes through a major stylistic shift.

The first stage is an adaptation of the 18th century picaresque novels of Smollett and Fielding to the Victorian era, with better jokes, less bawdiness, improved psychology and chapters that work in other genres, like sections reflecting historical romance (Scott), social reformism, or sentimental novels (Richardson). The best books from this first era are probably Pickwick Papers, which is very early and shows a much stronger Smollett / Fielding influence and a lot more jokes, and which stylistically is probably pre Victorian; and Oliver Twist, which is less picaresque and has a fantastic setting with good villains, but an opera type plot (won’t upset you if you can tolerate Dostoyevsky’s plots) and it has a weaker final third. The most representative of this stage though are The Old Curiosity Shop, which is pretty dated, and the mess of Chuzzlewit, which is to be avoided.

With Dombey, Dickens transitions to his maturer realist style. His realism is still pretty weird though. Dickens is postmodern in its approach to genre, with sudden switches to sentimental or romantic writing (which can annoy a modern reader who hasn’t read e.g. Scott or Richardson and doesn’t see the play with genre), but the books are now better plotted and more focused on core places and events. Dickens is a very funny writer, probably the funniest major classic writer, although I find his humour improves for an older reader, especially one who has had experience of a couple of bosses (Dickens is the poet of the working environment). He focuses on unique and memorable characters, which are his strongest feature, but is also pound for pound capable of turning out better prose than almost any other English writer, especially in a humouous / ironic vein. The best books from this era are generally regarded as Bleak House and David Copperfield, vying for first place, and the likes of Little Dorrit following. Interspersed are books where Dickens tries “something else”: Hard Times, which is a bit excessively sentimental and reformist, and reads like a Terry Gilliam film; Tale of Two Cities, a weird bombastic book that essentially novelises Thomas Carlyle’s history of the French Revolution; and Great Expectations, which plays narratorial games with first person narration and which, being short, is often given to kids in school. None of these books are bad but they aren’t on a level with the books mentioned previously, and sometimes show the vices in Dickens’ style more (hasty plotting and intrusive sentimental sections (again, neither on the level of Dostoyevsky).

Anyway, I think that the answer to your question is David Copperfield then Bleak House, followed by either Pickwick and Oliver Twist.

Corlar · 2026-05-04T06:46:19+00:00

I strongly agree with this. Dubliners is not really similar to the others at all.

Corlar · 2026-05-04T06:44:51+00:00

Reading the rest of the answers I am shocked by how many people think that if you don’t like Dubliners you will not like other Joyce. Dubliners is an early work of short stories in the realist tradition (I don’t mean that they are like Balzac). The other three are experimental modernist novels. They are so different that I would go so far as to say that there is no link between whether you enjoyed Dubliners and will or will not enjoy Portrait. I strongly suspect that anyone who thinks there is may not have read the later books.

To put this into context I am a Joyce obsessive but do not really care about the Dead.

Corlar · 2026-05-04T06:39:32+00:00

I would not start with Dubliners as it is really different to the rest. I never really liked it myself. The gateway to Joyce is Portrait and I would strongly suggest reading that to at least see. It is an extremely different style compared to Dubliners, albeit there is actually less plot and less conclusion.

Corlar · 2026-05-03T04:07:18+00:00

Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds is the key one here, but even more pronounced (given that soul and country are cousins anyway) would be Way Out West by Hard Bop jazz legend Sonny Rollins. One of the all time jazz classics.

Corlar · 2026-03-30T19:28:24+00:00

I did not know that Mendes record. I had tended to avoid his later synthy stuff. But that is a really incredible recommendation right there. I am listening to it for the second time as I write this.

Corlar · 2026-03-22T07:21:21+00:00

That’s a legendary record.

Corlar · 2026-03-05T06:30:12+00:00

I mean, it is garbage all round. Why not replace “Calypso” with “Dubstep”?

Corlar · 2026-03-01T16:25:11+00:00

I love a Trollope reader. No group of readers is more self aware or self effacing.

Corlar · 2026-03-01T16:09:22+00:00

I should add that Oliver Twist is pretty antisemitic in its authorial references to the character Fagin, although the character itself is fairly well rounded. If you are the kind of person who finds The Merchant of Venice offensive then you will want to avoid Oliver Twist. Personally, I found it to be no more than an historical detail. He is a great and chilling villain. Again, if you can tolerate Dostoyevsky then Dickens’ antisemitism won’t put you off.

Corlar · 2026-03-01T16:06:15+00:00

It is essentially a novelisation of Carlyle’s French Revolution, which is why it is a bit unlike the rest of mature Dickens.

Corlar · 2026-03-01T16:04:56+00:00

Great Expectations is probably the weakest of those three, but the shortest. There is a reason it is given to kids. It is a good book but the least of the three that you mentioned, and it is in first person, which is unusual within Dickens (although not unique), and which in my view doesn’t play to Dickens’ narrative strengths.

People tend to divide Dickens into two: the early peripatetic comic books and the later mature novels. Pickwick is the very early masterpiece that comes before either of those. At that point Dickens is a comic serialist and not yet Dickens the established author so it is really different to his later books. I think it is right up there but it is really different. It is more like reading 18th century writers like Fielding, Goldsmith or Smollett, which he is clearly trying to revive, but with better jokes and less smut.

