'Dombey and Son' by Charles Dickens

Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens’s story of a powerful man whose callous neglect of his family triggers his professional and personal downfall, showcases the author’s gift for vivid characterization and unfailingly realistic description.

MY THOUGHTS:  

Whew, I aim to read all the Dickens novels, but this Victorian domestic drama about the changing fortunes of the arrogant shipping magnate, Mr Paul Dombey, was almost the end of that goal.

The beginning felt promising. I bonded with two main characters until about the 200 page mark when Dickens rips them both right out of the plot. He sends one away on a fruitless voyage and kills off the other, but by this stage, I'd progressed far enough into the story to persevere, even though I felt shortchanged. (Another reviewer commented something like, 'It's times like this when we see the "dick" in Dickens.' Strong words but fair point.)

He leaves us four other main characters to fill the slow-moving bulk of the middle section, but they're all either too unpleasant or too passive for me transfer the affection I felt for the pair he nixed. 

First, of course, is Mr Paul Dombey Senior, a conceited snob who despises the general public, yet lives to impress them. He's in the position to manipulate others like puppets; employees and family alike. His petty purposes devastate several lives, yet he doesn't care. He treats his daughter like dirt and selects his second wife based on admiration of her haughty carriage, which he trusts will complement his own pomposity. Even his affection for his son is all tied up with how the boy will enable him to enhance his own image. He's rude and dismissive, basically never changes throughout the whole story, and makes decisions with the sole aim to upset people. 

He breaks up other families more than once, bosses his wife around, orders his manager do his dirty work, makes his daughter a general scapegoat, breaks off friendships on a whim and expects devotion for trifles. The list goes on. Seriously, this guy is a bad egg, which makes it incredibly difficult to sympathise with the blows of misfortune he suffers, and to maintain our interest in him over 800 pages.

Second main character is Florence, his loving, young daughter. She's one of Dickens' angelic young women who can do no wrong, but I believe he stretches saintliness to a fault in her case. How Florence can keep doggedly loving a father who treats her with contempt and emotional abuse from the moment of her birth is beyond me. He sends the young man she's fond of off to sea out of pure malice, and Florence knows it full well, yet still pines for his paternal love with such devotion. Dickens writes her character with his usual sentimental hint that we should all strive to be more like Florence, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth because in this case he seems to be recommending that we glorify Stockholm Syndrome. 

Sure, I understand that her hands were tied to a huge extent. It was the Victorian era, which meant Florence was essentially a prisoner in her father's house. It was not her inability to take action I objected to, but rather her unnaturally submissive attitude. 

Third is the haughty and scornful Edith, Dombey's second wife, who knows she's being bought, sulkily chooses to go along with the plan, then pulls off one of the biggest passive-aggressive sulks in literature. I will say this for her though, she has a breaking point and I applaud her for never considering a bad guy to be 'good.' 

The fourth main character is James Carker, Dombey's manager and right-hand man. He manipulates people's lives with the same dispassion as his employer, is an expert at subtle blackmail, and his weakness for young women of a certain appearance is his undoing.

 I often had to force myself to pick up the book, since the fortunes of these four did nothing for my curiosity, especially when they faint and scream in such melodramatic ways (or at least the females do). But I hate to think I've come to the end of a Dickens novel with nothing to recommend it, so I thought I'd try to make a list. It turns out there is plenty after all, since I came up with a dozen. 

1) Baby Paul's icy baptism day, which matches his father's personality.

2) Susan Nipper, a quick-witted spitfire with a great heart who loves her young lady, and doesn't hesitate to give the great man himself a piece of her mind. 

3) Mrs Pipchin's establishment at Brighton, with all of its weird houseplants, and young Paul's morbid fascination with her ogress appearance.

4) The theft of young Florence's clothes by 'Good Mother Brown.'

5) Walter, that cheerful, merry-hearted lad with light-footed, light-hearted approach. 

6) Carker's teeth! This gleaming white set of chompers is mentioned almost every time he appears, giving him a predatory, prowling, evil Cheshire cat vibe. Dickens really succeeded in playing on the creepiness of apparent beauty, for to Carker's Victorian peers with their chipped, missing and rotting teeth, his mouth was a masterpiece. I think those teeth are what will stick longest in my memory.

7) The final straw, when Florence runs off and subsequently makes her own decision regarding who she'll marry. High time too! And of course the fact that she actually has somewhere else to turn when her rotten father pushes her over the edge is enough to make any reader cheer.  

8) Ghoulish Mrs Skewton, Edith's mother, and her quest to stay eternally young, even though every single feature is fake. 

9) Kindly Captain Cuttle and his frenzied Masterchef efforts when Florence unexpectedly shows up on his door; juggling saucepans and frying pans everywhere. 

10) The wonderful, contemporary illustrations by Hablot K. Browne, aka Phiz.  

11) Florence's simple-hearted admirer, young Mr Toots, and his tendency to deliver one-liners that state the obvious, such as greeting Walter, who has survived a horrific shipwreck, with, 'I'm afraid you must have got very wet.' 

12) Finally, the beautiful sibling bond between Florence and young Paul was really heartwarming. 

Okay, so now I've talked myself out of regretting reading this dragging monster of a book, but I'm still baffled by all the 5-star reviews on Goodreads, not to mention Dickens' fellow Victorian author, W. M. Thackeray who reputedly despaired writing against, 'Such power as this.' I don't deny the novel is written with genius, yet I still struggled to get through it, in which case, according to my ranking criteria, I feel I can't quite give it three stars.

🌟🌟½