And the book is so very, very long.Taken as a whole, this is an above-average novel, but it’s certainly not one of Dickens’s best. Parts of the ending are eminently satisfying, but other parts are too pat. And the horrors of Dotheboys Hall are Dickens at his best-so good, in fact, that several headmasters considered suing Dickens for his portrayal, citing it as libelous.But my heavens! The plot is, even for Dickens, too full of coincidence and deus ex machina for the modern reader to take seriously. The settings are beautifully developed, and there’s a considerable amount of humor in the book. Another two believable, if less comic, characters are Newman Noggs and Miss LaCreevy. A very mixed book, this is an early Dickens, coming after the great Pickwick Papers and the melodramatic but wholly absorbing Oliver Twist.The positive aspects of the novel are led by the marvelous comic characters: Mrs Nickelby, who would drive the most patient of listeners to commit mayhem Mr Lilyvick of the modest fortune and ever-changing will Mr Crummles and his unusual family, which includes the Infant Prodigy, and several others.
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