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Title: Charles Dickens; A Critical Study (BCL1-PR English Literature) by Gilbert Keith Chesterton ISBN: 0-7812-7511-3 Publisher: Reprint Services Corp Pub. Date: January, 1906 Format: Library Binding List Price(USD): $79.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: I'm at a loss--I can't find any flaws.
Comment: G.K. is here at his most intelligent and flamboyant best, thanks to a truly great subject. Dickens, contends GK, is not appreciated because he views life from an entirely different angle than does, say, Henry James. It's not that Dickens fails at this or that, as critics contend; Dickens's aims are different in toto, and at doing what he does Dickens is perfect, superb, inimitable. He does not analyze; he is not realistic; he was not trying to be. He observes, he invents; he creates archetypes that are utterly unrealistic and thus more real than reality.

GK, fired with a love of his subject so bright one can almost see it on the page, makes his arguments in the midst of a hodge-podge of information. He discusses Dickens's works, giving descriptions and quotations so enthusiastic that, if anything could make someone want to read Dickens, this stuff would. He discusses Dickens, his character, life, and times, and the nature of greatness ("Almost from the very first there was a school of thought that held that Dickens was one of the great ones. Dickens certainly belonged to this school"). History, biography, philosophy, literary criticism--all written in typical GK style, with the utmost clarity and a constant and tremendous awareness of words and their sounds, resulting in rampant word play. In short, the book is a total package: a joy to read both because of what it says, what it evokes, and how it says and evokes what it does. 'Charles Dickens' is the literary equivalent of food; it should be taken regularly, and, gobbled or savoured, will nourish.