Plot-wise, Little Dorrit is just as ridiculous as Lost, frozen donkey wheel and all. Discuss.
There are 15 reader comments
• Apr 27 2009 • 2:53PM
For sure. Who would ever believe that a highly respected man would swindle a large number of people of enormous sums of money using a massive ponzi scheme? Ridiculous!
• Apr 27 2009 • 3:02PM
Dickens is famous for convoluted plots. In "Bleak House" he got himself into such a twist he needed to have Krook spontaneously combust to get him out of the way.
• Apr 27 2009 • 3:17PM
You know, you love to rail on LOST, but you know it's the best thing ever. Come on, admit it.
• Apr 27 2009 • 3:18PM
And of course one of the characters on Lost was Naomi Dorrit, not coincidentally. Naomi Dorrit at Lostpedia
• Apr 27 2009 • 3:29PM
AJ, you just blew my mind.
• Apr 27 2009 • 3:44PM
I agree with Jeff. When Bleak House hit that plot twist, I just about lost it. I mean... spontaneous human combustion? Really?
• Apr 27 2009 • 4:21PM
Of course the reason so many nineteenth century novels are so long and convoluted is because the novels were serialized and the writers paid by the word. They were rewarded for stretching out their stories for as long as possible. I guess that's pretty much the same as a network having a hit show on their hands and stretching out the ad dollars for as many seasons as possible through whatever plot manipulations they can conjure up.
In defense of the Victorians though, I might point out that in Little Dorrit the United Kingdom doesn't just disappear! Of course I'm not totally caught up, so maybe that happened last night.
• Apr 27 2009 • 4:45PM
satire is ridiculous?
• Apr 27 2009 • 5:05PM
megnut: The island didn't just disappear, it *moved*, but you can't quite be sure.
• Apr 27 2009 • 10:51PM
I don't really see how Little Dorrit is anymore convoluted and full of coincidence as, say, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, the Mahabharata, or the plot of any soap opera. Lost, uh, lost me early on.
• Apr 28 2009 • 1:24PM
megnut: you may enjoy Jasper Fforde's metafictional detective stories, then ;) http://jasperfforde.com/
• Apr 28 2009 • 3:12PM
I will continue to go along for the ride with the LOST plots, even though I think they're getting sillier and harder to follow, but I think the show's true strength lies in its characters. What other shows out there have so many distinctive, weird, infuriating, unique, flat-out wonderful characters? When LOST is gone, I will undoubtedly have trouble recalling specific plot points, but I will remember Hurley, Sawyer, Locke, Jack and yes Ben vividly, as if I knew them.
Unfortunately, I haven't read Little Dorrit or much else by Dickens, but I think the same claim can be made for his work. Characters that live on from his work: Oliver Twist, Fagin, Miss Havisham, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge himself.
• Apr 29 2009 • 9:02AM
Late to the game but there is a URL generator: DickensURL.com, where you can turn something simple into something long and complicated and drawn out, like a Lost or Dickens plot line.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.
jkottke • Apr 27 2009 • 2:34PM
And not just Little Dorrit. In Pride and Prejudice, most of the book would not have happened if two or three of the main characters would have sat down early on for a two-minute chat. This is the same technique used in Lost to keep the story moving along.