Wordsworth Nicholas Nickleby

Everyone should have read this book in high school. If you didn’t, then buy it now. If you did, it’s worth another read. Enjoy.

To try and describe the plot, a well off family is left destitute after the father dies leaving his two children with little choice but to go out and make their way in the world in order to support their mother. A villainous uncle called Ralph arranges for the young man Nicholas to be placed as a teacher in a school run by the tyrannical headmaster Wackford Squeers, the horrible treatment and cruelty Nicholas witnesses leads him to snap and he is sacked from the school after assaulting Squeers and thrashing him in front of the boys. Nicholas quickly flees, though not before making a handful of new young friends, one of whom escapes with him.Meanwhile his pretty younger sister Kate is sent to work in a dress making business while she continues to live with her comically naive and highly flappable mother. Kate's sweet nature makes her the favourite of her employer but also the envy of some of the other women she works with. When her employer losses control of the business, Kate too finds herself without a job. To make matters worse one evening she is made by her Uncle to attend a party, she arrives to find she is the only woman present and things instantly get worse as the men start to aggressively flirt with her leading to her fleeing home in tears. The siblings reunite and a confrontation takes place with Uncle Ralph who decries their ingratitude to him. The Siblings declare they will from now on make their own way without him and cut their ties.The second part of the books takes a slightly more serious side. The feeble companion who traveled with Nicholas from the school feels as though he is being pursued by a shadow from his past, both Nicolas and Kate fall in love with a suitable match and a diabolical plot is uncovered in which a pretty destitute girl is close to being forced into marriage with a vile creepy associate of Uncle Ralph who himself is also plotting revenge against his nephew. The mother continues to provide the comic relief as the fat bumbling character who herself becomes involved in a comical little love affair she misunderstands. I couldn't but help but wonder if the unflattering portrayal of the mother was based on Dicken's own wife who he had grown fed up with.The novel's protagonist Nicholas is well written, a young, caring, sensitive but hot headed young man who is forced to step up and provide for his mother and sister. The ending of the book does follow a weakness in trend in the writing of Dickens where a wealthy benevolent gentlemen or two arrive on the scene and are able to solve many of the financial problems our characters endure. Any happiness our characters are granted at the end feels well earned considering the difficulties they go through during the book. Within the gritty and unjust world we read about humour still appears in unexpected places, often through the absurdity of the situation or the dry wit of the narrator.To compare with other books, unlike Great Expecations Nicholas Nickleby is written in the third person, there are of course lots of characters, but unlike Our Mutual Friend, these characters are introduced slowly through the novel and routinely interact with each other across the novel.

Nicholas Nickleby is the 3rd of Dickens’ works I’ve read as part of my #ayearofdickens2021 challenge. It fits nicely after the Pickwick papers and Oliver Twist and seems to marry elements of the two preceding works.The story primarily follows the fortunes of the Nickleby family - Nicholas, his sister Kate and his mother. Having fallen on hard times after the death of his father Nicholas and his family are compelled to seek assistance from his Uncle Ralph. Ralph is a selfish, plotting moneylender and reluctant to help the family. He takes a particular dislike to Nicholas, which only grows as events progress.The story is similar to Pickwick in its relatively episodic nature - we follow Nicholas as he moves around the country trying to make his living. He encounters a cast of wonderfully varying characters. There are light hearted moments with the Kenwigses and Crummles and darker moments back in London with Ralph and Gride etc.It’s similar to Oliver in exposing the cruelty and deprivation suffered in Yorkshire Schools and following the fate of poor Smike who had, throughout his life,been neglected and cruelly treated.Nicholas and his sister Kate are charming and likeable and offer good contrast to one another. Mrs Nickleby is a character similar to Mrs Bennet from Pride and Prejudice - wholly self absorbed and holding a higher opinion of herself than is justified.For me it was the characters that made this enjoyable. I wanted Nicholas and Kate to prosper, I felt love and sympathy for Smike, I hated Ralph, Wackford Squeers and Sir Mulberry Hawk. The Cheerybles, Browdies and Newman Noggs were all good friends to Nicholas and humorous in their own unique ways.In this novel Dickens once again examines class injustice and the lot of those in poverty. He exposes the hypocrisy of the rich but also recognises genuine charity and good nature when it appears. There’s a character for almost every shade of humanity here and they all contribute to the Nicklebys’ story.I enjoyed following the fortunes of Nicholas and Kate, but for now Mr Pickwick still has my heart.

A huge 880 page eventful book of the, as most Dickens written, serialised story of a young man maturing in 1840s England. Basically at 19 proud, fiery, well mannered Nicholas loses his father, and comes under the ‘protection’ of his baddy uncle Ralph. This miserly, scheming business man has Nicholas sent to Yorkshire as a tutor working for the equally bad headmaster Squeers, who runs a dirty Olivereque school; while Nicholas’s mother and pretty sister Kate are installed in a poor flat and need to seek work. Nicholas befriends poor Smike a bullied pupil and after a bust-up both runaway back to London and initially join a travelling theatre. Ralph, grows to hate Nicholas and family more and more, and plots to make money from Kate’s eligibility. There are over 20 main characters along the way creating a classic Dickensian narrative leading to, perhaps for some might be but fortunately not for me, predictable ‘reveal’ and dramatic, tragic conclusion.I found the characters in many cases well rounded and enjoyable, indeed I’d say I found many more deep and engaging than, somewhat saccharin Nicholas himself (I’m think Ralph, Newman Noggs and John Browdie). The occasionally funny Dickensian turn of phrase equally entertaining. I’d recommend getting a version with a character list and the original illustrations. It is a very, very long book, which although written in bite sized chapters, I think requires that the reader keeps to a sustained reading pace otherwise risking it becoming, even for me in places, lacking drive and focus. For me one for the better Dickens, helped by me not actually knowing the, usefully uncomplicated story at all.

We have in the protagonist, Nicholas Nickleby, one of Dickens` more belligerent, confrontational heros. He gets involved in physical exchanges on more than one occasion which is somewhat unusual for Dickens:`He`s a violent youth at times,` said newman, looking after him;`and yet I like him for it.`Besides this, there are the usual well drawn characters and the predictable melodramatics which we come to expect from this genre. The sub plots in this novel may appear a little more incoherent than usual, such as when Nicholas and Smike go to Portsmouth in order to escape their turmoil and spend some time treading the boards in a theatre company. Another reviewer complained of the number of coincidences - the frequency of the same characters mysteriously reappearing together in the same situations. This is not an uncommon technique and although I too find it a little contrived at times, I think there is a case for allowing it in the interest of coherence of story line. Also coincidences do happen and so their usage is not totally spurious.Personally, I like to try and transport myself back to the Nineteenth Century and imagine what it must have been like, sitting on an omnibus reading Dickens in the paper on the way to work. The work is of its time and requires a certain adjustment of mind set in order to get it. It is in some ways quite a powerful novel, the twists and turns working on the emotions. A fairly long book, it is also quite memorable.