{"id":1741,"date":"2012-01-24T14:36:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=1741"},"modified":"2012-01-24T14:42:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:42:47","slug":"book-log-the-life-and-adventures-of-nicholas-nickleby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/?p=1741","title":{"rendered":"Book Log – The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby<\/em> by Charles Dickens<\/p>\n

Charles Dickens writes very well.<\/p>\n

Well… duh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, no, really… I know I have rolled my eyes at classic authors because there is this thing that says classic novels are books we should<\/em> like if we are smart or educated or whatever. And people even buy nice, leather-bound editions of “classic” books to put on their shelves because they look nice. And they do.<\/p>\n

But the fact of the matter is he just writes good books. You don’t have to dive into symbolism or theme to really “get” them. Dickens just writes enjoyable stories with amusing characters. <\/p>\n

It’s satirical, and probably more than I know because I don’t have insight into the sort of things of Dickens’ era that he might be satirizing. But there was some heavy-handed commentary at times. At one point, for no narrative\/character reason I could see, Nicholas lays into a guy who adapts novels to the stage. He lambasts him for leeching off of author’s works, even before they’re finished. Obviously, Dickens had a bone to pick.<\/p>\n

Nicholas<\/em> contains many plot and character elements you see in his other works. For example, Nicholas’ chief antagonist might as well be Ebenezer Scrooge, but nastier and without salvation.<\/p>\n

Nicholas<\/em> was Dickens’ third novel (right after Twist<\/em>, initially released, as all his novels were, as a serial in a magazine). It came five years before A Christmas Carol<\/em>, and 11 years before Copperfield<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I mention the serialization because my favorite modern (also English) author is attempting something of the sort in this new age of web media. Neal Stephenson, along with a bunch of cohorts, are publishing a weekly web serial called The Mongoliad<\/a><\/em>. It’s a noble effort, with lots of multimedia to make it more than just a serialized story. The only problem is that, so far, I don’t like it very much. I’m having trouble getting through the first chapter. Also, it’s complicated to transfer to my Kindle.<\/p>\n

So. 150 years later, we’re still trying to reproduce that magic that Dickens had. Thankfully, I’ve still got 7 or 8 of his works to wander through before I need Stephenson to get his act together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens Charles Dickens writes very well. Well… duh. But, no, really… I know I have rolled my eyes at classic authors because there is this thing that says classic novels are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[481],"tags":[486,485],"class_list":["post-1741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-log","tag-book-log-2012","tag-charles-dickens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1741"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1747,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1741\/revisions\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.electric-rocket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}