Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens is my best friend! I own almost all of his books, and Nicholas Nickleby is one of my favorites. It's an adorable little story and a great read! So if you are looking for something good to read, this is it.

This is one of the greatest stories ever...... it will make you angry,make you weep,make you rejoice,and make you revel in all that is good and worthy in human nature, as well as scorn all that is bad and guided by avarice. READ IT

Nicholas Nickleby is a stinging satire of makeshift schools where anyone can call themselves a "teacher" without the credentials needed to instruct students. Cruelty, greed, and class rigidity are the things Nicholas Nickleby rises to the occasion by being a compassionate and well bred Englishman in spite of his greedy uncle Ralph Nickleby. Dickens employs rich characterization and memorable subjects in Nicholas Nickleby. It is part satire and mystery concerning depths greed and depravity.

Nicholas Nickelby is the story of the pursuit of personal gain versus the pursuit of love and family. The entire book is drenched in this theme. It is an engrossing tale, and its characters memorable. Dickens can create heroes and villains with the best of them, and pit them against each other to show the good versus evil dynamic. Nicholas and Kate, along with their mother are left destitute when their father engages in speculation and loses everything, then in an act of cowardice, surrenders and dies. The survivors are left to appeal to his brother Ralph, and evil man who loves nothing but money.

The two children are employed in various places and undergo trials. It never says why the mother never attempted to work anywhere. It is left to the children to save them. There were villains enough, but curiously Mrs. Nickelby, Nicholas' mother was my least favorite character. She was self-absorbed, self-deceived, and was possessed of so many air-head, stupid, ramblings, made me resent it when the scene included her. What I did not understand was how the son and daughter of a quitter and a complete airhead, could be so virtuous, honest and pure in their character.

Also, Dicken's style is often predisposed to ramblings and excessive wording to get the point across, to the point of wearing the reader out. My audiobook version had 25 discs, should have been 20.

I give this four stars, but should this have been written today, a good editor could have gotten this to be a five-star book.