AS FAR
"As far as I'm concerned, Our Mutual Friend is an unqualified masterpiece, both in its plot and in the way it is written. As examples o writing, I will mention not only the rapid similes which crisply define a character or situation ('with an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon'), but also the descriptive cityscapes which are worthy of a place in any anthology of urban landscape: 'A grey, dusty, withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers and steeples of the many house-encompassed churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom; a sundial on a church wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of having failed in its business enterprise, and stopped payment for ever; melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porters sweep melancholy waifs and strays of paper and pins into the kennels, and other more melancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell.'"
From Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend
No comments:
Post a Comment