The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-24

In ''The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, which began publication in monthly numbers in 1S43, Charles Dickens wrote novel that, viewed technically as a novel, falls apart under his hands It shifts its center of interest so violently that the plot that was designed in the beginning gives way to quite another plot that does not at all concern the original chief characters. The hero, whose name gives the title to the story, never becomes a hero, never becomes a commanding fig ure in the story, never arouses the read CTS interest very largely. Martin Chuz- zlewit is not lay figure Dickens couldn't put lay figures into anything. But he is not a Dickens figure. Unlike Nicholas Niekleby in ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,' Martin Chuzzlewit simply serves as an excuse for the story.
 Yet Martin Chuzzlewit' Is not merely great story, but a great novel. though it violates the literary workshops definitions of a novel and rules for making one. II is a paradoxieal novel; for, though it contains two of the greatest humorous characters Dickens ever drew, and a troop of minor but not less humorous ones, the novel as a whole is sombre. Even those two great masterpieces of humor, MT. Pecksnff and Sairey Camp, have some thing sombre about them. Dickens gen. jus flew on immensely lifting wings when he created them. and his humor was prod igal like 8 cascade; yet often in their widest humor, we dare hardly laugh. Be- hind them there stands a shadow. The rich laugh of humor gives way ever and again to the cold smile of satire.
 All that amazing Pecksniff and Chuzzle- wit family is as wildly funny as a witches Sabbath no doubt would be-and as terrible. The two Misses Pecksniff are always laughable and always hateful Mrs. Rodgers, Montagu Tigg, Betsey Prig, Augustus Moddle. Jefferson Brick, Elijah Program, Mrs. Hominy, all are mag nifeently absurd and all are base. We long to kick them after we have laughed at them. Even harmless little Poll Sweedlepipe has a touch of something sad about him.
 The great fact about the humorous characters in this book is that we can only laugh at them. They do not laugh with us. MT. Pickwick laughs with us. So does Mr. Micawber. We laugh with Sam Weller, Dick Swiveller, Joe Gargery, Cap'n Cutie. MT. and Mrs. Boffin. In Martin Chuzzlewit there is only one character with whom we can laugh and who laughs with us. That is Mark Tap ley
 That Dickens succeeded in making Mark Tapley a famous character is one of the great achievements of his art. He did not, at first really invent a person at all. lie invented d WhllnSlcal 1dea-tne idea of a man who, though perfectly sane had the absurd desire to seek trouble because he wanted the credit of being jolly under adverse circumstances Under the hand of almost any other writer in the world, this untenable position would have led to failure. Under Charles Dick ems hand Mark Tapley grew superior to the capricious idea. First Mark Tapley is simply the form in which the idea is pIothed Soon the idea hecornes simn1v a pleasant, rather charming whim of Mark Tapey. As usual with Dickens. the human being grew and grew. Mark Tap ley is the great practical optimist of Charles Dickens and he laughs pessimism out Of court.