How to Read Dickens

And why his stories enlarge our souls

London Bridge, John Atkinson Grimshaw

For the modern reader, Dickens can be a challenge. His novels are (very) long, bursting with (many) memorable characters, and his sentences can be (extremely) complex. If you aren’t regularly reading old books, jumping into one of his novels will be difficult. Even if you are in the habit of reading older, more challenging books, Dickens can still prove to be a bit of a steep intellectual climb.

Why should you take advice on reading Dickens from me? I am no scholar. I’ve never written a dissertation nor spent years of my life writing about various aspects of Dickens’ body of work. I am simply an amateur: I love Dickens’ writing, the beauty of his stories and how vivid and life-like his characters are. There is no writer that can make me laugh and cry quite like he can.

I realized recently that after reading six of his novels in the past couple of years, I have learned a few ways to make his books a bit more accessible. I hope you’ll have the courage to read one of his novels if you never have: it is well worth the effort.

Tips for Reading Dickens:

1. Be patient. Dickens is a master at weaving rich tapestries, but it takes time for the landscape to take shape. Trust that he is leading you somewhere good. Sometimes I am 200 pages into one of his novels before I really start to get into it, which sounds crazy when so much recent advice tells you to just stop reading if you encounter a book you don’t care for.

   If your only goal when reading is entertainment, then by all means, only read books that you like. But if you are reading for deepened insight and increased understanding, it’s inevitable that you will encounter books that take effort to understand. Books that offer this sort of interior transformation are good for us, and that type of reading can be difficult. In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler says:

   Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up to their level.¹

   So don’t despair if your first foray into Dickens is slow going. It probably will be, and that’s okay. Books that we spend weeks (or months!) with have the ability to deeply soak into our souls and change us in a way that a book we race through in a day just can’t. 

2. Keep a list of characters. Jot down names as they pop up and add details as the story progresses. Again, Dickens is a master at connecting seemingly unrelated story-lines and sub-plots; keeping a list will help you keep the cast of characters straight. (Some editions of his novels have a list of characters at the beginning of the book; this is very helpful! I still think it’s good to write your own list because you can add details that aren’t included in the book’s list).

3. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every sentence. Don’t let one murky sentence discourage you. Keep reading. The more you read, the more you’ll be able to understand. Like fog imperceptibly dispersing on a gloomy autumn morning, Dickens’ writing will slowly become clearer, until the brilliance of the sun breaks through and you are sailing through his words, understanding everything.  Mortimer Adler has more good advice on this:

   In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.²

   I’m not sure that I object to looking up unfamiliar words the first time through a hard book, but Adler’s idea is an important one: don’t let a few difficult words/sentences bog you down. Keep reading.

4. Read with a pencil, and make notes/underline passages as you go. Because reading a book is a conversation between you and the author³, writing in a book helps you remember thoughts and impressions you had while reading it, and will help make the ideas of the book your own. (Then, come back here and share your favorite passages from Dickens with me because I want to hear them!)

5. Savor. Relish. Linger. Dickens’ novels are a feast. Feasts are to enjoy, to take in slowly and let them change us. They are best savored.

   

   Peaches and Grapes, Henri Fantin-Latour

---

So why, exactly, should anyone read Dickens? If his books are old, and hard to read, and take forever to finish, why should we keep reading the words that he wrote nearly 200 years ago? Anne Lamott sums it up best:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

There is something world-changing about a great story, and Dickens’ novels have changed me deeply with their ability to turn my attention to what is noble and true and good.

---

Do you have a favorite novel by Dickens? I’d love to hear about it in the comments (although I’m not sure I could pick a favorite; it seems like the last Dickens novel I finish is my current favorite!)

---

Keep seeking the virtuous and the lovely,

Shannon

---

Dickens novels I have read:

-Bleak House

-Little Dorrit

-Dombey and Son

-Hard Times

-A Tale of Two Cities

-The Old Curiosity Shop

-David Copperfield

---

1. Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 48.

2. Adler, How to Read a Book, 36.

3. Adler, How to Read a Book, 49