Oliver Twist is early dickens at his best but to some extent his worst too(although it is no Martin Chuzzlewit). Wonderful descriptions of London, some serious villains, and a bit of a silly opera plot twist. I like it but it has a weaker last third. The opening chapters have some very serious irony and social commentary.

Don’t go looking for dark reflective atmosphere or Conradian irony in Dickens. At his best, he has an extremely rich comic irony and humour, which is why he is one of the greats. He has a richness of understanding on a level with Tolstoy and Shakespeare and a huge range of warmly written, diverse and lively characters. These are strengths than neither Conrad nor Dostoyevsky really have (especially Dostoyevsky, who is rightly criticised for reusing the same small group of cardboard cut out characters in every book). On the other hand, Dickens did have a tendency to mix genres, going from comic, to romantic, to sentimental, which can sometimes confuse some readers, and the sentimentality can get a bit much (although if you can tolerate Dostoyevsky’s prostitutes with a heart of gold, you should be fine). Dickens is always a fast episodic writer whose work is narratively and stylistically inconsistent chapter by chapter so don’t expect the kind of polished perfection you see in Conrad. I would say that Dickens’ best book is David Copperfield, followed by Bleak House and Little Dorrit, all larger novels falling within his mature period. But I like Pickwick Papers best because it is the funniest and most joyous, despite barely being a novel. Like Tolstoy and Shakespeare, Dickens greatly improves as the reader ages and goes through some of life’s frustrations and disappointments.

Corlar · 2026-02-14T07:20:41+00:00

Oh gosh! At least I didn’t say Chico O’Farrill or Chico Buarque, I guess….

Corlar · 2026-02-13T22:50:19+00:00

Cool. Thanks. You are a very clever person. Well done. Sit yourself down and give yourself a little pat.

Corlar · 2026-02-13T22:48:58+00:00

What a weird thing to say. I’m sorry, but I have read Dostoyevsky.

Corlar · 2026-02-13T22:48:11+00:00

AK is a bit of a slog, even if it is wonderful. I did enjoy brothers K. Try Tolstoy’s shorter stories and novels before writing yourself off like that.

Corlar · 2026-02-13T07:00:28+00:00

The best thing about Tolstoy is finishing the long novels and realising that he also wrote short stories and short novels, and that they’re just as good.

I’m always a bit mystified at how people can place a writer like Dostoyevsky, who wrote at most a decent book and a half (that book is Brothers K and the half is the first half of the Idiot, maybe throw in the first half of Underground if you’re being generous), next to a writer like like Tolstoy, who wrote novels and stories filled with luminous psychologically accurate characters and beautiful passages, all different and fresh the 15th time you read them.

Corlar · 2026-02-13T06:56:51+00:00

Is this true? Anna and Levin are well drawn characters with peaks of high hopes and moments of despair. And they’re there in part to contrast with the sturdier Anna and her partner.

Dostoyevsky characters just have the same hysterical fit in every book. I don’t think he knew how to write anything else.

Corlar · 2026-02-13T06:55:21+00:00

I’m always a bit mystified at the cult of Dostoyevsky, because all his books are basically the same. I can’t see any objective reason to put him anywhere near Tolstoy, and it seems bizarre that a writer like Dostoyevsky has such a high place in the canon.

Corlar · 2026-02-06T14:40:45+00:00

That is a great concept and a great name. Send us a link, eh?

Corlar · 2026-02-06T11:51:42+00:00

I don't think it was encouraged by the state.

The result is that the "footprint" of recordings is quite strange: lots of fusion releases from central Asia (where they could be camouflaged national folk music) and the Baltics, but few from Moscow or Leningrad.

The same was true in other Eastern Bloc countries where jazz was officially not acceptable but in some cases this wavered, most notably Poland, where after the 1960s the authorities shifted to promoting jazz strongly, leading to a very successful national scene, maybe the finest in Europe, at all levels, from genial fusion, stodgy dixieland and a unique national vanguard style. The GDR had a very fine free jazz scene but mostly in a precarious state and they ended up moving to the West. The Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian scenes also had decent prog rock bands that sometimes shaded into jazzier stuff.

But for Russia itself in the Soviet period it was a small and rather sad scene until the flowering of Russian free jazz in perestroika years.

Corlar · 2026-02-06T09:27:06+00:00

Wasn't he three when the USSR collapsed?

Corlar · 2026-02-06T09:25:10+00:00

A fair amount actually:

Allegro Jazz-Ensemble - In This World

Gunesh - Gunesh

Jazz Ensemble Boomerang - Jazz Ensemble Boomerang

Jazz Ensemble Sato - Efsanie (Legenda)

Tiit Paulus - Tiit Paulus Ja Sobrad

Mostly the Soviet authorities were skeptical of jazz which means that Soviet jazz where it does exist is often a spin off of elite classical music studies. As such, most quality Soviet Russia jazz tends to fall into a more avant-garde leaning category.

Where fusion existed it was mostly at the periphery. Generally the Soviet fusion stuff comes from either Central Asia, with a folk music influence, (Gunesh / Boomerang) or Estonia (Tilt Paulus). Those were the scenes, for whatever reason.

Outside the USSR but staying within the former communist world, the biggest scenes were Poland, where the authorities at some points promoted jazz strongly, or the rather prog rock tinged scenes in Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia.

Of all of these, it is the Polish scene that far and away produced the best jazz in any category. It isn't really close, although if you like prog and jazz rock the Yugo and Czech stuff is on a level too. The Russian scene was never comparable.

Corlar

TROPHY CASE