Review: Dombey and Son (novel)

It's about time I reviewed a book, don't you think? 😃 So for my first book review, I've chosen one of Charles Dickens' lesser-known novels. I first read it years ago and wasn't particularly impressed by it. But recently I read it again. Has my opinion changed? Let's find out!

Cover of the novel when it was serialised

Dombey and Son is Charles Dickens' seventh novel. It was first published as a novel in 1848. Its full title is the very long Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. (A better, shorter title would be Terrible Parenting: The Novel.)

Attempting to explain the plot of a novel -- especially a Dickens novel -- is much harder than explaining the plot of a series. So I'll just give a brief summary of the main plot points, then move on to what I thought of it.

Mr. Dombey wants a son to join him in the family business -- the titular Dombey and Son. He already has a daughter, Florence, but he acts as if she didn't exist. Eventually he has a son, Paul, who dies as a child. Dombey's first wife died in childbirth, so several years later he remarries a woman named Edith. Edith and Mr. Dombey soon come to hate each other, and Mr. Dombey is furious that Edith is fond of Florence. In the middle of this mess is Dombey's treacherous manager, Mr. Carker, who manages to make everything even worse.

Dombey and Son is unusual for a Dickens novel in that there is no mystery plot. Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit and many of his other novels include or revolve around someone being secretly related to someone else. Instead the main plot of Dombey and Son is the misery the dysfunctional Dombey family bring to themselves and those around them. The only secret relatives are Edith and Alice, and that's a connection that's only revealed towards the end and has very little importance to the plot.

Bad parenting is a recurring theme in Dickens' work (unsurprising, since he didn't have the best parents himself). Mr. Dombey is possibly the worst example of this. The way he completely ignores Florence makes my blood boil. His redemption near the end is clearly supposed to be touching, but it rings hollow in light of everything he did until then. He brought all his misfortunes on himself, and even though Florence forgives him he still neglected her for most of her life.

Edith is another character it's difficult to sympathise with. Yes, her mother was awful and she was in an unhappy marriage... but no one forced her into that marriage! She could have refused Mr. Dombey's proposal! Why on earth did he even propose to her, anyway? He didn't love her, or even like her. That marriage doesn't make any sense to me, and I could see disaster looming from the moment they got engaged. Sometimes such obvious foreshadowing is a good thing, but in this case it just makes the characters look like blithering idiots. Unusual for Dickens; he normally managed foreshadowing much better.

There are some characters who I just can't wait to see die. Mr. Carker is one of them. From the minute he and his teeth first appear, it's obvious he's the main villain. (Though a pretty good argument could be made for Dombey himself being the main villain.) His every action after that makes him even more despicable. He reminds me a lot of Uriah Heep, actually. I was a bit disappointed that Mr. Dombey didn't confront him before he died, but it's very satisfying that his money is used to help Mr. Dombey in the end.

So, you ask, are there any good characters in this book? Yes, thankfully!

Florence is one of Dickens' best (and most tragic) heroines. She spends most of her childhood hoping her father will love her, and instead he views her as a rival for Paul's affection and -- after Paul's death -- wishes she'd died instead. I cheered when Florence finally runs away from her home, even though the circumstances of said running away are pretty tragic. And her engagement to Walter is one of the cutest scenes in the book 😍

And that leads us to another good character: Walter. The idea that Walter could be thought dead for years stretches my suspension of disbelief just a little (or maybe not. This is before telegraphs were invented, after all...). But Walter himself is such a nice guy that his personality makes up for that.

And then there are the minor characters. (It wouldn't be Dickens without dozens of minor characters!) Captain Cuttle is amazingly adorable for a former captain with a hook for a hand. Major Bagstock is almost as vile as Carker. Harriett and John Carker have to go through so much (most of it thanks to their brother) that I spent the whole book hoping they'd get some happiness by the end, and was delighted when they did. Mrs. Skewton is so ridiculous (an elderly woman dressed like a little girl and pretending to be Cleopatra? *shudder*) that she's both creepy and hilarious. Mr. Toots is heartbreaking, and I'm so glad he finally gets a happy ending. Susan Nipper is amazing. She's the only heroic character who tells Mr. Dombey what she thinks of him, and that scene alone makes her one of my favourite characters. And that's only the ones who immediately come to mind.

Dombey and Son isn't one of Dickens' best novels. But it's still a pretty good novel. (Of course it is. It's Dickens!) There are some truly great scenes and passages in it. And overall I enjoyed it, though it wouldn't be one of my favourites.

Can it be read online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 6/10.

I'm not sure what I'll review on Wednesday. Possibly Middlemarch (1994), or possibly not.