DICKENS VS. TOLSTOY LIVE SHOW // The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

hello hi welcome back to our second ever debate um for the dickens vs tolstoy the great debate the greatest debate um uh yeah okay so this time around we'll be doing uh the pickwick papers by charles dickens um i've just missed this so much honestly like it's been so since like the first one um and then once again as you can see i will be on dickens team again this round and caroline will be on tolstoy's round so um if you guys haven't voted yet we did a little pre-vote on instagram but also by the time the live show and the debate is over i'll be posting like a poll on youtube just on the little community place for you guys to vote um if you end up changing slides or anything like that by the time it's over so i'll obviously tell you guys when that's up as well but um yes so basically what we're going to do carolyn's going to give you like a little synopsis a little background about the pickup papers and stuff like that um and then i guess we'll go through our little rundown of the debates and then we're gonna rock paper scissors our way into um determining which one of us are but anyway yes and oh also while she's talking please feel free to like leave your thoughts your rating um whose team you're on what you thought of the book overall i know it was a really long two-month journey um that we worked on so yeah anyway i feel like i feel like we haven't had this in so long even though it has only been two months so i'm just so excited okay are we ready for my background papers written by charles dickens in case you didn't know um okay so let's see um this was dickens first novel it was originally serialized and then he well what i love about dickens is that because his books were serialized when the series was completed people could bring them to a book binder and have them all bound into one volume which i just think is like imagine doing that today like having one of your favorite authors doing something like that and then completing it having one full volume i would love that um okay so this is chronicling a sequel a sequence of loosely related adventures written for serialization in a periodical it was published in monthly installments from march of 1836 until november of 1837. the first installment was published on march 30th 1836 and i also thought that this was pretty interesting in april um the 2nd of april 1836 dickens marries catherine hogarth and by january 6 1837 they have their first child so around this time a lot of things were changing in his life which i think is really interesting because that's really when his career took off now this um i found incredible so the first installment of the pickwick papers sold about 500 copies and then um the last the last um installment of the pickering papers sold 40 000 compared like the first one 500 last one at 40 000 which just really shows you how incredible an impact this story had on everyone um and there were even theatrical adaptations before the series was even completed and piquant pickwick merchandise began to appear um people could buy pick wick cigars song books and china figurines wow it's like you know pre pre-funkle pops and um and different little like bookmarks and things which i just love imagine getting like um a china dish for like i don't know a modern look i love it um let's see okay so for the synopsis in case you guys are unfamiliar with picowick or you haven't read it i'm not sure if we're going to get into spoilers because we really didn't for child support youth i don't think so no yeah i feel like we can stay pretty clear of spoilers um okay so the synopsis for the papers is the main character is named samuel pickwick and he is the main character of the novel and is the founder of the pickwick club um he and his three friends mr winkle mr snydgrass and mr tupman travel around the country and report back on their adventures and misadventures to the members of the pickwick club that's pretty much the main gist it's really like a short story collection of what these men get up to um traveling all around the country the things that the bad things that happened to them the funny things good things so yeah it's just a wild ride honestly it is it really is um okay well so for the debate very much like last time it's just gonna be the exact same categories we're gonna be starting with the author's life and influence stuff that dickens um was doing stuff that was happening to him what went into the pickwick papers uh what influenced him and then we'll move into the writing and then after that i believe it's characters uh plot and then we'll finish up with like the intent some commentary some insights and i guess this like some discussion and stuff like that so yeah i'm really excited should we shall we rock paper scissors i think so okay do you do one and do best out of three maybe just one just one okay and do you do okay wait do you do or can you go rock paper scissors shoot i always do rock paper scissors shoot oh my gosh okay what is that okay no it's fine it's fine we can do that okay we'll do rock paper scissors go okay ready yeah papers scissors shoot was that delayed we're very professional as you can tell okay so the first category like emma said i'm just yeah i'm looking down i'm just looking at my notes because uh i need some structure doing this okay so first category like we said is how the author's life and experience related to their writing of the novel um so what is great about the pique papers is that it's really all about everyday london life specifically for these men so most of the topics dickens addresses in the book are addressing everyday aspects of london or english life um sometimes it relates to the different classes but it mainly relates to these middle to upper class men um so and then i also have here um even though this is a comical novel he brings very relevant and serious topics to the forefront while making them comedic which i think is really interesting because like you know tolstoy does that same thing he brings very important topics to the forefront but in a more serious subdued way whereas dickens really likes to bring the comedy and make it sort of make fun of these issues and look light at them um and then let's see such so he likes to um bring the the injustice of the justice justice system forward really show you the flaws in the society that they live in and then dickens also had firsthand a look at the legal system when he worked as a law clerk and his outrage over the incompetence of the system shows up in more than one of his novels he really talks about um especially his father um went into major debt and he actually had to live in the debtor's prison with his family while dickens was basically forced to work in a blacking factory because they needed some kind of money and dickens was you know the the only one to provide that so he really had first hand experience with hardship and loss and uh and debt so there are scenes in the debtor's prison in piccolo papers so we can sort of assume that those experiences earlier in his life really related to the events of the novel or some of the stories um so like i said before he uses humor while writing these scenes which can add to their gravity while also expressing a sense of lightness and um making the reader understand the serious quality of the book but also you know have fun while reading it yeah yeah and to break that down even further dickens's entire goal was to relate his experiences to the everyday experiences of men and sometimes women um we'll get into that um in the book so yeah yes awesome okay just for right now it seems like a lot of people are like pretty on both teams which is exciting and then i think like overall most people are saying they gave it around three three and a half um yeah i think this one overall the first thing i want to say as well is that this was um definitely a tough book to get through and i know like carolyn's saying it is serialized it would have come out i think in monthly like installments for the people of the day and of course we've read it over a very long two months i'm not gonna lie it was definitely a struggle to return to especially once i kind of reached the halfway point and i think a lot of us hopefully i started to get started to get a little bit repetitive the humor kind of was the same thing over and over again um but i think that's definitely like something to consider a little bit because like when i felt like oh my gosh i don't want to like return back to this book again for another like 20 pages a day i was just like the people that were reading it then would have been like highly anticipating waiting for the next kind of volume to come out and to read what had happened um whereas we're just reading it like it is kind of a novel in a very dense book but um yeah i don't really have that like too much to say about the author's life and influence but i think like just with the theater and like the theatricality of dickens and stuff like that like the introduction was talking um a little bit about how he would like go to the theater all the time and like then he would become so inspired he would like memorize these people's like lines and monologues and stuff like that and then he would take kind of that stage culture and what he was seeing and then he would put it kind of into his book and so that's where a lot of the theater i think comes from and it's not that it's kind of not reality and it's not it's not like tolstoy's reality and very like realism that's found in his books but it's kind of a different reality it's just a bit more removed um and yeah i just love that like in the pic papers too there's kind of this like interactive elements almost where like like it was