Customer Reviews:
 One of the six truly great Dickens novels March 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Long neglected, this has become deservedly popular after the brilliant TV adaptation. A panoramic picture of Victorian society, showing how poverty gives rise to riches and riches give way to integrity.
Great History and Insights...a tale of two societies. May 13, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Little Dorritt was born at Marshalsea-the debtors prison. Her father is something of an informal mayor ('father') of the place, and everyone imprisoned there pays him homage-and alms- for his long suffering good nature and the 'tone' he sets for the experience of being thrown in jail Indeed, Mr. Dorritt has raised self pity to an art form. Little Dorritt is small and wan. People continually ask her if she 'has strength and can endure things.' She reminds them she was born in the poor house. Through the kind offices of 'a friend,' Arthur Clennam, midway through the book the family is released from prison, debts paid and they live the genteel life that Mr. Dorritt always assumed was his birthright. In a classic case of projection, Mr. Dorritt prattles to Amy (Little) Dorritt how she should not be morose, and she should forget life in the poor house. 'Put on airs for the sake of the servants so they would remember 'their place.' Mr Dorritt assures Amy 'he has completely wiped the sad episode of living in debtors prison' from his mind. In order to secure his place in society, Mr. Dorritt seeks favor from an unseen Mr. Myrtle who it seems has the economy of the entire world in the palm of his hand. Indeed, Fanny Dorritt, Amy's sister is also smitten with the Myrtle clan and seeks the favor of Edmund Myrtle, just so she can put on even more superior airs than Mrs. Myrtle does. The circumlocutions of speech, especially those Mr. Dorritt and Mrs. Myrtle use, when these characters talk to one other in itself is worth the price of admission. Amy is devoted to her father and shows little interest in social activities. She does however manage, through her needlework, to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Clemmens, Arthurs mother- that's how Arthur comes to learn of Mr. Dorritt's legal plight and thanks to Arthur they got away from Marshalsea, the debtor's prison. In time, Mr. Dorritt falls sick. He stands up at a dinner party to give his 'welcome to Marshallsea speech, much to the embarrassment of all the high society types there present. Hence the contrast between the two societies, the debtors and the wealthy. Mr. Dorritt's disease in terminal and inevitably, we meet Mr. Myrtle when he comes to commiserate with the Fanny, his son Edmund and the other mourners. The mighty economic dynamo does not put on many airs at all, but he does ask if he might have a pen knife...one of the wedding tokens from Edmund and Fanny's wedding. Mr. Myrtle then privately kills himself. All his financial wheelings and dealings were false and the family is busted. Arthur Clemmens is busted too, and Amy goes to find him at Marshalsea in her families old lodgings. She insists on helping him and he is ashamed as he believes he was not only instrumental in their release from Marshalsea but also in connecting the family with the notorious Myrtles. Amy will have nothing to do with this theory. She goes to plead Arthur's case with his mother who has money locked up in a vault. She has been paralyzed for a very long time and is unable to walk. The steward is furious that the family fortune should be spent to pay Arthur's debts as the steward believes and has tried to convince Mother that Arthur is a spendthrift playboy. Mother rises from her chair and with assistance from Amy and her maid, descends the stairs and sees the steward open the safe, at which point the house collapses. Amy takes the money, frees Arthur and the two are married. Well, I hope this quick sketch does justice to the characterizations in this book. What can be said? It is truly Dickensian! Debtors prison is the Victorian answer to welfare and the novel does serviceable duty in presenting the life style of both down and outers as well as the worst elements of snobbery in the genteel set. As such, the story is illuminating as history and as a study in character. It is a story that stuck with me. As to whether it could be classified as a 'fun read,' well on that score, the book does fall somewhat short. Little Dorritt is big and heady stuff.
A great work long unnoticed June 24, 1999
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
"Bleak House" may have been masterfully managed, but I preferred this tense tale of poverty, riches and the parasitic class that breeds both. It is as cautionary a tale as the former: the role of the machinery of government and capitalist class on the lives of all under them has never been so powerfully depicted. Mr Merdle was based on a real person, a Sadlier who killed himself in Hyde Park when he caused the Tipperary Bank to fail. Amy Dorrit is to be preferred to Esther Summerson as a heroine in not being so off-puttingly and impossibly sweet. Dickens' mastery of plot is such to create an exciting mystery and a rich interweaving of character and plot that kept me up all night unravelling the puzzle.
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