A passage from Little Dorrit that particularly struck me is in chapter 2. (LD is public domain, so we can quote as much as we like. Ima quote a lot.)

The Meagles adopted a girl from the “foundling home” in Coram’s Fields in London, to be a maid for their beloved pampered daughter. (There’s a very funny but touching section where Mr Meagle narrates the story to Arthur, and he keeps saying, “as practical people, we” etcetera – it’s his story about them that they’re immensely practical – and then going on to describe compassionate generous behavior that’s not at all practical.) The daughter and maid are grown now, just barely.

A character named Miss Wade goes upstairs in the hotel where this set of characters have happened to meet each other.

Quoting now:

Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse
in passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she
had secured for her own occupation. When she had almost completed
the journey, and was passing along the gallery in which her room
was, she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door
stood open, and within she saw the attendant upon the girl she had
just left; the maid with the curious name.

She stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl!
Her rich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed
and hot, and as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with
an unsparing hand.  [Read more…]

I’ve started reading Little Dorrit for the third or fourth time…skim-reading it in places, because I long ago decided that the only way to read Dickens is to jump when you start to get bored, because there’s no denying he gave a wealth of detail and sometimes it’s about something you just don’t need a wealth of detail about. That prison in Marseilles at the beginning for instance – I never will know what that’s there for, because I invariably get bored before I find out so I skip it.

But don’t go thinking it’s inherently boring, or that all of it’s boring, or that it’s boring in proportion to its quantity, or anything like that. The truth is that he was a god damn genius, and he really is doing something with all those words. It’s not slack, it’s not verbiage for the sake of verbiage. It’s detail.

Like, there’s the bit in chapter 3 where Affery takes Arthur up to the garret room where he’ll sleep for the night, and there’s a very detailed description of what’s in the room and what the room is like. I skipped some, because there was a lot, but I knew if I’d read it it would have been good stuff. That’s how Dickens is. You sort of have to skip in order to keep going, but you know you’re skipping rich writing. But I didn’t skip it all and I was rewarded with a real yell of laughter because at the end of the list of furniture was

…a washing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale themselves.

That’s Dickens for you.

Anybody read it? Anybody want to read it along with me?