kind of staged a lot of it is very um there's a lot of like farce and it is stage but then there's so much description like we'll talk about later with the writing where it was just so interactive and it really like just kind of pulled you in and stuff like that yeah um and then probably the last thing i want to say i just think this is such a good place for like someone like a writer to start um writing because the pic papers isn't even a book it's just like a bag of every single you could think of and like genres you can't even think of stuff like you can't categorize at all and like every single chapter is just like something new and it always just flips around and dickens like writing ghost stories and romances and comedy so much comedy but then as well there's so much like social issue brought up there's so much legal injustice um there's just like everything you could ever think of under the sun so i think this was just such like an exciting place for him to start and then it's so cool seeing like those little moments that we'll see i guess later on in his works especially the christmas carol part yeah i don't know if anyone got to that part but i like flipped the page and i was like there's like a little prelude to the christmas girl which is nice but and um i gave it i think three stars maybe 3.5 um but what i was going to say was that like i think that it's so interesting to see dickens really sort of trying to figure out who he what kind of writer he wants to be and who he wants to be in the literary world and like you're saying with trying to write all these different genres and kind of you know combine it into this one story of the pickwick club i think it's just so fantastic to really see where he began um i was talking a bit about this i think i said it in my goodreads review but like i wouldn't recommend starting with pickwick papers if you're new to dickens because i do feel like it's not like his strong point so i think you know definitely started a strong point for him because dickens is one of those writers where you know his his list of books is pretty long yeah and i just feel like this book can bog you down a bit but it is so great for the dickens fans like us who kind of want to see where he began and to really um it's almost like we're seeing like the roots underneath the flower you know it's where he began where where all of his literary techniques really took shape so it's fantastic to look at it that way yeah um yeah i just i guess i'll give my like little rating and opinion too before we like get too much into defending like one or the other but um i was originally going to give it like yeah three three and a half but then like i got to the end and i closed the book and like i just i was so surprised because it was just like it's over like i was i was so saddened and i didn't expect it to be so bittersweet um but like the book was actually done so i think in the end i gave it around 3.8 like almost a four star but i think just like 3.8 yeah it's very specific i know thank you i'm sorry i don't know what the heck but um yeah and i definitely agree like these were my favorite parts the little stories that weren't directly related to the pick wikians but that they found along on the roads um the ghost stories the christmas stories uh everything like that and oh yes this i agree with as well he was my favorite character yeah that's my favorite too i know i know um but yeah um okay yes we have some four stars yeah but yeah i do agree with you about like starting maybe not starting with dickens at this like this book um yeah anyway shall we into the writing yes okay you can take take it away okay um i think the first thing i probably want to say about dickens writing in here um it's kind of related to character and a little bit place but he's just like so good um at letting us know like immediately who like exactly someone is um and usually just like showing that off in such a minor detail that like someone as a writer and probably someone in real life you wouldn't even think to kind of describe or um talk about like for example the first time he describes uh mr pickwick i think it's in like chapter two or something like that um it's just like we immediately know who he is like he's talking about how mr pickwick is like the one doing like the clothing i don't know if you remember this but it's like he's the one clothing his clothes or something like that um i don't know he's just so good at like introducing someone and like we know who they are and like they couldn't be um like anyone else at all so that's like super impressive and like i know that does show up later in his works but just seeing as well how many characters um are in this book too and how they're all so distinct was like so wonderful um yeah i agree thank you um should i make a point yes absolutely go ahead um so i did write down how great it was to really see you know where dickens began um i did include a quote so um i i did say that his humor i think is like top-notch in this book like it was so funny some of the scenes were just like laugh out loud funny um okay let's see um okay this is from chapter 4 page 62 in my edition which is the penguin black spine um so i would just read out this scene we will not say fled first because it is an ignoble term and second because mr pickwick's figure was by no means adapted for that mode of retreat he trotted away at as quick a rage as his legs would convey him so quickly indeed that he did not perceive the awkwardness of his situation to the full extent while too late so like kind of like explaining like pick like the way that he walks and like his demeanor i just think it's like so comical and sweet and such a great way to really not talk because i feel like it's so interesting how an author decides to describe their characters because they have an image of them in their head and every reader is going to have a different slightly different image but depending on how much they describe them um and he gives them so much personality in their physicality and i just love that yeah um and then there's another one from chapter 7 page 104. um i i loved this it's just i think it's one of well one of the side characters there's a little man with a puffy say nothing to me or i'll contradict you sort of countenance like and there was like hyphens in between the say nothing to me or i'll contradict you yeah i just it's well funny because you can picture that that expression and yeah he kind of knows what that looks like and it's just brilliant cool another example that i have i wanted to talk about his similes are absolutely stunning um so this one is from chapter 11 page 143 no replied mr snodgrass and a tear trembled on the sentimental eyelid like a raindrop on a window frame isn't that so sweet it's so nice what the heck right um okay and then we're gonna get into my complaint so my main complaint is the writing as a whole after a while felt a bit taxing um i don't know if it was because it's such a long book or if it's if it's the fault of his writing or if it's the fault of the reader honestly because i you know obviously it's different for every reader um but i felt it felt a bit repetitive after a while and it was sort of like okay we're having another misadventure or we're having another blunder or you know it just felt a bit like okay you know like a bit redundant um and then although i love his writing as a whole the story stories kind of lost my interest the more that i read and my sense of engagement wasn't as strong as in the beginning i don't know if that really relates to the writing because like for this section of the debate his writing in general i have pretty much nothing to complain about um because his writing is fantastic and really singular and he's just such a gifted storyteller when it comes to putting words on the page um but like i said the one thing that i do have my complaint is that after a while it did feel a bit like republican like i kind of wanted to read something else yeah no i understand i understand i think with like the repetitive two like i think it's incredible how like creative dickens was able to kind of be seeing us like how much restriction was actually upon him writing like these monthly installments and having to get them out by a certain time and having to please like a certain amount of people and having to include certain aspects which um like i do understand and like i think at least for us and i'm sure for you guys too it did feel like okay maybe um i don't want to read like another scene of the exact same thing but um even in it the way that he would kind of present it through his writing was really nice and i think something else i really enjoyed too like in later works dickens is so established and he is almost always like his own character or like we very much know he's the narrator and that narrator is a character and like he's talking to us like in a christmas carol and stuff like that but and this one i thought was really interesting because it is like his first thing but there's so much similarity between pickwick and dickens as well um one in like i think one of the first few chapters um pickwick like gives kind of his mission statement as um ruminating on the strange mutability of human affairs and to be an observer of human nature i was like this is what dickens is doing and like this whole book and it's so nice and like essentially dickens kind of is pickwick going around all over traveling walking at night talking to people being a reporter for a little bit um and writing down these stories that he did actually here so like that was so interesting to see like a little bit like i know pickwick isn't exactly dickens but there was so much there that i was just like that is so um i definitely see that