From Little Dorrit to Little Nell

The Old Curiosity Shop airs tomorrow . . . all ninety minutes of it. I've been wondering how on earth they managed that. But reviewer Mary McNamara of the LA Times tells us they did it by "streamlin[ing] plot, character and tone to the point that you have to wonder why they bothered." Doesn't sound terribly promising . . . and it has a tough act to follow, to boot.

And on top of all that, it's so long since I read the book that I have little faith in my own ability to write a competent review! (In case it hasn't already been made clear, I tend to gravitate more to later Dickens than earlier Dickens, with one or two exceptions.) I've been trying to brush up over the past couple of days, which is not the easiest thing to do with a 500-plus-page novel. It's a little like the time I was trying to cram Crime and Punishment at one o'clock in the morning during my college days.

But I don't mean to be a wet blanket. It is a Dickens adaptation, so if the adapters had any talent at all, there's bound to be at least a few good things in it. We'll see tomorrow night!

Responses

Jun

May 2, 2009

Frankly this Old Curiosity Shop does not look promising at all.
I don’t know if you have seen the Jacobi version of Little Dorrit (1988) but the clips I saw on YouTube are … horrible, I hate to say. The worst part is not that Jacobi is too old (although he is) or that his performance is too dreary (it is), or that the pace was too slow (it is), but the worst part is that Sarah Pickering’s Amy Dorrit. The performance is quite awful, even without comparison with that of Claire Foy.

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Marian

May 2, 2009

I hope it’s good. I read the novel years ago, haven’t watched any version of it, and, by a look at the Wikipedia entry, had forgotten quite a bit about it.
Off-topic question, but have you read Dombey and Son, and is it good?

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Gina

May 2, 2009

Jun — I have it on the DVR and am planning to review it one of these days. In truth, I’m not really looking forward to that. I agree that it doesn’t look good (although, oddly enough, there are reviewers on Amazon who rhapsodize about it). But it should make for an interesting exercise, at least.
Marian — that’s another one I read long ago and remember very little! I think it was pretty good. One advantage of running this blog is that it’s making me pick up and brush off the Dickens books I’ve neglected, instead of always going back to ATOTC, LD, “David Copperfield,” “Great Expectations,” and my other favorites again and again, as I’ve had a habit of doing. The other day I even bought “Our Mutual Friend,” which I had read long ago but didn’t own and had almost forgotten. One day I hope to be able to discuss it intelligently with Jun, who’s making it sound great! 🙂

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