Charles Dickens, The Complete Novels
Oliver Twist (1838) **
The sarcastic, humanitarian commentary keeps this series of unfortunate exemplars from being truly depressing, but it's mainly interesting as an unreliable docudrama, with handy statistics to share as if they were facts. Even as one of his more reasonably-sized books, with a cast you can keep track of without a flowchart, it can't help itself from getting distracted. Such is the burden of omniscience.
Never making it past my mandatory minimum daily page count in the big book, I fell back on cheating, distracted audiobooks to get through the second half. There's hopefully one in here I'll enjoy.
Paradise Lost, Books I–VI (1667/74) *****
The endless similes are annoying, and if the excessive fawning before Heav'n's awful Monarch isn't satirical after all then it's just distasteful, but this is still the peak of old-school literature. Being one of the few small books among oversized omnibi has made this a convenient and inappropriately epic companion for walking my appropriately blind cat, with wandering attention and slow. This might be a disrespectful chapter in its antiquarian journey, but so was flogging it on eBay for a few quid.
Harold's Fairy Tale (1956) ***
The original story was the most impressive kidz' klassik I checked out on a baby's behalf before we started reading together. She still couldn't be less interested in Harold's duochromatic dreamscapes, so I got on with the cash-in sequels myself. The fairy tale spin doesn't take this one too off course, but the adorable logic's samey.
Harold's Trip to the Sky (1958) **
Most notable from the fore edge for its dark pages, this star trek feels so uneventful that this is still the most noteworthy thing after reading.
Harold's Circus (1959) ***
Back down to Earth for wholesome family fun with exploited animals and freaks. None of the sequels were really worth reading, as expected, but I will insist on these value multipacks.
The Universal History of Iniquity (1935) **
These unreliable summary biographies are presumably proving some sort of point, because they're not entertaining yarns in their own right. It picks up at the end, when he starts summarising folk tales instead, but he can hardly get credit for that.
Carry On, Jeeves (1925) ****
After the desired origin story it's back to more of the same as the previous book (all of the books?). Character growth would kill the serial, Jeeves' increasingly supernatural air is presumably the author exhausting the thesaurus. Eminently readable, but funnier on infrequent visits than when you're into the swing, what? Even without the cash-in cover, there's no unseeing Fry and Laurie, and it's all the better for it.
