Nicholas Nickleby

Man, it's muggy here tonight.  Watched movies earlier today, Pride and Prejudice and Nicholas Nickleby. I found a version of the latter that didn't have any actors that are frequently in the tabloids. Kate is played by Sophia Myles, she was also in Patricia Rozema's version of Mansfield Park. I like her. Both the characters of Kate and Madeline are somewhat stronger than in the book. Watching it I remembered how much I like Smike and Noggs. It's because of their amazing capacity to love in spite of all the ways life had beat them down; they could've turned bitter or evil, but they didn't. I read it over a year ago, so I had forgotten a lot of what happens. The movie was relatively close to the novel, though obviously at 600 plus pages, even at over 3 hours, a lot of it had to be cut (such as the theatre troupe in London, and the family Nicholas works as a tutor for.)  One idea that stuck with me is that there is a tipping point where the evil you do comes back to haunt you, even your friends who are equally bad can not be counted on in a pinch.  Ralph Nickleby's world falls apart debt by debt (or exploitation by exploitation) until the truth of his son comes back to haunt him and he kills himself. There is also help in unexpected places (John Brody, Noggs, Peg), and honest ways to make money that don't involve the exploitation of others.

I had to rush to the video store to get them turned in by 9 pm. I think I made it. I was only going to watch the part 1 of Nicholas Nickleby, but I got drawn into it and wanted to finish it. They were officially due at 8 pm, but I called and they said 9.  Stopped at the grocery store and then got ice cream on the way back home, a slight coolness had begun to fill the air, making it a little more comfortable. The mugginess has now turned to outright showers, maybe it will clear the air. Still around 70 degrees out: that's a warm night here.

Warm and damp.

It begins with a birth

David Copperfield is born in Blunderstone, in Suffolk, on a Friday at 12 to a mother who is young, beautiful, timid and weak-minded, and a father who passed away six months prior and who was twice the age of his wife. In the house, at the time of his birth were his mother, the servant, Miss Peggotty, Peggotty's nephew, (presumably) a nurse, a doctor named Mr. Chillip, and an aunt, his father's sister, named Miss Betsey Trotwood (who is determined that the child will be a girl, and should be called "Betsey" after her, and she will be her godmother) but who, upon hearing from Mr. Chillip that the child is indeed a boy, leaves suddenly, never to return.

And the winner is...

Drumroll...David Copperfield.  Chosen by deciding to walk to a random library branch, not near where I live, and choose from whatever they had. They only had this one. Thinly veiled autobiography, wildly successful. Serialized in the late 1840's, published in full in 1850, I think. I believe it was also the author's favorite book. It's the Everyman's Library edition, which with all the appendices and intro, is around 900 pages. This man did not write short novels. I can renew it for up to nine weeks total, so I do have a deadline here. I can usually make deadlines.

Thoughts on Dickens' world

Societies can equate money with morality. Or appearance with morality. Compeyson gets an easier sentence than Magwitch because of his appearance and his background. Both are guilty. Compeyson is probably a sociopath, I think Magwitch proves that he is not, just someone trying to survive and making a lot of bad choices in the process. Pip initially turns his back on his "poorer relations" when he comes into his "great expectations," but grows to value friendship and loyalty over money. Herbert, Biddy, and Joe are all loyal and good-hearted, Mrs. Joe, Pumblechook and most of Havisham's relatives are easily swayed by those with money, tying their loyalties to fortunes. If you are poor, you will go to prison for even a small debt, and if you are extremely wealthy, you get more, even if you did wrong. Cycles around through history.

I'm a done

more to follow. Someone suggested to me earlier today, that the next book will present itself to me. He also mentioned liking David Lean's version of Oliver Twist and that there was a new version of Great Expectations that had recently been made, not out yet. I had been planning on watching the movie versions after reading the books, but I haven't. None of them appealed to me, mostly due to who was starring in them. Maybe the title of the blog should be "Dickens all decade," that did take about a year.

