Final Thoughts on Little Dorrit

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Charles Dickens at his Desk in 1858 – This was from Wikimedia and I make no claim to ownership

OK, confession time – I did not finish Little Dorrit until last night.  I have a lot of excuses (other reading, a huge amount of writing, etc.) but for the most part they are just that, excuses. 

Anyway, when I was about three-quarters of the way through, I drew up a list of talking points.  Well, after finishing, I have some other things to say…. I will mention these talking points, I just won’t spend as much time with them as planned.  Still, maybe I will spend too much time on them ;) (long post warning…)

One thing that I noticed when I was deep into the book was that Dickens had spent the first 100 pages or so (my copy had 787 pages) just introducing characters and planting a few seeds of plot and subplot.  When I started reading, I only did a few pages at a time, usually before going to bed.  The problem was that there was no plot or substance to get my teeth into at first and so it was a real chore getting through the first 200 pages – I spent almost 4 months on those pages and less than 4 days on the other 587 pages!

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The Weekly Smile for the 14th of June, 2021 #weeklysmile

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For the most part, last week was a pretty good week with a lot of smiles, but there is one that I want to bring out.

On Tuesday our local Lions Club had our annual “end of year” meeting. In ways the club follows a school year with the summer having a minimum number of more social meetings. In September we will start our working meetings with new officers in place. Actually, the officers were put in place on Tuesday, so after two years, I am no longer the local club’s president.

Besides the smile about no longer being president, the meeting itself was a big smile. I think our last face-to-face meeting was back in February 2020 and had maybe 8 people attend. So we had a face-to-face meeting with 13 people. Not a huge number, but it was nice. We had it at a local restaurant. We reserved a room overlooking the river and had a buffet diner. It was very good. This was the first time I sat down in a restaurant since late February, 2020.

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The Weekly Smile Recap 6/7 – 6/13/2021 #weeklysmile

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Hi all! I think last week was a pretty good week for most, though, of course, in such a large world, it is impossible to be good for all! If you didn’t have the greatest of weeks, perhaps you can read one of the smiles below, or two or three… Even if you had a good week, what’s wrong with having another smile :)

Trent’s World
Light Motifs II
Sillyfrog’s Blog
Therapy Bits
A Multitude of Musing
Lady Lee Manila
Tesa Dean – Author
Change is Hard
Touring My Backyard
Thistles and Kiwis

Quite a few great smiles :) In past weeks I have missed a few links, so if you did join the June 7th Smile and don’t see a link, let me know and I’ll add it.

I’ll put up this week’s smile in about an hour. What made you smile?

Note – I will not be able to do a Smile post or recap on the 5th of July.

If We Were Having Coffee on the 12th of June, 2021 #weekend coffeeshare

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Hello and Welcome! Sit down and I’ll get you a nice, strong dark roast, a cuppa tea or other beverage. It is a little on the cool side and damp after a night of rain, but feels comfortable. After the heatwave we had, anything would be! 5 days of 90 – 98 F (33 – 37 C) was pretty bad, particularly since it was very humid a few of those days. We then had a warm Thursday (not hot) followed by an almost cold Friday! The next few days will be closer to normal. Oh, where are we? Some may recognize the photo at the top as being from new Hampshire.

The big news this week was the weather. It was pretty oppressive! But not totally terrible. I did get out for some shorter walks, though the dogs chose not to most of the time. I didn’t run,but did strength executrices (I ran last Saturday before it was too uncomfortable and then on Friday). I did some yard work over the weekend and had someone come in and do some yard work that is beyond me over the week. And I tried to stay cool :)

Work was busy, as always, but not bad.

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Little Dorrit Challenge Kick Off!

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Charles Dickens at his Desk in 1858 – This was from Wikimedia and I make no claim to ownership

You may have seen that Yvette Prior and I are running a small Little Dorrit challenge.  The challenge runs from today, June 9 (Dickens passed away on June 9, 1870) and will run until Sunday, June 13.  You can join by writing a post about the book and linking to any of mine or Yvette’s posts about it.  Your posts can be about anything at all – what you though of the book, a review, talking about the writing style, about the characters, about humor, about satire, about what you liked, about what you hated or anything else that comes to mind.

This post is to get things started with a few facts about the book.

Little Dorrit was originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story is set in London in 1826 and features Amy Dorrit, aka “Little Dorrit”, the youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London, the same place where Dickens’ father was imprisoned in real life. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew. (paraphrased from Wikipedia) In many ways Arthur is the real “main character”, not Little Dorrit, but she is the center of attention.