connection yeah yeah i thought that was really nice um and like you said it's just so funny like i've never i rarely ever laugh out loud um at a book ever but that like the hat scene scene it's like probably the best the um i like sat there like crying i'm like that never happens i don't know why i found it so funny because and the illustration to accompany it i was dying oh my god it's so great yeah i know i know um yeah and then i think probably another thing for the writing it's just the imagery and also like it's it's a book you can see but i think especially with dickens in this one it's like such an audible book um so many people like he makes sure to give everyone such a distinct like voice and dialogue with different accents different speech patterns he shows us that like in the actual writing itself which is so nice um it's just like you can hear everyone talking especially like mr jingles so didn't love it but like you know exactly who's speaking and stuff like that sam weller samweller's father each member of the pickwicks that was just really nice and then his very kind of interactive imagery like there's this one scene i think it's chapter five on page 52 of my edition it's the where he's like he looks out the window he's like staying in one of the hotels very early on and then he just sees like a castle do you remember that one i don't know he sees like a castle in the distance and then he starts talking about it but like the reader kind of assumes mr pickwick's position looking out the window and then dickens is like taking us left and right and it's very much the tour of everything and i just i don't know it was just like that throughout the whole novel like very much inclusive to the reader into like where we were kind of parallel to where the characters were like in a room or in a different city or a state or something like that which um yeah was just so nice yeah yeah i don't know i agree um so i'm gonna i'm gonna make a little um toast away comparison so i feel like and i've heard i've seen a lot of people talking about how how different they are and everybody you know is especially the people that are on both teams too i'm sure you agree that there's such different characters it's like how can you compare them um which it's very hard to compare them and i think that that's what makes it really interesting to actually try and compare them um but i think it comes down to personal preference honestly um especially with writing style because they're both such gifted writers but they go about the process of writing so differently and they both have very different effects on the reader as well and they both have very different intents talking about intent earlier um so for me personally obviously i'm you know i'm close to this side i'm so sorry tickets um i love dickens but there's something about tolstoy especially i know i don't want to talk too much about war and peace but you know we did start reading war and peace in the beginning of april and while reading pickwick even though the writing is fantastic it it did easily lose lose my attention lose my interest and already with war and peace i'm only 50 pages in it is like so much longer than pickwick i don't want it to end i like never want it to end in there's some we were talking earlier about how great dickens is is writing characters and he is it's just fantastic how he does it um but tolstoy goes about describing characters in a way where he gives you attributes about them that you didn't know you wanted like you know like he gives you like the shadow on their upper lip or like the texture of their clothes and it's things that don't really relate to their distinct physicality but they add so much to the character itself and i feel like to some point dickens can be pretty surface level like he does go very deep in some situations but not so much in others and i feel like tolstoy really like he is so like deep is the only word that really is mind right now um and i his writing just i remember the quote i forgot who said it um but i think it's i first heard it in the original debate where someone said that if the world could write could write itself it would write like tolstoy and i just i always loved that quote and i feel like people could say that about dickens definitely because he definitely captured life really well but i sort of feel like while reading the pickwick papers it was distinctly an english novel yes you can tell that it was very much you know in the confines of um english life whereas with with tolstoy i feel like i'm not russian i've never been to russia i know very little about russian culture yet i relate so much and i feel like i'm so a part of tolstoy's writing um in a way that i'm just not there with dickens so that's my little feel super good point um yeah i totally agree like i think pickwick is very confined like there's so many jokes i think that just absolutely went right over my head both because i'm not from um the same century or the same like location but um yeah no i think yeah like i'm only about 25 pages into one piece but um yeah i would totally agree totally agree with that and like um i think a lot of the time too like tolstoy talks about everything that's relatable um and real but then in pickwick like it's a bit of a point i think for both but dickens and pickwick like it just shows he can like he can literally just do anything um and write about anything like a chair turns into a man a man oh my gosh that was one of my favorites and that would never tulsa would never yes i would never you know the injustice of war and the philosophy of um you know how we are all i don't know destiny um but i just think like he's just i don't know he just like assaults your assumptions about every single genre about what can happen in a book what should happen in a book um and i think it's just like a surprise every time you turn the page like did you i didn't know a man was going to turn into i was not expecting that no exactly and i think with tolstoy like you very much like you know what you're getting and that's not a bad thing um like you said they're just so different you guys just you in different ways yeah yeah exactly um i was just so blown away like how he can just so seamlessly jump from like a ghost story that starts off dangerous and spooky and scary and then by the end of it um it's just like you're laughing because they're like i don't know cracking jokes about being ghosts or something like that um but it's just like so impressive and how quickly he does it and how like spread out they are he never lets you stay in the realm of like the serious he never lets you stay in the realm of comedy for too long it's always like a very good balance um i know it is kind of a repetitive balance of common sense but um yeah i was just super impressed but yeah yeah these are really good points too the madman story like the manuscript that was so great so good it's so good it really felt like a short story collection to me like yeah and that's i'm going to talk a bit more about that when we get to talk about structure um but yeah i don't want to say too much before that but yeah we uh should we get into characters yeah cccs would you like to begin sure um so in my journal i wrote characters slash caricatures because i mean like it's a strength and a weakness i think because you can do so much with you know archetypes and caricatures but there is also you know pros and cons to that type of character yeah um so although his characters were fun and entertaining um they didn't really feel real to me and you know like i knew that they were fictional characters i i felt their falsity in a way whereas in reading tolstoy sometimes i forget i'm reading a fiction a fictional novel it almost feels like a non-fictional account or it feels like i'm actually in the book with them and you know i'm really watching what's happening so i do feel like the characters going back to the feeling of depth i do feel like the characters are not very deep and i don't think that dickens really intended them whereas you know tolstoy wanted that gravity in his characters in his work and that realism you know wanted the um the fantastical in a way um so i wrote down um that i you know you can picture you could picture toasters characters having lived and you can you can see them having existed whereas i can't really picture samuel pickwick you know one from london i just i just can't even is that he's just chasing his hat every day he is just chasing his hat um it sort of felt like i think the best way that i can describe it um i guess in some sort of metaphor or analogy is i feel like reading the pick with papers and reading charles dickens sort of feels like you're watching an animated movie and reading tolstoy it feels like watching a live action um where you know there's just a greater sense of realism kind of like let's see but it makes sense to say taking steps in a stage while telstra is in a movie i definitely yeah i definitely think so i even think so i when did i make that okay okay we're gonna get into this all right so which is crazy because i made this analogy in my journal and then um before i started reading war and peace and then the intro the person introducing more in peace made the same analogy talking about tolstoy and i was like no no we're gonna talk about it okay um okay so i'll just read what i wrote down um so i'll use the analogy of a puppet show to further the difference between how each author creates and writes their characters so dickens proudly holds the role of puppeteer in a puppet show he wants you to see what he has created he wants you to laugh and be entertained by the falsities of his show he wants you to see all the strings that are attached to these fantastic puppets um whereas