If I don't get around to writing anything else: Pip means to propose to Biddy, but when he finds her, she has just wed Joe. He leaves the country and takes the job with Herbert, earns his living, pays his debt, is gone for 11 years. He returns to visit Joe and Biddy, and while there walks over to the site of the old Satis house (Havisham's). He encounters someone. It's Estella. Drummles was a bad man, but has since died, due to his cruelty to a horse. She is alone.

The final line (in this version) is "and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her." (Chapter 59, Great Expectations-Dickens. The original version did not have a chapter 59, and Estella had married a doctor after the death of Drummles.)  I have a couple of other books I'm in the middle of, or rather, have started. Will see which of his I read next, but I'm leaning toward Pickwick Papers.  Which means I'll try saving Bleak House for last. Really not looking forward to A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist, they've just been so overdone, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. I hope so, the project does involve reading all the novels. Still not decided on the short stories. Maybe...we'll see what year it is by that point.

A pile of closures

Pip tries to pay off his debt but somewhere in the process is overtaken with delirium and sickness. He wakes up days? weeks? later to Joe taking care of him. During this time he learns that Magwitch has died (before he was hung) and Havisham has died. As Pip recovers, Joe grows more distant. Havisham's estate is marked off for auction, piece by piece.  The greater part of her estate was left to Herbert's father, the one thing Pip feels good about, it was because he pleaded their goodness to her earlier. Orlick is jailed for crimes and harassment against Pumblechook. Pip finds a receipt that Joe has paid off his debts in full. Oh, and in his last visit with Magwitch in prison, Pip tells him of Estella, that he loves her, that she is the daughter that Magwitch never saw again.

Everything happens

So, because the time is close to when they need to get Provis out of London, Pip leaves immediately for the marshes. He leaves a note for Herbert saying that he is going to visit Havisham. He catches the afternoon coach, stays at an "inn of minor reputation." Havisham is doing a little better. He hears at the inn that Pumblechook has taken credit for his fortunes. Pip realizes how good Joe has been to him and he is humbled. At nine he heads out into the marsh. The moon is out, so he can see. When he arrives at the sluice house, he knocks, no one answers. He pushes the door open, sees no one. There is a candle lit, but no person. Suddenly, the candle is extinguised and Pip is caught and bound up, tied to the wall. The man is Orlick, angry at Pip for ruining both his chances with Biddy and with his job at Havisham's. We find out over the course of this encounter that it was he that tried to kill Mrs. Joe. He intends to kill Pip. Before he can though, miraculously, Pip is rescued. It is Herbert, Startop (I can't remember who that is, but it's a friend of Pip's and Herbert's and he will row the boat with Provis in it later, since Pip's arm is injured from the fire and the binding from Orlick) and Trabb's boy. Pip had dropped  the letter, Herbert had found it and followed him out to Havisham's with Startop. They cannot find him, but run into Trabb's boy, who has seen him, and somehow make their way to the sluice house. Orlick escapes into the night. The rest return home.

Two days later, they row down to meet Provis and get him in the boat. They find a place to stay the night, but it seems they are being followed. The following day, as the time draws near to catch a steamer ship, they are intercepted by Compeyson and the galley. In a blur of events, the steamer ship cannot stop, their boat goes under, Startop, Herbert and Pip are pulled aboard the galley, but Compeyson and Magwitch go under, locked onto one another. Magwitch is recovered, gravely injured, but alive and taken into custody. Compeyson is not, his body is found later. Pip's heart is softened, so that all he wants is to ease the suffering of Magwitch, to save him if he could.

Jaggers tries to postpone the trial to the next session, but is denied. Magwitch is close to death. On the day he is found guilty, 32 people are also sentenced to death. Wemmick marries Miss Sifkins, Herbert leaves for Cairo, but not before telling Pip he wants to offer him a clerk job, and to live with he and Clara, once they are married. Pip's mind is mostly concerned with Magwitch's fate and says he will let him know. They part company. I'm somewhere in the middle of the chapter where Magwitch is found guilty. More to follow. Less than 30 pages to go.

