Last week, Little Dorrit. This week, Little Dorrit. I am still going. It is still fantastic. I don’t want it to end. Notwithstanding the conversation I had with a gentleman yesterday who insisted that I read Our Mutual Friend immediately. I’m going to need reinforced bookshelves. And more hours in the day.

This seems to be a year of epic, bicep-strengthening reads. Harry won’t stop talking about Shōgun, people keep entering on horseback raving about Lonesome Dove, I have it on good authority that one person in the Southwest has actually finished The Books of Jacob and the veneration of The Count of Monte Cristo (newsletters passim) continues apace. Mysteriously Clarissa has remained on the shelf. Poor thing.

I often read short stories and favour a slim book but there is something very special about being immersed in a proper tome, characters and ideas seeping out from the pages. Is it thanks to Dickens that my sleep has been disrupted by strange dreams and ghosts? Am I imagining it or is everything I have read recently about imprisonment and borders and confining people and their wishes? Ought I to blame the author for my detecting conspiracy, family secrets, doppelgangers and blackmail underlying every conversation in The Heronry?*

Perhaps also responsible for the above have been:

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, in which a group of Palestinian actors stage a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. I re-read it this week for a book club, at which we had a brilliant discussion of everything from homecoming, language, sisterhood, people playing to type, and the realities of living in and being the audience to horrific conflict.

Separately, it sent me down various rabbit holes about ways to read Gertrude in Hamlet in case anyone wants to join me there (or extract me).

The Natural Way by Roma Havers, a poetry collection which includes the superb ‘De Profundis Babysitter’s Club’ in which the narrator reflects on representations of prison in literature whilst trapped in her neighbour’s downstairs toilet.

Chronicles of Ori by Harmonia Rosales, a retelling of African mythology from the creation of the universe. No one does epic narrative, power, politics and volatile allegiances like the Orishas, the gods of Yoruba tradition. Rosales’ paintings are stunning too and it is a pleasure to be steeped in centuries-old stories which are completely new to me.

But for now, get thee to the Marshalsea. Little Dorrit beckons.

May your weekend be mutually Dickensian,
Lizzie

*I mean, a customer said she wanted a gift for a friend she met on holiday but how much does she really know about this person? And just because a man looks the picture of benevolence, his shining bald pate softened by long grey hair at the sides, does not mean he is anything but ruthless. And, yes, Mother’s Day is coming up but can you be sure the woman who claims to be even is your mother?**

**[Subs: Too niche? Worth it if one reader gets the references and one is enticed to read Little Dorrit?]