Phew! That was a marathon read. I never thought that I would be finished! It is not just that it is a long book - the Victorian/Dickensian English does tend to drag. I came to the conclusion that, although Dickens does paint some very vivid word pictures, he was very much a "why use one word when 6 will do" kind of writer. Although the story has a lot of complex nuances, I cannot help feeling that it could have been told in well under half the number of pages. I do wonder whether Dickens' work should have been subject to severe editing when it was moved for serialization in newspapers to book form.
Overall, I did enjoy the story and was keen to know the outcome. At one point, I wondered whether, because there appeared to be [and actually are] two characters with the name Martin Chuzzlewit, the story was set across multiple timelines. It became clear that this was not the case. I guess that is a much more modern technique. As I said, the writing style is verbose, but there are times when this works well to convey Dickens' sense of humour. He is deeply sarcastic about some specific characters [like Mrs. Gamp] and about the United States, but executes that in a very humorous way.
I am glad that I read/finished the book, but was getting very weary towards the end. I do not think that I will be returning to Dickens. Although his stories are strong, his writing style has, IMHO, gone past its sell-by date.
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