More

Went to a performance showcase earlier tonight, got a lot of reading done on the bus, but ended up walking a couple of miles to the venue, in silly heels no less, because the bus was taking forever and the woman sitting next to me on the bus said the term "wi-fi" about 20 times in a row into her phone and I thought I was going to lose my mind. Made it in time. It was amazing.

Okay. Pip goes to visit Havisham, who gives him a note for 900 pounds to give to Jaggers so that Pip can secure a partnership for Herbert. Then, as something softened in her during the previous visit when she saw Pip's pain in regards to Estella, she prostrates herself in front of him and begs forgiveness. She also asks if he would like anything for himself, he declines. He takes a walk through the grounds, full of memories of Estella and also when he fought Herbert. He gasps when he thinks he sees the specter of Havisham in the rafters again (as he also did when he was a boy.) When he is about to leave the grounds, he has a premonition to go check up on her. He looks into the room, she is very close to the fire, as he turns to leave, she comes running, flames billowing off her old wedding dress. He tackles her and throws his two heavy coats and the old tablecloth upon her to put out the flames, and holds her until help arrives, and then until the surgeon arrives. A bed is set up for her on the table where the wedding cake sat for years, the insects having scurried away when Pip pulled off the cloth. The burning remnants of the dress, settling down through the air. Pip is also badly burned on his arms, but he didn't realize it until later. He kisses her and forgives her in the morning. (Also, he had earlier secured the knowledge that Jagger's servant was indeed Estella's mother, and also how she came to be adopted by Havisham.)

He leaves early back to London and is nursed by Herbert. Provis remains safely hidden, but with the burns, Pip will not be able to row the boat out of London. Another plan must be devised. Herbert tells Pip a story about Provis, how he had had a child with a woman, and the woman had murdered another woman out of jealousy. Provis is Estella's father, only Herbert and Pip know this.  Pip goes to visit Jaggers and Wemmick in Little Britain. He gets the money for Herbert. Then questions Jaggers regarding Estella, and makes it known that Provis is the father. Jaggers advises not telling any of the parties concerned, the truth.

At home again, Pip receives a mysterious note asking him to meet the writer at the sluice-house. It is in regards to Provis. Someone else knows he is here. Pip goes. I haven't finished the chapter yet, I started to get sleepy on the bus. Saw Orlick's name later on the page. Certainly, more trouble brewing, and less than 70 pages until the end (which was rewritten by Dickens, he originally had things a different outcome altogether.)

100 or so pages left

(Previous posts edited to correct for Magwitch's actual name.) Heeding Wemmick's warning, Pip spends a mostly sleepless night in a borrowed bed. In the morning he goes to visit Wemmick at his Walworth home. While there he learns of Compeyson's (the scoundrel) looking for Magwitch. Magwitch has been removed to a new place for safety. Wemmick has advised laying low in London for the time being, as it being a large city, is a better place to disappear in for now. Magwitch/Provis/Mr. Campbell is now with Clara, her gouty father (Mr. Barley) and a Mrs. Wimple. Clara is lovely and charming and Pip is happy for her and Herbert's engagement. A plan is devised. Pip should buy a boat and practice rowing on the Thames, when no one suspects anything strange in this, and when Wemmick gives a signal, Pip and Herbert will remove Magwitch from London by boat.  This is begun. (Pip develops protective sentiments for Magwitch.)

One foggy night in February, walking home from the river, Pip goes to the theatre and encounters Mr. Wopsles. Wopsles tell him of recognizing the younger-looking prisoner from the marshes long ago, sitting behind Pip in the theatre, like a ghost. Compeyson was there, following him, and Pip didn't know it. Later that night, Herbert and Pip resolve to be even more careful, and to communicate this urgent info to Wemmick via post. Later that week, Pip, again wandering home from the river, is accosted by Jaggers and convinced to dine with him. They go to Jaggers' place, along with Wemmick, and Pip learns 1) Estella has married Drummles; 2) Havisham wishes for Pip to visit, presumably to discuss the support of Herbert; and 3) Jagger's maid Molly, is Estella's mother.