tolstoy he doesn't want you to see himself as the puppeteer or he does but in a more subtle way and um he doesn't present himself in the way in the same way that dickens does to the reader you're conscious of his narration but he doesn't say you know i am the narrator acknowledge my presence kind of like he does especially in a christmas carol exactly um and then also he wants you to think and feel deeply and there there aren't falsities to tell story where are whereas there are in dickens two dickens of strength and weakness i believe um so telstra doesn't want you to see the strings unlike dickens wants you to see all the things that he's created and put together and oh look at this fantastic you know literary technique that i've created or i've played with and put them all together to make this wonderful show um so telstra just want you to see the strings in all actuality there are no strings to the show and his puppets are people who have their own will and ultimately there are no strings which i just think uh kind of furthers my fur this is my analogy so then i'm gonna get my copy of it's right here um conveniently yes conveniently it's right here everyone look it's so beautiful um okay i even wrote in the margin i was like i just made this analogy the other day okay um yeah so i wrote in in the margin i can't believe this um today okay it was the day before i started reading the book um i made the puppet analogy and the pickwick notes okay um let's see where should i begin okay um theater and theatrical movements are highly significant in war and peace both in the war sequences and in the peace episodes the sense that the characters were in peace both great and small act and move as if connected by threads of destiny and is just below the surface of this work of art as it relentlessly questions ideas of free will fate and providence each of tulsa's major characters at some point observes life as if it were a theater each one at significant points in his or her journey senses that he or her is playing a role and that things could not be otherwise that what happens is somehow scripted or inevitable and then it goes into somewhat of a spoiler so i'll skip that uh so it says he performs his assigned role um and then it also says i'm just missing spoilers so then um okay so the imaginative reader might perceive the broken threads of the puppet strings so like i was just i literally made that analogy and then i read this that night and i was like i was in there yeah so i think that it's fantastic because the the person introducing the book um i forgot what his name is let me just credit him uh oh it's a woman amy mandelker um that like because she's kind of describing it as there are strings yeah so i think it's it was so interesting to really make that connection i think it really depends on you the reader yeah the thing you know are there strings or they're not strings um yes so yeah do you want to i feel like i've been chatting no no i told them um i think like you said like yeah it is a very much like your own um opinion and i think like i don't know i just love both i think like you love both as well like the theatrical um and like seeing the strings and not seeing the strings sort of thing like with dickens and the pickwick papers like i like that i kind of know that that's there and i like like seeing that it's there because it's still so impressive to me um and impressive in the way as well that he's like showing us that it's impressive if like that makes sense um but in the pickwick papers as well like the characters like i know we're on character um at the moment but like they are very much not that deep and like you said that's not really his intent um but i think i really loved how each of the pick wikians and mr pickwick included like they all held and they were all attributed with that one certain personality trait or hobby or whatever it may be that really defined them and i think like with the characters in this book and everything that they go through and with the issues that they face and with the commentary that's brought up um it's super theatrical there's so much of a farce made of politics and law and romance and human connection victorian and pre-victorian morals but i think in that like i was kind of i think i wrote down or something that um it's like dickens novels are kind of wearing stage makeup but i wouldn't say the stage makeup on his novels is there to kind of hide or obscure the truth or kind of make a mockery of anything but it's there like for us the reader and the audience in this case because it is such theater um to be able to like see it better and for us to be able to pick up those aspects that um he's dressing up in certain ways and for us to be able to analyze them through that kind of costume and that dress up and that stage makeup which was really interesting but um i think like it is just all down to your personal preference but i think there's so many good things and bad things you can say about both um styles and i think with the pick papers like because dickens was so um boxed in writing it and he had to fill like quotas and meet certain people's expectations and write about certain topics he managed to kind of layer all of this um what do you call it not confetti but like frivolity i don't know yeah i don't know icing on the cake over top of these super important um issues that people of the day reading it the upper class the middle class maybe they wouldn't have pushed away but maybe they would have um kind of had an easier time of digesting and like actually thinking about these important issues that did not affect them at all they would probably be super used to just brushing by and not looking at very much but i think the pic papers does that but it gives them a little bit of like uh um you know i mean like a shield from it completely with this entertainment level with this theater level kind of on top of it which is interesting but um yeah they're just so good i don't know which one do you guys like more like do you like the theater do you like like the theater but not theater um kind of style i don't know they're both so good they're both so good they are and i feel like they you know like you said they have the strengths and weaknesses and i think it's interesting to sort of like pick and compare them and figure out you know because they're so different like which one as a reader you prefer it's i feel so lucky that we can that we have both of these fantastic styles and you know we have the choice of like oh you know which am i in the mood for because i'm such a mood reader and i think but my point is though is like i'm always in the mood for telstra and i feel like it's kind of like figuring out who you're always in the mood for um yeah something that i wanted to talk about is that i did feel like mr pickwick was the only character that was really fleshed out and like yes he's the main character and that you know that happens um naturally uh just with your main character being the writer of course you know you're going to give the reader the most information about them um but i kind of felt like after a while his other friends like mr chapman mr small grass um and winkle yeah and like i sort of not that i forgot about them but we didn't really like get them as much and i i sort of felt like where'd they go where did mr tubman go left he left the book he did he did um and i just i feel like in tolstoy even if there's an insignificant character that has maybe one line yet like we get something to hold on to about them whereas like dickens sort of gives us these somewhat central characters and then sword is like okay never mind you know like they're not going to be on these pages which i just like want to know why i think not really like criticizing that because maybe it's intentional yeah i don't know i think that that's interesting yeah yeah i think with like just with the four pick wikians like snodgrass tupman winkle and um oh pickwick is the fourth one yes i just think like compared to tolstoy like i just talking about kind of childhood boyhood youth at the moment but we like we know when he was writing that trilogy like he wasn't um super im he didn't believe in like what he was writing it seemed like he was writing something like false and it was a lie and he wasn't actually invested in these ideas and like while his characters in childhood boyhood youth are super fleshed out and like you said we always have something to take away um from them i think the characters like in dickens they are flat and they do they're not super flat but you know what i mean they're yeah more flat um they embody this one thing that like dickens really like does believe in and you can tell he's so um passionate about like letting you know about this issue or about um these follies and like after i finished the book and closed it i was just like the kind of three defining features of like pic uh tupman winkle and stonegrass like poetry women and um hunting and athletics okay they're just kind of like um useless they always lead them into trouble they never bring them into any situations of value or um good things in their lives and they're just kind of there to critique like that upper class um hobbies and personality and like the way they're brought up and like we always see that like those three things that those men have lead them into like bad like um just completely missing the points of certain debates and stuff like that um but yeah i don't know i definitely agree though like where did they go they kind of left yeah yeah yeah um i'm just reading some of the comments yeah let's see i like the one where it says um lover i like dickens because of so much his work has become part of the english language calling someone a scrooge has become part