Something Old

 Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published four or more years ago.   

 “MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT” by Charles Dickens (first published in serial form 1843-44; published in book form 1844)

In the very early days of his blog, nearly 12 years ago, I wrote articles on earlier works by Charles Dickens – a survey of his five “Christmas Stories”  and his The Old Curiosity Shop. But more recently, whenever I’ve written about Dickens’ work, I’ve concentrated on his more mature, adult and sombre works, with accounts of Our Mutual Friend, Little Dorrit and Bleak House .  So I’ve decided to look again at something not as mature as Dickens’ most adult novels. Martin Chuzzlewit was written after his picaresque Pickwick Papers, his brilliant story of crime and the lower depths Oliver Twist, his melodramatic [and funny] Nicholas Nickleby, his sentimental Old Curiosity Shop and his historical (and least-read) novel Barnaby Rudge. But he had not yet written his partly-autobiographical David Copperfield, and he had certainly not yet written those often more melancholy and more adult novels Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations [his masterpiece], Hard Times and - though badly botched in its trick ending - Our Mutual Friend.

I see Martin Chuzzlewit as a kind of hinge to Dickens’ work. Dickens is halfway between the early melodrama and knockabout and the later sober and solemn.

Following my well-worn habit, I give you first a glib brief synopsis and then a more detailed one.

Brief Synopsis: Young Martin Chuzzlewit has a falling-out with his grandfather, Old Martin, over his plans to marry Old Martin’s ward Mary Graham. Young Martin is apprenticed for a while to a hypocritical architect, Mr. Seth Pecksniff, but he is forced to quit.  With Mark Tapley as his servant, young Martin travels to America seeking his fortune, but in vain. When he returns to England, the murderous schemes of his cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit are exposed as is the hypocrisy of Mr Pecksniff… and there is a happy ending in which Martin gets married to Mary Graham and he is reconciled to his grandfather.

Far too simplified a synopsis, isn’t it? Let’s flesh it out with a more Detailed Synopsis. (Far more detailed in fact. You’re going to be snoring before you get to the end of it.)

For the whole Chuzzlewit family, everything hinges of the wealth of Old Martin Chuzzlewit. He is very wealthy but he is apparently very ill. His family gather around him in Salisbury, such as his brother Anthony Chuzzlewit who is the father of Jonas Chuzzlewit; and distant relatives like Mr. Pecksniff, who is the father of two uncharitable and merciless daughters called Mercy and Charity. Also gathering with the clan are the likes of Chevy Slyme (Dickens wasn’t always subtle with the names he devised) and a sponger called Montague Tigg. Having a family gathering around a very sick man, in the hopes of being benefitting from his will, is a situation very like Ben Jonson’s Volpone. Much of the gathering takes place in the Blue Dragon Inn, run by Mrs Lupin, where the melancholy Mark Tapley works as a servant.

But despite expectations, Old Martin does not die. He goes back to London with his young ward Mary Graham. Young Martin Chuzzlewit is very much in love with Mary Graham, but Old Martin – who has legal control over Mary - refuses to let them marry. Young Martin accepts a position as apprentice to the architect Mr Pecksniff. He is befriended by the charitable and naïve Tom Pinch, who believes Pecksniff is a genius, even though we know Pecksniff’s reputation is built on plagiarising the work of his apprentices and trainees. Indeed Pecksniff’s fraudulence was known by a previous apprentice, John Westlock, who left Pecksniff’s business in disgust. But for some cloudy reason, Old Martin befriends the oily Pecksniff and expresses his dislike for young Martin… and Pecksniff devises a way of having young Martin fired. At about the same time, thoughtful, melancholy Mark Tapley, seeking something “jolly”, leaves his employ at the Blue Dragon Inn, and joins young Martin (who is aided by some unknown benefactor) as he sets off to find his fortune in America. Before they go, Martin meets John Westlock, and they express their shared disgust with Pecksniff.

At this point the tone of the novel changes radically, with Martin and Mark Tapley in the alien environment of the United States. The two of them land in New York. They fall in with the likes of Colonel Diver, Jefferson Brick and Major Pawkins, American “boosters” and self-promoters who constantly laud the American concept of Liberty while at the same time taking slaves for granted….

