The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens’s first novel. It tells the story of Samuel Pickwick and the other members of the Pickwick Club. The group is comprised of members who journey around England with a goal of studying human nature. Hence, the narrative is episodic and anecdotal. 

Over the course of their very amusing travels, the Pickwickians encounter all sorts of colorful characters, experience many adventures and mishaps, and consume lots of food and drink. They are an affable but pretentious group. This creates plenty of opportunities for humor. The book reminded me in many ways of Don Quixote. 

The Pickwickians include: Nathaniel Winkle, who claims to be a sportsman, but who generally makes a fool of himself whenever he engages in any sport and Augustus Snodgrass, who is a man who claims to be a poet but who seems to write no poetry. Also included is Tracy Tupman, who is a self-proclaimed ladies’ man but is clownish and overweight. Sam Weller is Mr. Pickwick’s loyal servant. His smart aleck sense of humor and charm makes him, for me, the most entertaining character in the book. For his part, Mr. Pickwick is overweight and good natured but bit silly and pompous. There are numerous additional colorful characters, including drunken medical students and malevolent attorneys. 

There are also many side stories. Often, the characters, both major and minor, tell tales ranging from accounts of everyday events to the fantastical. There are also several underlying plot threads that pop up throughout the novel. One is the misunderstanding and subsequent legal battle between Mrs. Martha Bardell and Mr. Pickwick. Mrs. Bardell is a widow who is Mr. Pickwick’s landlady. She mistakes Mr. Pickwick’s naturally friendly and courteous disposition for romantic interest and a marriage proposal. This leads to not only hurt feelings but to a legal battle that resurfaces at various points in the narrative. Another subplot involves conman Alfred Jingle and his servant, who vex the Pickwickians at several points in the story.

The narrative is, with occasional exceptions, light, funny and entertaining. At times I found myself laughing out loud. Pickwick and his associates are often silly and buffoonish. With that, they all display a sense of decency and act charitably towards others. 

In this early Dickens effort, many of the themes and plot devices that will appear later are present here in a less developed form. Dickens’s contempt for the legal profession, fully developed in Bleak House, manifests itself in this work. Attorneys involved in his legal proceedings are shown to be inefficient, cruel and unethical. The side story of Gaberial Grub, a sexton with a nasty personality, is a precursor of A Christmas Carol. Grub is confronted on Christmas Eve by an army of goblins who excoriate him for his malicious disposition. Motivated by fear, Grub eventually reforms his ways. Like later Dickens, the book is full of colorful and over the top characters. 

I also think that the way that Dickens portrays the world throughout his books can be partially seen in this one. Though the tone of most of this novel is light, something dark in the universe manifests itself from time to time. At one point, Mr. Pickwick is in conversation with “The Dismal Man,” a philosophical but depressed character that the Pickwickians encounter in their travels. 

"‘Did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would be happiness and peace?’ ‘God bless me, no!’ replied Mr. Pickwick, edging a little from the balustrade, as the possibility of the dismal man’s tipping him over, by way of experiment, occurred to him rather forcibly. ‘I have thought so, often,’ said the dismal man, without noticing the action. ‘The calm, cool water seems to me to murmur an invitation to repose and rest. A bound, a splash, a brief struggle; there is an eddy for an instant, it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple; the waters have closed above your head, and the world has closed upon your miseries and misfortunes for ever.’ The sunken eye of the dismal man flashed brightly as he spoke, but the momentary excitement quickly subsided;"

Having read a fair amount of Dickens over the years, I find that the way that he describes the dark aspect of existence to be somewhat similar throughout his writings. Dickens clearly shows that there is a good side to existence. However, this gloomy aspect is always there. 

I also think that it is interesting that Dickens often shows the good side of humanity in the form of charity and compassion for others. In this novel, Mr. Pickwick does show much of that. The positive angle to existence is also shown here in the form of good cheer and fellowship. 

On a related note, Dickens’s social consciousness, which manifests itself so strongly in his later works, also appears in this book. When Mr. Pickwick loses his legal case, he refuses to pay the damages on principle. He voluntarily goes to debtor prison. There, he encounters human suffering and injustice that appalls him. One of many people that he encounters is a man whose life has been ruined after twenty years of imprisonment.  

"The Chancery prisoner had been there long enough to have lost his friends, fortune, home, and happiness… Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old greatcoat and slippers, with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty years."

The above quotes are not representative of this novel as a whole. As stated above, the book is mostly humorous, upbeat and extols the virtues of good cheer and friendship. 

I enjoyed The Pickwick Papers a lot. I found it to be very funny and entertaining. This book was pleasant to read. It also contains Dickens’s signature prose as well as multiple over the top characters.  I also found it interesting how so many ideas that the author used later on seem to originate in this novel. Though this would not be the first Dickens that I would read, it is a fine book for those who have already read and liked the famous author.