of the english lexicon which i i totally agree even like humbug and i feel like it's because a christmas carol is such a household story and the you know like you're saying the english lexicon it's part of the english lexicon i think that it's really interesting how that has happened and it sort of transcended time um i definitely do think i mean of course war and peace and anika rina like have transcended time as well but i don't think they've infiltrated the home i think they've infiltrated the mind of the reader yeah i feel like dickens does have a place in people's homes yeah that makes any sense um here he is he's right there he's right here you can see him yes yes here he is um yeah so but i do think that we're at where dickens infiltrates the home like i i mean that sounds like he's uh he's um breaking and entering he's infiltrating the home um but he's he's there in in people's hearts but i do feel like tolstoy is there in people's minds so they're both there but in different places in the reader they affect the reader differently um something that i do kind of want to complain about let's talk is um dickens name calls quite a lot which i wasn't really expecting i mean i feel like uh i don't know um i'll get into what i was gonna say yeah um so he mainly describes people's physicality sort of in a judgmental tone at least that's like how i felt when reading the book um then the one character that i felt so bad for was joe also known as the fat boy every five seconds the fat boy the fat boy the fat boy and i was like it's not like he didn't give us his name and we don't know his name that's it that's our only way to distinguish who dickens is talking about but we have his name his name is joe yeah what's his name um and um i don't know if this bothered the 19th century reader but it definitely bothers this 21st century and i don't know if it's because we have become more sensitive to things like that and to certain topics revolving around you know name calling people i know i felt bad for joe too um and i feel like his only you know distinguishing qualities was that he slept all the time and he ate co-based amounts of food um and even there are descriptors like this one chapter four page 65 um the fat boy waddled i was just like you could have said joe waddled but um but it's saying the fat boy like in conjunction with this descriptor of like waddled i was like come on dickens um but what i found really interesting was that and i don't know if the 19th century reader would have known this but um i i discovered this while researching um so we do know about joe that he consumes great quantities of food and constantly sleeps in any situation at any time of day and there's a reason for this which i didn't realize until i found it out while researching um joe's character actually became the origin of the medical term pickwickian syndrome which ultimately led to the subsequent description of obesity hyperventilation syndrome a condition relating to sleep apnea which i was so baffled by because i didn't know yeah if you didn't know that then you're like why is this guy sleeping all the time you know why is it always mentioned that he like can't help himself but like just consume all the food um so i guess this is his way of bringing humor to a more troubling syndrome or condition or topic just in general but i don't i just felt like maybe he could have mentioned that this had some medical backing it was sort of like thrown in there just for jokes and i didn't find it brave yeah yeah um so that's my little uh spiel about about yeah um joe should i continue on i have more i think you have another one to make so i'm just gonna um i'm just gonna say it it's the elephant in the room i've seen so many people commenting it women women women women where were they fainted what nothing just uh unconscious really okay um to quote charles dickens chapter 14 page 184 women after all gentlemen said the enthusiastic mr snodgrass are the great props and comforts of our existence mic drop we literally cost women props i read that and i was like i know what i know what oh my god never heard of them no no yeah good point as well the characters we did get um i can't even i can't tell them apart still no okay wait i'm not done i'm not done go go keep going um okay to quote charles dickens again chapter 12 page 161 mrs bardell had fainted in mr pickwick's arms um and then continuing on chapter 18 page 238 but the unfortunate man's voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner um mrs pott let me entreat you my dear ma'am to compose yourself said mr winkle but the shrieks and tappings were louder and more frequent than ever if they aren't fainting they're screaming or swooning or causing some kind of havoc for the men i don't have anything to say you're right you're right it's just like i want to know why i want to talk to dickens sit him down be like explain yourself please so because i feel like we did see the misunderstanding of women in childhood youth from tolstoy's side yeah and it's so obvious in pick with papers like sadly so i know i know i don't really have anything like maybe i don't know talking about childhood boyhood youth like yeah dick or uh tolstoy not fully understanding woman wears dickens um like it was just so it was literally every single scene like i kid you not like maybe minus five scenes um where we had women in the scene like in the first place that um they just fainted um and like especially not only that like women and individuals and the characters we did have but then coupled with the pick wikians and like those relationships that were formed there like um it just kind of being used to show like the trouble and i guess i don't know the morals of the pre-victorian world but um but my question is did women actually act this way i really don't think so i really don't i don't know i mean i feel like they had to i don't know yeah i don't know i mean yeah i guess maybe society made that the norm um yeah uh i have i have one more okay which furthers my point um okay so once again to quote charles dickens chapter 18 page 242 is it not a wonderful circumstance said mr pickwick that we seem destined to enter no man's house without involving him in some degree of trouble beneath whatever roof they locate they disturb the peace of mind and happiness of some confiding female so basically women just play roles to just to interact with give the men something to interact with that's how it felt for me like they were just there because women exist and they have to you know he had to write women in because women are a part of humanity it didn't really feel like they had a purpose or an intention and he just basically used them as little props to stick in his scene to make them interesting and i just it was so frustrating i know i had to stop reading at certain points because i was like i can't do this i can't and what makes me really sad too is like did dickens know or even think about like women reading it or future women reading it you know because i feel like at that time women weren't obviously educated the same women weren't given the same rights even for toe story too like my question for these classic male authors is did you realize that women would eventually read your work i don't know they i think they had to i mean that's what i think i mean trying to like look on them look for the good in them yeah i know i know i do feel like and we talked about this with the childhood boyhood youth um live show is that it is a part of reading classic novels written by white men um let's see i love how the women and the brontes and the austin's books are the complete opposite yes yes and that like furthers my point is it's not like only men wrote in this time period we got women novels and we got for instance jane eyre jane jane herself is such a strong deep considerate and thoughtful character she she never swooned and she never screamed and i mean maybe she did but like not to the extent of being overdone like dickens does to these poor women in these novels and something else was that like he really accentuated the physicality of women in pickwick papers like when there was a beautiful woman he made sure that you knew she was beautiful that was like her distinguishing quality i remember one of the characters he kept describing her bright eyes she has bright eyes and then her bright eyes and her brown eyes like every five seconds yeah okay we get it she has bright eyes she's very pretty she's a flashlight yes she's lighting away yeah um yeah i don't really have anything i'm not i'm not gonna say anything but i think um with any issue that's brought up like dickens is like he's totally just relying on people at the time just laughing and like having a good time with that even though of course like it's horrible um but yeah i don't really i agree well something that i will say and i will give joking some credit is that in great expectations he writes you can grow very strong female characters you know miss havisham and stella and i'm so glad we started with great expectations because i met like that's why i'm saying do not start with pick with me yeah you're gonna think that tolstoy's i mean not tulsi dickens is uh very close-minded and sexist um so but like in miss havisham and estella we do get these very complex female characters so i do think that you know part of it is he's a very new writer he might not have experience you know he just got married so he probably hasn't experienced life with a woman and you know he he's a naive man ultimately so of course and he's like super restricted having to write for yeah whatever they want him to write and what what and it's a very male dominated industry yeah publishing at that time i'm sure everybody that he worked with was male so you know