I was quite disappointed with Great Expectations. One of life's little ironies.

That's an interesting point, never had I considered that before.

I recently reread ATOTC and was a bit shocked with the opening extended coach scene. Dickens generally jumped into establishing his protagonist’s personal and social situation very explicitly. The historical novel wasn’t his usual wheelhouse, so I do think a different book, like ‘David Copperfield’ would be a better way to try out the Dickens experience.

When I was a kid in the US everyone read Great Expectations in school. They must have gone away from it.

You started on one of his better novels. Overall he might be one of the most overrated authors in classic literature. I don't recommend Dickens to anyone.

I’m so shocked there isn’t more of a movement to unplug yourself from the internet for sanity’s sake. We are all so addicted.

Sorry, I know you didn't. But yes, thats why I'm drawn to them. I just find them interesting and all that.

TL;DR

/s

I did not say you had. I just did not understood the "I'm just really straight." in relation to be drawn to male characters. I still do not, but whatever.

I mean just because I tend to be more drawn to male characters doesn't necessarily mean I have some deep thing against women inside.

Tale of Two Cities is probably his least respected book (outside of the over quoted opening passage).

Try Pickwick, for a good laugh.

Wish I could upvote this 100 times. Well done.

You can find the confirmation of this online by googling: the modern attention span is gone.

Further, in part due to autocorrect, predictive typing, and various outrage types, the capacity to engage in "just think for two seconds" is diminished as well.

Many people have come of age in a civilization in which deep thinking is derided and criticized (as sexist or patriarchal or -shaming or whatever). No thought is given for (what used to be a standard consideration) what might the speaker be saying, behind what the speaker is saying? Is there a broader context? Is the speaker perhaps making an analogy or employing a metaphor or even engaging in sarcastic exaggeration in order to raise a point? (One friend of mine is almost pathologically incapable of considering anything other than, literally, the literal statement made. If I say, "Well, I've said it a thousand times," he will actually start to argue about how I couldn't possibly have said something "a thousand" times. He's not the only one who engages in that sort of behavior, and it is a new one I have only seen in the past 10 years.)

Dickens wrote in a time when people read chapters of a book in serial form (this survived into, IIRC, the 1970s in the U.S. in magazines and still exists in manga magazines in Japan). Modern technology has eliminated that capacity for patience that used to exist in our entertainment intake. Witness "episode bingeing" of television programs. We have such a glut of distractions now, no one can keep up with it all. I still haven't seen all of the Sopranos. And, in order to shift it all, we all have learned to pick up the pace: skip the commercials, order takeout, sit on the couch for seven hours watching. If possible, I suspect everyone would watch at 105% speed, just fast enough that the speaking isn't distorted too noticeably, but enough of an increase to add up over time.

If you don't like Dickens, try this: Turn off all the distractions for two days. No TV, no internet, no socmed. Then pick up Dickens.

Right now it's en vogue to highlight female experiences in media, with women as protagonists being extremely common in books, TV and movies. Same with creators who are women.

Maybe these books are coming off as white noise since it's so common these days? I know I feel that way (I'm a man though). I have nothing against it but it feels like every bit of new media is sort of the same.

Sorry you don't like him. I do, but he's very much a product of the 19th century and its conventions. Most of the books were serialized before they were published as full books. His audience had no TV, radio or internet to entertain themselves. His books were their entertainment. Plus language and storytelling conventions were different then than they are now.

Wtf is mysogynistic about that? It's an accurate statement up until the last 30-40 years. people these days are so fucking ridiculous I swear.

I stopped reading Oliver Twist halfway (my first Dickens) because I did not like it. The characters were to black and white (good vs. bad) for my taste. I don't think the writing was my cup of tea...

I believe there is a subreddit dedicated to audio books that can help you find good narrator experiences. From my perspective as a long time reader, the book was good but not over the top great. You are missing out on this one, but the supply of good books is far greater than our capacity. Thank you for warning other audio book listeners.

A lot of female protagonists are mary sues, the most recent and easily recognisable one from popular media would be Rey from disney star wars. Perhaps tht's something you're picking up on, there are plenty of well written femal protags however, just have to find the right book.
As for the sex of the author, that does not matter, and should never be considered when buying a book.
If anyone tells you otherwise they are unequivocally a sexist and highly bigoted.

>"Both of my favourite books have zero female characters in them"

Out of curioisty, what are your favourite books without female characters?

Just adding in to the chorus of people saying try Great Expectations! If you want to get the best of Dickens. If you still don't like him I will concede

That battle scene was just garbage, though. Straight up reformer nonsense.

I guess it's somewhat cool but it definitely plays into that whole narrative of the military wasting money on fancy gadgets that aren't good for anything. And I've heard too many people try to say the F-35 is inferior to the F-16 to not get annoyed by that.

Agreed! Do you have any recommendations l?

Ah yeah "female protagonists" and "female authors" a totally homogeneous category. Absolutely no differences

I read that maybe 10 years ago. It was a bunch of vignettes. Red Storm Rising but zombies instead of Russians. I thought it was OK but it’s certainly not on my re-read list and I purged the paperback years ago.