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The Return of Phythaux

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PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

“Well, there was this family of giants, see, and they loved to go to the beach and this is the old beachball, ya know, and…”

“Last time you said it was a dog’s ball.”

Harry was flustered for only a second before he started a new yarn combining the stories.

Truth be told, he loved the old novelty building, the giant red ball in the parking lot, and did a great business with his souvenir shop with its burger stand.

Harry stopped, his eyes huge.  “The dog wants his ball…”

We started to laugh until we heard the loud bark.

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word count = 100

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.  This week’s prompt is here and uses a photo © Dale Rogerson . Read more or join in by following the InLinkz “Linky“.

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Note on the title, just in case you didn’t get it Phythaux – Ph (F) – y (i) – th (d) – aux (o) – (Fido) ;) I got this from a cousin when I was about 10 and he said he got it from Bill Cosby, but I never heard that skit.

Sunrise #haiku

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first bird sings
dusky half-lit world
day arrives

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This was written for Collen’s weekly poetry challenge. This week we were given two words to use, dawn and twilight, but only synonyms are allowed. I wrote a haiku.

Just a quick comment – I obviously thought of Cat Steven’s version of Morning Has Broken after I wrote this. Of course I always liked Rick Wakeman’s uncredited piano playing (He is my favorite rock keyboardist).

The Weekly Smile for the 7th of June, 2021 #weeklysmile

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Hi! This was a weird week. I did a lot but there is little to talk about. OK, let’s back up for a moment or two.

I am not a hot weather person. I live in New Hampshire instead of Texas or South Carolina (I’ve lived both places) for a reason! I could not survive in a place where air conditioning was mandatory.

We started our second heatwave of the year on Saturday. Typically we will have 90+ F (33+ C) for extended periods perhaps twice a season, usually in late July or early August. Some years are worse. Being on our second one weeks before the official start of summer? That is odd! And for a person who prefers cool temperatures?

And yet I haven’t minded it….yet – ask me On Thursday how I feel! In fact, it has been nice.

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The Weekly Smile Recap for May 31 – June 6, 2021 #weeklysmile

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Hi! How was your week? Good or bad, I’ll tell you what, if you want something to smile about this fine morning, why don’t you click on one of the links below:

Trent’s World
Natasha Musing
Light Motifs II
Sillyfrog’s Blog
The Hidden Edge
Susan Joy Clark
Tessa Dean – Author
Lady Lee Manila
Ruth Blogs Here
Mylife-and-Horsestories
Change is Hard
Touring My Backyard
Ruth Scribbles

Sorry if the links seem odd – Word Press was acting strange when I was trying to create them.

Also, if you don’t see your post, please let me know! I could not find links to three posts on the original Smile post. One person provided the link, but the other two missed the linkup.

I will post this week’s smile in about an hour. What made you smile?

The Little Dorrit Challenge (Dickens)

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Charles Dickens at his Desk in 1858 – This was from Wikimedia and I make no claim to ownership

Way back on the 7th of February, in honor of Charles Dickens’ birthday, Yvette Prior and myself decided to do a little challenge. We asked everyone to read the book “Little Dorrit” and do a post about it someplace around June 9, which is the other end of Dickens’ live, i.e., the day he passed away. We planned a drawing of a $25 Amazon gift card for people who took the challenge.

OK, OK, I have been remiss in this challenge! But it is still on. Yvette has recently posted about it. And yes, the $25 Amazon gift card is still being drawn!

All you have to do is read, attempt to read, try to read or skim or whatever Little Dorrit and write a post about it. Use the hashtag #Dickenschallenge and place a comemnt with the link on one of the Little Dorrit posts, such as this one, my original or any on Yvette’s blog (like this page).

You can start now, but the official challenge is from June 9 – June 13.

You can write anything at all about. Talk about the story. Talk about the politics. The humor. How long it is! How many words… The historical background. Anyway, here is a little bit copied from Yvette’s post:

Invitation:

  • If you want to read (or skim) the book Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, then share a post about it on or around June 9th, which is the date of Dickens’ death.  The last day to join in will be Sunday June 13th.
  • If you want a free e-copy of this book – go here to Gutenberg Press 
  • If you do “not” want to post about it, you can also join us by commenting on any of the Little Dorrit posts – like this post today or over at Trent’s master Dorrit post here.  
  • If you CAN join us – use the hashtag #Dickenschallenge and have your post out by June 13th.  
  • AfterJune 13th, 2021 – we will announce the gift card winner and Trent and I will both post about the challenge on our blogs. 

Hope you can join!

Note – if this is successful at all, we may try to do it every year. Show us that you want to continue by contributing!