Okay, if you’re not into Victorian London or orphans, this guy’s a bit of a tough sell. My long-standing associations with Dickens were limited to “please, sir, I’d like some more” and muppets. I like muppets.
The key into this one for me was something I’m a total sucker for (this is pretty specific, so I might lose some of you here): descriptions of food. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve reread the part in The Hobbit when the dwarves are raiding Bilbo’s pantry– poppyseed cakes and apple tart and cold chicken and pickles! Lush, detailed descriptions of food are enough to make even a mediocre novel memorable; the good news is that Dickens sure ain’t mediocre to start with.
Pick up A Christmas Carol. Yes, even if you’ve seen a gajillion adaptations of it (though I won’t claim that the novel is better than A Muppet Christmas Carol, because who are we kidding?) It’s moody and sad and festive and *short.*
And, hey, it’s another title to cross off that damned BBC top 100 list that makes us all feel inadequate.
“He was consious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.”
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
“Marley was dead, to begin with … This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”