yeah yeah uh someone said is tolstoy not sexist then it's really it's hard to throw that word around i think because you know we're we're dealing with men from a different time period in a different society ultimately kind of in a different world so i feel like to a point like how do you define sexism is there really a definition and as well as you know both could be seen as sexist in different people's viewpoints i think it really depends on what you consider the term and how you define the word yeah uh i for me i like to um yeah someone just said they weren't sexist in their time i completely agree because that was the norm you know how everybody in today's day is trying to normalize things um normalize body image normalize mental health and they're very important topics but at that time that was normal so i do feel like in defining them as sexist in our day yes you could say that they're sexist but in their time they weren't seen as being that way so i do feel like as a modern reader we have to look at it from both viewpoints and acknowledge that yeah it's definitely a difficult yeah anyway anyway anyway we just had to get that out of the way it needed to be discussed i discussed it um let's i just want to see yeah if we should say anything that people aren't um okay someone said that's why dickens is so good he didn't care about appealing to the masses and minorities um which is what mostly destroys today's media i definitely agree um someone also said underneath i mean it's a white man writing a book in the 18th century you really shouldn't expect much and like i agree but i do feel like it's it goes both ways you know i feel like there's no right or wrong answer to anything and we're coming at this as modern readers so it's like it's the it's the challenge of reading classics especially written by two white men um pretty much did have privileged lives something that i did want to mention as well is that tolstoy was born into uh into money ultimately dickens wasn't dickens his family was put in a debtor's prison so they're very different writers based on their experiences even uh their monetary experiences that what they've gone through and how that relates to the stories that they write from the characters that they write you know because even though my point is sorry i uh things going on in my head trying to kind of wear this correctly i think you have to consider what the author has been through and their viewpoint um which is why we have the category in the debates of intent and background i ultimately completely relate to the stories um same thing with women same thing with sexism and um you know people talk about how telstra had serfs and then other people talk about how um you know dickens only wrote for money and to uh you know beca why his books are so long is because he had you know he was paid by the word so there are these different aspects to the writers that aren't cut and dry um yeah so yeah yeah anyway um should we talk about platinum structure now yes let's do it let's do it all right do you want to go i feel like i've been hurt no no good that's amazing um just with everything we talked about like i'll talk a little like i have a few points to make about it too when we get too intense just to finish up the debate but yet to talk about plot um okay i guess we'll just complete topic change now um but i guess i'll go back to a little bit of like that reality i found it really interesting how when pickwick started like um dickens kind of took on this guys like this is like reality these were things that actually happened and i'm only like the editor of these papers i'm only the one putting them in order editing their journals and stuff like that and it was just really interesting to kind of have that against um not necessarily like accusations of being theatrical but just like that theater that dickens does have um but the fact that he started like the pickup papers already basing it on a foundation of like reality and convincing you that yes this is real this was the pickwick club these are the posthumous papers of their club was really interesting so it kind of takes on this kind of like mythological historical record kind of book which is really interesting and i love that because it is like it's not it's not a book it's like a history book um it's just so good like it captures every single faucet facet facet yes faucet it's okay it's okay okay um you know what i mean every single thing in reality um like we have the clothes and the politics the way we talk and every single food that everyone eats um and the law and the legal system and stuff like that and it's just like such a good source if you are a historian or wanting to write something from this time period and from this location like it talks about so much geography talks about local folklore and stuff like that i just thought it was incredible how that was like put into this book and the reason why so much of it worked and was so enormously popular and like grew so much like you said at the beginning was because people of the day like wanted to read about themselves wanted the book to be a bit of like a theatrical and i think mirror for themselves um and that's why it was so funny that's why it worked and so i think like there is like again like the debate between theater and realism but i think this book does have so much more reality in it than like might be presupposed so i just really love that like it was just like like the historian the dream of history you know what i mean so yeah that was so good yeah yeah i agree um i do feel like it is somewhat of a limited history yeah absolutely so like i completely agree with you um and i do think that it's kind of like he's giving us a little insight into what life was like then now exaggerated or not false or not it is you know we do get a glimpse and i think that that's why i love classics so much is because it gives you that ability to time travel and you know yeah dickens gave that to the modern reader whether he knew he was doing it or not same thing same thing with jane austen the brontes all these wonderful classic writers um okay this is kind of unrelated um i did want to talk a bit more about the structure and the like publication of the book so since this book was originally serialized it came out obviously monthly so readers were reading you know a chapter or however much a month putting it down waiting getting it again getting that excitement for it to see what would happen next and i think it's almost to the detriment of the modern reader because we're we're given it as a book one full volume um but the 19th century readers were getting it as you know a serialization yeah and so i do feel like this book if you're reading it you should read it as a serialization you should pick you know a certain amount of pages or certain amount of chapters and read them over a long span of time because i do feel like if you try to read it like a novel it's it's just a bit it's a doesn't read like a novel it's really not and um and something else is that um i think my my personal enjoyment would have been better if i write it that way so i i do acknowledge that um and i feel like yeah it wasn't he wasn't writing it to be read all at one time no no and like i said yeah they could be bound together and re-read as one volume but i think the strength of the structure itself in the publication does lie in reading it like a serialization yeah yeah absolutely yeah so i think that's like my main issue with the plot and the structure well for one there really was no plot like you know if you if you look at the end it tied in together more yeah yeah if you talk if you like made a map yeah you know how like the typical like structure map of the um i forgot what they're called i learned about them we learned about them in in school um yeah it's a beginning climb accent you know like there's none of that there is none of that um which i think is why the book gets tedious after a while is because we we aren't holding on to one tangible plot where okay we want to know what's gonna happen it's sort of like we're getting these little bits and we're trying to you know collect them so yeah yeah i agree um yeah i think yeah and the only thing i can kind of say in defense that i think is that at least kind of from episode to episode it was like balanced like we had kind of the heights um and kind of the bowels of human existence we had so much comedy we had so much seriousness as the kind of thing to keep it um steadily rolling i guess but like it did grow definitely tedious and like having to come back again to things that seemed very disconnected and on that regard a little bit pointless because of that disconnect i think um like i really really enjoyed the first half of the pickwick papers um and as i kept going it just kind of lost a little bit of the magic for me um and then at the end like it did tied together especially once we got like the trial with bartle and pickwick that kind of all brought everyone together and stuff like that which was nice and then i i guess i liked the way it wrapped up but yeah i did i really liked the ending yeah yeah i felt like it was really sweet because they do kind of give you that closure that i was hoping for so yeah yeah exactly um did you want to go to intent or did you have it yeah yeah i mean my my main thing about structure is that i don't think it should be read as a novel no completely agree i think you should like pick it up and like read a segment once a month or something yeah like treat it like a short story collection almost yeah yeah it would be so cool to like read it like as the same way that they would have read it um in the day so yeah yeah um but in terms of intent i guess kind of bouncing off of that i have a few points