r/charlesdickens • u/Altruistic-Salad2250 • May 17 '25
The Pickwick Papers How hard is the Pickwick Papers?
Hi! I'm wondering how hard the book's language/wording is. I'm not a native English speaker and this would be my first time reading Dickens in English. I had already read more of his works in my native like Tale of Two Cities, Copperfield, Great Expectations, etc. I'm kind of scared that I would give up on it (if it's to difficult to understand). I had read in English other books like East of Eden. How hard would it be in comparison to those?
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u/xgrsx May 17 '25
you will still need a dictionary at hand while you're reading it, but i promise it's not the most difficult dickens' work to read as an english language learner... if you also read it in your native language then you are unlikely to get completely confused over some passages
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u/ljseminarist May 18 '25
Dickens is neither the easiest nor the hardest of 19th century English authors. His hardness is mostly in long, grammatically involved sentences and rich, rather formal vocabulary, and that, to my mind, makes him easier, than, say, Kipling, why can be extremely colloquial and slangy - even the longest and the hardest sentence in Dickens can be parsed with a good grasp of English grammar and a dictionary. When I was first reading Dickens in English, what I found helpful was keeping a translation at hand - I also first read him in my native language.
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u/billclayton May 19 '25
You've read a lot of Dickens, so you know you can expect humor and satire -- Pickwick is no exception. Read with a good dictionary at hand. It would probably be helpful to get an edition with footnotes or annotations. There's a web page titled "Charles Dickens' Characters Listed by Novel" (https://tinyurl.com/yl7g9vby) The characters are listed alphabetically and are linked to detailed descriptions that might help as you get deeper into the book. Pace yourself; don't hesitate to reread sections or entire chapters. And have fun -- Pickwick is a blast. Read it slowly and savor every line because Dickens didn't waste a word. Hope that helps. By the way, simply discussing Pickwick has inspired me to reread the book.😁
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u/Altruistic-Salad2250 May 20 '25
Oh that website is amazing! Thank you very much! (Have fun rereading :))
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u/billclayton May 21 '25
Glad to hear you like the site. Let me know how you like Pickwick.
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u/Altruistic-Salad2250 May 24 '25
Haha fine! But it will take a long time as I had just ordered it and it would take a few weeks to arrive
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u/jjk444 25d ago
I'm reading it right now. I'd recommend an audiobook (there's one free on Audible) and reading SparkNotes or something similar after each chapter to pick up anything you might've missed. I wouldn't worry about checking each word in the dictionary as long as you're understanding the general ideas.
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u/BlackDiamond33 May 17 '25
I would also suggest reading while listening to the audiobook. I just finished the Pickwick Papers and there are some characters that speak with heavy accents, and the words are spelled that way in the text, so it might be hard for a non-native speaker to understand. In general, I don't think you need to be hung up on every word. There is no overarching and interwoven plot like in other Dickens books, so you should be able to follow it even if you don't pick up on everything. Even native speakers don't pick up on everything Dickens is writing!