How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Poor
Advantages:
Good plot
Disadvantages:
One - dimensional characters
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
Nicholas Nickleby is the first “romance” that Dickens wrote, which isn’t hard to tell while you’re reading it. It is very openly about good and evil, and possibly as a consequence of this most of the characters are somewhat two-dimensional.
The plot engages the reader very easily, simply by changing direction every few chapters. The main character is, as one might expect from the title, Nicholas Nickleby, who comes to London with his mother and sister to seek financial assistance from his uncle after the death of his father. As Nicholas is inherently good and generous, and his uncle Ralph is inherently evil and a miser, the two take an instant dislike to each other, and this dislike drives the rest of the book. Ralph arranges for Nicholas to work as assistant master at a school in Yorkshire, a position he knows he will quickly come to hate, for a man almost as miserly as he is, who is cruel to the boys under his care. He promises to look after Nicholas’ mother and his sister, Kate, as long as Nicholas is working in Yorkshire.
Nicholas soon comes into conflict with his master, Squeers, over a maltreated boy of around nineteen called Smike. He eventually beats Squeers, and the two young men run away from the school and back to London, where in the meantime Kate had briefly been employed as a seamstress, before falling out of favour with her overseer who arranges to have her fired.
The plot continues apace in London would not be suited to him. He joins up with an acting troup, and is very successful, but leaves abruptly, still with Smike in tow, when he hears from his uncle’s servant, with whom he is friendly, that Ralph has been treating Kate, now a paid companion to a would-be Lady, poorly, leading her to be harrassed by some of his business associates. Nicholas returns to London and removes his sister and mother from his uncle’s care, fortuitously obtaining a job and a home not long thereafter from a pair of philanthropic brothers.
And then it gets complicated... though the chapter titles in the contents page really signpost what's going to happen, keeping surprises down to a minimum.
But while the plot is very good, the characterisation isn’t. The most deeply portrayed character is the evil Uncle Ralph, who earns that distinction by feeling remorse for the way he lets Kate be treated whilst still being an unpleasant man. Nicholas always does what he perceives to be right, Kate is shy, Smike is shy, Ralph’s servant is a fallen gentleman treated badly, Mrs Nickleby consideres herself more important than she is, the brothers are philanthropic, Squeers is cruel, Nicholas’ love’s father treats her badly, and nothing goes any deeper than that. Nicholas’ love, Madeline, is the least characterised of the lot. She has no character of her own, she is simply the object of the hero’s affections.
I read this book because I enjoyed Great Expectations and wanted to read more Dickens, but I have to say it’s definitely not one of his best works, and in the edition I read, admittedly an old one, the surreal approach to punctuation does nothing to add to the experience.
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