I finished Christmas Carol but am disappointed. This manlet just

Welcome to the Victorian mindset.

>>8898876

> Descriptive writing just seems to be the lowest form of writing.

> Judging classical lit but YA standards

Stick to Harry Potter

>>8898876
>and only seem to be masturbatory 'aren't I an amazing writer' passages.

Projecting insecure beta.

Check em, retards.

Btw, this board has been reddit for 2 years, /lit/ is dead.

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dickens can be a slog but it's not because of description, it's because he writes stories about cartoon characters. if the story actually grabbed you the description would have a better chance of enhancing it.

example: dostoevsky. just as much extraneous description, far superiour characters. crime & punishment is packed with unnecessary room layouts but once you reach a certain point it's hard to put down.

basically you don't like dickens because it's pulp

>>8898900
Dostoevsky loved Dickens if course, reading David Copperfield and Pickwick Papers in Siberia by candlelight.

As for myself, I like his earlier writing, Sketched By Boz and Oliver Twist. They are well observed and gritty works without being overly sentimental.

>>8898900
Have you actually read Dickens or are you just repeating criticisms of him you've heard? More specifically have you read Bleak House?

It's not even the description or the flat characters that kills Dickens for me (both can be good). It's the overwhelming feeling that nothing is fucking happening and there is still 500 more pages for it to not happen.

>nothing happens
literature isn't for you sorry

>Descriptive writing just seems to be the lowest form of writing

>>8899037
Again this does not sound like someone who has read Dickens: his novels are often incredibly plot heavy

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>>8898876
Just leave the Victorians and older classics alone, then. Some of us can actually still appreciate them. Fucking "read for plot" 21st-century boys. Who the fuck thinks Christmas Carol is too long? It's a fucking fast-moving novella, for Christ's sake? What would you do with a real novel like Bleak House or Hard Times? "Necessary to the story" my ass. You're better qualified than Dickens to decide that, are you? Go watch a movie.

>>8899037
you have to understand that he was paid by the word

>>8899247
You may be right when it comes to some people, but sometimes I cannot quite place why I dislike a book, myself. I have not had this problem with Dickens, but with Joyce and Faulkner. Maybe it just did not suit him, like Faulkner and Joyce don't seem to suit me.

>>8898876
Dude was paid by the word.

>>8898885
This, why the fuck are these sorts of criticisms jumped at so ducking relentlessly? If all you have to say about a book is that you think, based on zero evidence, that the author liked himself to a degree that makes you uncomfortable, newsflash::: you're a shitty reader.

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>>8899271
>>8899411

>mfw people still believe the "paid by the word" meme

>>8899271
>>8899411
No, he wrote instalments for periodicals on a monthly basis (with the exception of hard times which was weekly) which is not being paid by the word. Whilst there are perhaps some instances of padding out sections in his work - the too-often recurrence of Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield for instrance - his novels are generally very fast paced and not as everyone in this thread seems to suggest unnecessarily descriptive. It seems that none of the people criticising Dickens in this thread have actually read his work.

>>8899437
It is even the case that Mr. Micawber returning perhaps too many times is both important to the plot and characterisation - his disproportionate influence on David also making sense because he is modelled on Dickens' own father - and would be far less treating if the story was read as it was originally published: with substantial breaks between each book

>>8898876
What filler? The thing's a hundred pages.

>>8898925

i've read christmas carol and almost finished with oliver twist. if his other works have three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional characters then of course my criticism wouldn't apply to it

>>8898888
daaammn

Are you fucking retarded
Dickens' writing in that book literally summons the feeling of Christmas just with the prose, the conversational tone, the descriptions of the food and the scenery are amazing
I seriously hope you stop reading some time soon

>>8898888
nice