Meanwhile, back in England, Martin’s uncle Anthony Chuzzlewit dies – and Anthony’s son Jonas Chuzzlewit loudly draws everyone’s attention to the fact that there were witnesses to verify that Anthony died of natural causes. Jonas is now the heir to Anthony’s wealth. He pays court to Mr Pecksniff’s two daughters. Dickens inserts much comedy into the fact that these obnoxious creatures, Charity and Mercy, have frequent cat-fights, and while Jonas Chuzzlewit is generally expected to marry Charity, he instead marries Mercy… And it is at this point, well into the novel, that Dickens tries to ramp up the comedy by introducing us to the old drunken nurse Sarah Gamp (and her friend Betsy Prig), not to mention the inhabitants of Mrs. Todgers’ lodging house in London, including  the Puck-ish servant Bailey, and Mr Mould the undertaker (once again, score one for Dickens making up such a subtle name). Dickens now piles on the “low” comedy of these characters, especially Sarah Gump, whose illiterate and often drunken soliloquys were apparently regarded as hilarious when the novel first appeared, with Sarah Gamp making such [repeated] observations as “Don’t try no impogician with the Nuss, for she will not abear it!” (Chapter 40). Somehow I think this no longer raises a laugh. Old Martin at this time seems to suffer some form of stroke. He effects a reconciliation with Mr Pecksniff who, of course, is very solicitous towards him in the hope of inheriting his wealth. So Old Martin and Mary Graham now live in Pecksniff’s home….

Meanwhile in America, young Martin and Mark Tapley have met at least one honest American, Mr Bevan. But despite his honest advice, Martin and Mark purchase from shysters land in “Eden”, which Martin imagines to be a city where he will prosper as an architect. Martin and Mark travel there by riverboat, all the while hearing the boasting of “boosters” like General Choke, General Fladdock and La Fayette Kettle. “Eden” turns out to be a desolate swamp where people die of fever. Only Mark’s acquired cheerfulness and common sense keep Martin going… so Martin and Mark, bereft of funds, decide to return to England…

Meanwhile in England, the widower Mr Pecksniff is making advances to Mary Graham. She repulses him. One evening, in the church where Tom Pinch plays the organ, Mary Graham reveals to Tom the true nature of grasping, lecherous, hypocritical Pecksniff. The scales fall from Tom Pinch’s eyes… but little do Mary and Tom know that Pecksniff is eavesdropping and overhears the whole conversation. Back in his home, Pecksniff confronts Tom Pinch and dismisses him. Tom Pinch goes to work in London where he lives with his sister Ruth Pinch, who works as a governess. John Westlock gravitates towards them. Needing employment, Tom gains a comfortable post, by the agency of Mr Fips, as private librarian to an unknown benefactor. [“OY!  ”, you say at this point. “Isn’t there something suspicious in these ‘unknown benefactors’ conveniently popping up!!??”]

Meanwhile, we have unhappy scenes of the marriage of the villainous Jonas Chuzzlewit and Pecksniff’s daughter Mercy. Jonas becomes involved in a fraudulent insurance company run by the (now prosperous) Montague Tigg, attracting to its board the likes of David Crimple and Dr. John Jobling… Montague Tigg and Jonas Chuzzlewit involve Mr. Pecksniff in their schemes…. But Tigg now begins to blackmail Jonas, having heard nasty rumours about how Jonas’s father Anthony Chuzzlewit really died… So stalking Montague Tigg through the darkness, Jonas murders him.

At which point, inevitable in Dickens’ earlier novels, and in this novel, the happy denouement announces itself. Happy endings are unavoidable. Back from America, Martin and Mark Tapley join forces with Tom and Ruth Pinch and John Westlock. Tom’s unknown benefactor turns out to be (drum-roll please) Old Martin Chuzzlewit. And it was (another drum role) Old Martin who left money for Martin to travel to America… It turns out that Old Martin was simply testing young Martin’s mettle all along and he is much pleased to find the young man morally improved by his experience. In a scene in which all the novel’s sympathetic characters are gathered together, Old Martin confronts Pecksniff, berates him for his hypocrisy, and beats him with his cane. Pecksniff is financially ruined when the fraudulent insurance company crashes. Thanks to detective work by minor characters (oh alright then… Nadgett and Lewsome) the crimes of Jonas Chuzzlewit (murdering his own father and Montague Tigg) are revealed. Jonas escapes hanging by drinking his own poison. This leaves Mercy a widow, but she is received sympathetically by the sympathetic characters even as her sister, poor carping Charity, is being jilted by a bounder called Moddle.

So John Westlock marries Ruth Pinch. Mark Tapley marries widow Mrs. Lupin of the Blue Dragon Inn. And young Martin Chuzzlewit marries Mary Graham at last, while Tom Pinch plays the organ.

I beg you at this point to stop swearing, as all I have done so far is to give you a very detailed synopsis. But I did [WAKE UP!] warn you that by this point you would be snoring. In fact I have been charitable to you. If you think I have introduced in this account more named characters than you can remember, I beg you to understand that there are even more named characters whom I have not mentioned.

Now what do I make of this frankly messy novel?

 Typical of Dickens, there are whole chapters which involve characters who are not essential to the plot, such as it is - like the garrulous Sarah Gamp, the toasts she proposes and her endless gossip about “Mrs. Harris”. There are redundant side-shows such as Bailey, the cheeky Cockney servant from Mrs Todger’s establishment, who seems killed after falling off a coach, but who returns for the happy finale. Then there’s old Anthony Chuzzlewit’s clerk Old Chuffey and… oh, the hell with it. Too many side-shows. Too many redundant characters.