the first thing is kind of about those social issues that i think dickens is so passionate about and manages to squeeze so many of them into the pic book papers and he does like we did already mention that he layers them and like wraps them up with this fantastical ribbon and like wrapping paper to be more digestible and like kind of suitable for the people of the day unfortunately um but he does kind of frame them in that distorted lens i think to like show us how absurd and how ridiculous these things are like especially the trial um maybe you could argue all the women fainting um the fungus the rotting fungus pit of johnson and hogg's office about the legal system um and stuff like that and also like the ineffectual kind of aspects of the four pick wikians and but they're just so bad at doing normal things they get lost horses they don't know how to travel um and i think like we didn't really talk about how to retrieve their hats they don't know how to hold on to their hats um yeah that too and i think like we didn't really talk too much about sam weller but i think i feel like i love sam weller i am i was reading i actually yeah so someone i was reading don quixote and someone i think dm'd me on instagram and they were making the connection of sancho panza which is like don quixote's squire um kind of like sidekick i've heard that santa panza and dukihote are like the original hero sidekick duo yeah they kind of created that trope which i just love but i could definitely see that with pickwick and sam weller and then i was even um i was looking at pick with papers on goodreads and yeah i just happened to like stumble upon the description that goodreads gives it like the synopsis and goodreads itself makes that connection they were saying like um sam weller the sancho panza to pick wick's donkey hutte and i was like oh my god like that's amazing it's like frodo and um i don't know i was thinking that too and i'm like sam sam i know i know i just love that he gave us like so much insight into sam like sam got so many chapters and we got to like grow so close to him and know who he was and we saw like how much better of not only like a person but also how much more able samweller is than like these four guys who just literally buffoons and have no idea what they're doing yeah out on the road and how sam has to help them so much but just i was so surprised that we got you're welcome um i was just that we got so much of sing wrong because it was such it was so wonderful i loved him so much yeah yeah agreed mm-hmm um yeah what do you want to say i have for intent um i do have like entertainment and to bring humor to the serious topics talk about things that were relevant to the day yeah something else that i just want to reiterate that i mentioned a bit before was that um they both wrote for different reasons telstra and dickens um tolstoy was born into money so he didn't really have to write to sustain a living the philippines did you know that was his job so i do feel like that is worth acknowledging um because like if we're talking about intent and why it was written yeah why was dickens writing yes because it was a part of his life and he loved to write but also that was his livelihood yeah it's a bit different for tolstoy so that's um there was like this one quote from the introduction that was just like so nice about the pickwick papers and how it like it's a book like anyone can pick up and anyone can love but it just said um judges on the bench and boys in the street gravity and folly the young and the old those who were entering life and those who were quitting it alike would have enjoyed the book and we're reading it like because like i don't know it was just all over and like gaining so much popularity which is yeah um like it is a very kind of closed i think appreciation of this um time period and of this location and stuff like that but like i can see even as someone who doesn't understand everything all the references and stuff like that that it would have worked and would have kind of brought about this like closeness and um i guess connection with everyone who's reading it at the same time yeah um yeah i don't know and also like one of the last things i want to say about intent is that kind of you know all the little like short stories that aren't um like the direct plot and stuff like that so many of them are kind of about the abuse of arts and like the portrayal of arts and like artists and stuff like that which is a really interesting um i think topic for dickens to be writing about especially like what he's doing with the pickwick papers like one that just really i think embodies them all is chapter three which is the one called the stroller's tail and that's the one where the actor like it's the older actor i think and he gets extremely ill and he's also extremely poor but he has to keep working but then because he's ill like the stage people and the managers and everyone like that they use his illness and like he's literally dying but they use it for entertainment value and for like this realist depiction of these like real actors and stuff like that and it's just it was just so tragic and i think so much of the book is like trying to pick out those moments of like abuse and exploitation of like art and using for art and stuff like that and then dickens i think in the pickwick papers is a little bit like he tries to undo a little bit of that by like writing down those stories and spreading like the truth of them and not just like using like for example the person from the stroller's tail as like that actor that everyone is so entertained by because he's like dying um and then just like telling us the truth of those moments so um yeah i just thought that was really good as well yeah someone just said yeah i need y'all's opinion in the poem oh to an expiring frog please i was dying oh my god that was hilarious i've never read anything more exquisite honestly like the poetry award goes to that one yes oh my gosh so funny i love how it's like because no one says expiring anymore like when we support expiring we're talking about food like food going down whereas like oh you know um my cat expired like it went bad i think like the old terminology and like the different uses of certain words makes it much more funny in classics especially you know owed to an expiring frog so good oh my gosh yeah um do you have anything else you want to say for intent i don't think so i don't have anything else noted okay should i like should i post the poll now on youtube yes and then while we're waiting for some more i'll do this we can share our favorite quotes wow wonderful thank you okay one second let me like ross dickens okay so i the poll if you guys want to go vote after this debate um who is your favorite author dickens or tolstoy after you've listened to this whole thing it's a bit long i'm sorry um i'll post it now on my channel just in like the little community tab and then um i'm not gonna post i don't think an undecided or should i yeah no no you have to vote yes both but you have to you have to vote um and then yeah okay well i put that up if you want to tell us your favorite quotes yes i also want to acknowledge the very sweet comments saying is it just me or does emma look exceptionally pretty today every day case is already red we don't have okay wait how do i do this that's a great question oh no i got it keyboard you got it okay yeah you you got all right okay my first favorite quote is actually speaking of poems it is the ivy green poem no no that was one of mine really yeah okay it is chapter 6 page 85 the hulk bomb is gorgeous um but i picked my favorite little part of it is the brave old plant in its lonely days shall shall threaten upon the past where the stateliest building man can rise is the ivy's food at last creeping on where time has been a rare old plant is the ivy green like it's it's so good it's so good it's so beautiful um and then my second bigger quote is um all of page 71 chapter five i will turn to it wow you do that okay and it's up as well i just picked it up do you want me to do you want me to say my first one yeah yeah go ahead um okay i guess i'll i like wrote down some spares just in case we uh overlapped okay so my first one is on page 308 [Music] it's a christmas carol one it's like that little poem it's like poem in the book yeah um it's the one that's like let the summer sun to his bright home run he shall never be soft by me when he's dimmed by a cloud i can laugh aloud and care not how salty he be for his darling child is the madness wild that sports and fierce fevers train and when love is too strong it don't last long as many have found to their pain and then like it goes through like every season and then it's like you can hate every season except for christmas and it's just oh my gosh um okay should i share my second yeah yes okay so it is chapter five page 71 and it's basically this whole page and what's funny is it's about rising early and experienced experiencing the morning sun and i'm a night owl though like i i prefer sleeping in and staying up late which is so funny because my entire life i have wanted to be a morning person and experience the morning sun but i am i've just been a perpetual night owl um maybe one day i will maybe the morning person who knows okay um ah people need to rise early to see the sun and all his splendor for his brightness seldom last the day through the morning of day and the morning of life are but too much alike and then it continues on um oh okay and then i i made a little funny comment so god what would i forfeit to have the days of my childhood restored or be able to forget them forever i was like nicolingo is that you i really wrote in the in the margins nicolenka is that you um another one