Little Dorrit

Mar. 29, 2010

Dickens’ Outlines

Dickens’ notes are a rare opportunity for a young writer to watch a master at work.

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Jan. 26, 2010

“Little Dorrit”: Dickens’ Teeming World

Why modern realism just doesn’t feel like reality.

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Jan. 4, 2010

Rest and Re-creation

Reading Little Dorrit the other day, I came across a sentence describing Mr. Pancks as a man who rarely “appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate himself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object” (ch. XXV). This obsolete sense of recreate, meaning to refresh or energize, obviously shares a common [...]

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Dec. 31, 2009

Dickens and Me

I have been reading Little Dorrit the last couple of weeks and I am engrossed, even though life has been a little chaotic. I have been working feverishly on my own new novel, cranking out the last few chapters in rough draft. At the same time, my kids are on school vacation and our house [...]

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Dec. 16, 2009

Dickens vs. the Snarks

To a reader, Dickens absorbs, the web distracts.

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