In case you wondered …

… How to Read Dickens by Karen Swallow Prior. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 Dickens’s style is difficult for those of us habituated to the plain, flat prose of cable news, blog posts, Twitter feeds, or Ernest Hemingway. To read Dickens well, not only for newcomers but even for me, a seasoned reader, requires deliberately arming ourselves against our usual hurry and our shortening attention spans. Readers of Dickens need to be willing to slow their reading pace, luxuriate in the circumlocutory sentences, reread passages that take unexpected turns, and tune their ear to the cadence of the multiple voices that inhabit Dickens’s busy, busy world. Whether the massive Bleak House or the short but still demanding A Christmas Carol, Dickens requires a commitment of time, attention, effort, and patience.