on that page is the calm cool water seemed to me to murmur an invitation to repose and rest a bound a splash a brief struggle there is an eddie for an instance it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple the wads the water the wads the waters have closed above your head and the world has closed upon your miseries and misfortunes forever i just love that oh cause i i'm a swimmer i love swimming and the whole like visual of a bound to splash a brief struggle there's an eddie for an instant it gradually slides into a gentle ripple and then this part the water um the waters have closed above your head and the whole world close upon your miseries and misfortunes forever like that's how i feel when i swim so when i read that i was like right like right in the cart and so oh my gosh oh my gosh the whole page page 71 was just beautiful glorious sky was dark and bloomy the air is damp and dry the streets were wet and sloppy so good great okay my um my last one's like one of the last quotes in the book actually it's from 7 17. um and it's like when they're all kind of together everyone's together at the end um it says let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness of which if we seek them there are ever some to cheer our transitory existence here just like a tornado up there i don't know um there are dark shadows on the earth but its lights are stronger in the contrast some men like bats or owls have better eyes for the darkness than for the light we who have no such optical powers are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many many solitary hours when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them these are all so good yes mr piglet was a philosopher but philosophers are only men in armor after all amazing it is the face of all authors and chroniclers to create imaginary friends and lose them in the course of art i love that one too that's gorgeous they're so good thank you guys so much for coming out this is so fun this was so much fun um emma i am going to ask you the question everybody especially me is wondering what would that be we're dickens okay okay okay i'm going to vote [Music] [Applause] oh my gosh oh the poll the poll is on on my um youtube guys it's like on the community section it should be probably in the subscription box as well you pull it up um but yeah i knew it what made you change your mind it's a big wig papers um i don't know like i really did love it and like i think when i switched to dickens the first time like i am just kind of basing it on everything i've read from them so far um and like childhood boyhood youth didn't really impress me but neither so much did pickwick papers but then like anna great expectations and now being a little bit into one piece i think tolster again but um i really love like changing because it's just like so fun to yeah and beyond both people team but yeah yeah yeah everybody's toasted forever toaster toy story forever the man is literally like all like like it's honestly sad how much i think about toasting because you need help which i feel like you know what's funny is because before we actually did the debate when we were just talking about it and remember the first time we asked each other like who okay whose team are you on yeah like we both didn't know what each other was going to say because we had just finished reading great expectations and we both adored great expectations and so i was like completely torn obviously toast joy because you know anika nina's you know a bit higher on the scale than great expectations but great expectations is up there um so it's just carol's toy love it love it oh my god um you're still on team until sorry i'm assuming oh yeah no no i'm dickens april fools no it's not it's not like anymore oh my gosh oh my gosh when what what are you gonna say i'm just i'm just looking at the votes sorry oh look at the votes look at the votes i know when how long how much more should we give it guys have you all voted has everyone vomited i haven't voted i'm gonna go vote well i'm gonna vote oh no wait i can't vote that's that's sad wait can you see who's winning sorry that was a weird lab i've never heard that one before oh my god oh my gosh oh my god um yes i can see how many people voted okay so far we have 105 votes in and yeah you guys can all see it anyway it's oh yeah everyone can see it everyone is winning baby oh my gosh yeah if you guys haven't voted it's just on the uh i don't know what to call it it's in your subscription box it'll just pop up like a little comment um excuse my unintentional evil laugh didn't realize i could do it okay okay with the pigment papers i have changed to team toastery says broken paperback spines okay oh my goodness before the debate like we did a little vote on instagram before um and the results were about kind of a 38 62 split um i know for for tolstoy um so i would love to know oh sorry sorry i cut you off what were you gonna say no no it's just interesting seeing life though oh yeah definitely i would love to know why you guys are on what team you're on so like if you're saying your team tells joy maybe like briefly tell us why like i would love to know because like i know why i love him and i know why you know emma loves him but i don't know why you love him um something else that i want to talk about is um i'm just just gonna do it i just i'm just loving it so much i'm just like i'm 50 pages in and i'm loving it so much because whole story is cute yes he is yes he is young tolstoy is leo boytoy as emma and i call him oh my god you guys are hilarious oh this should have been dostoevsky versus tolstoy a lot of people were saying that and that would be such an interesting debate but we based it off of the original debate by intelligence squared which is um they did dickens versus toastery so tell stories my beloved i am poster because oh sorry i'm reading a different one um just comparing the debut novels i love um i loved it more tolstoy's style of writing characters and the descriptions were always on point yeah yeah um dickens because i just have so much nostalgia with him while dancing when i was younger we did the christmas carol yeah how much dickens oh that's so great team tolstoy thank you toasted because i like how he tells stories and i feel like his language is not as dense i agree i do feel like you know the story is a bit more of an accessible writer um because his characters have always stuck with me yep yeah oh my gosh they're just both it's okay yeah team justice all the way oh my gosh okay the votes have changed a little bit from the the pre-debate ones okay like very minimally um so far we have 148 votes would you like to know the results yes okay so for team dickens team charles dickens the man the myth the legend we have 35 percent okay of people um and for team toll story that that means we have 65 yeah yeah so there you go um but yeah that's like a little bit a little bit more on dickens side like three percent more but um yeah in carolyn's eyes lucy there was definitely fear in my eyes oh my gosh um see i saw someone asked um um um what would be the first book to read by each of these authors do you mean like where to start with dickinson tolster for if so i mean we started with great expectations and loved it but that's like one of uh dickens's like last works um so if you're new to dickens i honestly would suggest maybe starting either with a christmas carol or great expectations because i started the christmas carol and i loved it because it was short and familiar and but great expectations it's just like a fantastic novel with tolstoy i feel like you can kind of start anywhere honestly yeah yeah oh my gosh i think i feel like tolstoy has won this i think he's won this round again but yeah i'm just so excited to to finally be on his his side next time with warren peace for our next book we're not going to talk about it i don't know how i'm going to be on team dickens for war and peace because i'm adoring it yeah it's really just going to be carolyn and team nothing ultimately what are you laughing at sorry just i'm just like and that if you've given me your number on my um yeah one piece though one piece oh my gosh um yeah we're gonna be taking another two months to read that one and then the live show will be on carolyn's channel i believe uh the first week of june june so yeah yeah oh my gosh henry james versus virginia woolf you guys are doing see these would be fantastic debates debates what are you okay dickens is now at 37. and tolstoy's down to 63. okay so we still have the upper hand oh my gosh okay thank you guys so much for coming this was so much fun um i love these debates so much i know i think um emma and i were talking over skype recently and you were saying the vibes are immaculate they are like all of them all of you guys are so like you know just positive and supportive of this and uh we just appreciate all of all of you so much thank you so much come on thank you guys so much this was so fun yes it's always a blast okay i guess i guess we'll sign off yeah thank you guys so much for coming out and reading crazy long books with us i'm so sorry we have like a few big chunky works um in a row but i'm really excited for war and peace so yeah it'll be worth it the diploma at the end of the four year program of dickens versus tolstoy you guys are all getting free cap and gowns at graduation the class of 2024 dickens was still straight it's gonna be a fantastic class oh okay okay i guess we'll see you guys next time thank you all right enjoy war and peace everyone that you're reading it okay ciao

Channel: * e m m i e *

Views: 24,488

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: 9kevEdqqmVo

Length: 94min 7sec (5647 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021