In one of his many books, G. K. Chesterton said that Dickens’ novels were all simply lengths cut out from the same cloth called Dickens. This judgement probably makes fastidious academics hopping mad, but it’s hard not to see some truth in Chesterton’s statement as you plunge back into one of Dickens’ more chaotic novels. Familiar features are a profusion of characters who are not really necessary to the story (Sarah Gamp is as detachable from the plot as Harold Skimpole is from Bleak House). There are those frequent descriptions of food and feasts and that melodramatic use of the weather. There is that messy construction, repetition, and yet great vitality. Something is always going on, even if it is of no real import.

And typically, when it comes to the main characters, nobody really works (one of the great virtues of Great Expectations is that Pip eventually resigns himself to having to work.) Yes, Pecksniff is an architect, but frankly we never see him at work in his profession, apart from learning that he plagiarises other people’s work. (Perhaps Dickens didn’t know all that much about architecture). Young Martin seeks work as an architect in America, but this is simply a plot throwaway as he never attracts any work. Tom Pinch works in a private library. And (apart, of course, from clerks, servants, one governess and comical characters like Sarah Gamp) that is really it for work in this novel. The main characters’ ideal is to live an easy life on unearned income – a legacy or a wealthy marriage. (I steal this view from George Orwell’s essay on Dickens… but Orwell was right.) Likewise, nobody really discusses politics, religion, current affairs etc. But then it may be the absence of these things that prevents the novel from “dating” in the wrong way, as happened with the work of George Meredith whose reputation faded away because he stuck too often to topical problems that now mean nothing to us.

In Martin Chuzzlewit some characters are presented in a barely credible way. A sort of trick is played on the reader with regard to the novel’s villains Mr Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit.  By his manner, bearing and pompously self-important way of speaking, Mr Pecksniff is made detestable to us before he has actually done anything reprehensible.  (This is very much the same technique used by Dickens in characterising Uriah Heep in his later novel David Copperfield - we are triggered to see a character as negative or malign before we really have the evidence.) Pecksniff’s hypocrisy is largely a matter of tone of voice. And it is disconcerting that the language of grandiloquent speeches, in which Old Martin denounces Pecksniff, are virtually indistinguishable from Pecksniff’s own speeches.

In a (messy) plot-driven novel, there are many psychological inconsistencies. There is the absurd contrivance of Old Martin himself, finally revealing that he has been play-acting. (Dickens ruins Our Mutual Friend by pulling the same stunt.) And one sees no reason for Old Martin to live with the Pecksniffs, except that it suits Dickens’ story. Tom Pinch is presented as totally trusting and admiring Pecksniff, yet his trust is shattered by one conversation with Mary Graham (conveniently overheard by Pecksniff). Tom Pinch, hitherto callow and easily deceived, goes to London and at once has the resilience, savvy and forthrightness to confront his sister Ruth’s employers and denounce the way they patronise her. Most flawed of all as a character is young Martin Chuzzlewit himself. There is a spark of something interesting in his character – young Martin is conceited and proud. Dickens was moving a little way from the flawless protagonist (Nicholas Nickleby) to the flawed and self-examining protagonist (Pip in Great Expectations). But once young Martin arrives in America, his conceit is gone and he simply becomes Dickens’ mouthpiece for what the author thought of America. (Dickens had spent six months on a tour of the United States in 1842, was not very impressed with the country and its mores, and wrote a travel book about it, American Notes). Martin gets to make such observations as “[America] was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part of it may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues and associations, seemed to be melted down to dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that feel into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up and knocked down for its dollars…” (Chapter 16) One can’t help wondering why, if young Martin is so aware of rampant American materialism and shyster-ism, that he is gullible enough to fall for the shonky “Eden” speculation. Mark Tapley is necessary to extricate young Martin from his mistakes – a ghost of Sam Weller helping Mr Pickwick perhaps? As for young Martin’s attachment to Mary Graham, she is presented in such generic terms that it’s hard to accept her as a real character at all.

Unlike some of Dickens’ other novels, this one does not seem to attack any English social institution (parish relief, Yorkshire schools, debtors prisons, Chancery etc.). Apart from entertaining its readers over 19 serial months, its main point seems to have been the danger of self-love, though this is not very clearly worked out. And what of the “satire” that is in this novel? One critic, referring to the American section, called it “a good satire embedded in an indifferent novel”. Oops! That turns out to be G. K. Chesterton again.

By this stage, you think you have seen me systematically trashing a novel by Dickens. Not quite. It does have its genuinely funny moments. It does treat us to a little bit of the grotesque. It has some real – and savage – satire in the American sections. But it is still one of Dickens’ less illustrious novels and one of the first I would happily kick out of the Dickens’ canon if that were possible.