Martin Chuzzlewit feels like the beginning of Dickens' second act. While all of his previous books had strengths (and I probably still viscerally prefer Nicholas Nickleby), this, his 9th major work and 6th novel, was written after the celebrity Dickens' return from America, and marks the start of a busier lifestyle for the author, which included social engagements, speaking tours, and community responsibilities, not to mention a growing household. My suspicion is that he started devoting more time to the nuances of his writing - not the descriptions, which have always been first-rate, but the character arcs. The vivid characters of Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp have a comic life of their own, while the analysis of human folly among the Chuzzlewit family is a deeper, more internal attempt at storytelling which Dickens would return to in his next novel, Dombey and Son. For the first time, Dickens hasn't felt the need to make his central character a paper-thin but sentimental naif (not that young Martin is exactly the most scintillating of figures).

We'll dock a couple of points for the American sequences, which have a reasonable level of thematic resonance but are clearly filler, but this is a new, more "novelistic" side of Dickens that can't be ignored. I certainly think more people should be reading Martin Chuzzlewit when they feel like a taste of Dickens. ( )

A major improvement on Barnaby Rudge. Semblance of a plot and some great characters. Even some character development. ( )

“At every turn!” cried Martin. “Self, self, self. Every one among them for himself!”

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And it being quite impossible that any difference of opinion can take place among women without every woman who is within hearing taking active part in it...

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Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage.

But all men have to wait for time and tide.

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...they’re so fond of Liberty in this part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to market with ‘em. They’ve such a passion for Liberty, that they can’t help taking liberties with her.

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Oh, weary, weary hour! Oh, haggard mind, groping darkly through the past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present; dragging its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and revels, and scenes of awful pomp; seeking but a moment’s rest among the long-forgotten haunts of childhood, and the resorts of yesterday; and dimly finding fear and horror everywhere! Oh, weary, weary hour! What were the wanderings of Cain, to these!

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Almost gave up on this halfway through. It started out well, got *extremely* boring and diffuse, then ended up back together neatly enough, though it took Dickens flat changing the personalities of some of the characters to do so. If I wasn't committed to reading everything of Dickens's, I would not have finished this one. ( )

Not his finest hour by any means. This is the one Dickens novel I cannot recommend. None of the characters are appealing in any way, the American episode drags on, Dickens sparing no opportunity to hate on America. But stay with it, there is one glorious moment where the wonder of Dickens descriptive powers shines through and you can forgive him everything for those few pages. ( )