Nicholas Nickleby Readalong 2021 Week #5 Update

This is the fifth weekly update of Nicholas Nickleby Readalong 2021, and we are approaching more and more near the end. How do you progress so far? What chapter are you in?

The story's getting better and better, that I actually read through some chapters of the next week portion! But here are some of the most important scenes/events from Chapter XLII to LI:

- Enter the scene: Mr. Frank Cheeryble, nephew of the Cheeryble Brothers. Nicholas accidentally witnesses him striking a man who is insolently talking of a young lady of Frank's acquaintance - exactly what Nicholas himself had done to Sir MH! And as if Dickens approved of our discussion on week #3, he included these conversations:
The man struck by Frank (by the way, he's Tom, the clerk at the register office): "A pretty state of things, if a man isn't to admire a handsome girl without being beat to pieces for it!" A girl, waiter, agrees with him, while Nicholas, John and Tilda Browdie, agree with Frank - whose reply is: "But beauty should be spoken of respectfully - respectfully and in proper terms, and with a becoming sense of its worth and excellence." The girl concerned is actually Madeline Bray, the beautiful young lady Nicholas is fallen in love with.

- When Charles and Frank Cheeryble visited the Nicklebys, Smike is, again, distressed. I have suspected from last week that he is secretly falling in love with Kate, and now notices painfully that he wouldn't be able to compete with Frank Cheeryble. Poor Smike!

- Ralph Nickleby is blackmailed by his former clerk, Brooker, but Ralph coolly dismissed him. Unabashed, Brooker approaches Newman and seems to tell him some interesting secrets.

- Ralph and Squeers attempt to reclaim Smike by forging a letter indicating that Mr. Snawley (the man who submitted his wife's son to Dotheboys Hall in earlier chapter) is Smike's biological father. Fortunately Nicholas and John Browdie throw them away.

Good quote about parental affection:

"Parents who never showed their love, complain of want of natural affection on their children - children who never showed their duty, complain of want of natural feeling in their parents - law makers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop them, are loud in their moralisings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers."

- Nicholas becomes the Cheeryble Brothers' agent to help poor Madeline Bray-who has lost her mother and must support her deeply-in-debt father-by (pretending) procuring her artworks to provide her money.

- Another episode of the old gentleman with the small clothes. It happens when Frank Cheeryble and Tim Linkinwater are visiting Mrs. Nickleby and Kate (Miss La Creevy is there, and she is flirting with Tim.. ahem!) The mad man makes an entrance by the chimney and throws all of them in panic, but at least this episode puts Mrs. Nickleby back to reality (not without jealousy when the mad man switches his attention to Miss La Creevy!)

- Vincent Crummles & co. is leaving England and moving to America to start a new chapter, but of course they don't go without a proper party with Nicholas.

- Sir Mulberry Hawk still insists on taking revenge against Nicholas. Lord Frederick Verisoft doesn't agree, and their quarrel ends in a duel. It's a pity that it's Verisoft who's killed; I was hoping very much it'd be Sir MH. He flees to France, instead. For good? Let's see..

- Enter a new vilain: old moneylender Arthur Gride, who offers to pay Walter Bray's (Madeline Bray's father) debt to Ralph, in exchange of Ralph's help to get him marrying Madeline. Gride possesses (illegally) a will of her grandfather, that she will inherit the money upon her marriage. Newman Noggs heard Arthur and Ralph's discussion, but doesn't realize at that time that Madeline Bray is one and the same lady Nicholas is falling in love with. The catastrophe is known to Nicholas only one day before the wedding day - what will he do to prevent it?

TOPIC OF DISCUSSION

Of the numerous villains in this story, who do you think is the most corrupted and heartless, who you hate the most?

I think Sir Mulberry Hawk is the most heartless of all. I hate him from the beginning, and I don't see any chance redemption from him. He's been living a dissipated life for too long; adding that to his high egotism, fuelled by idolatry from his pupils, Sir Mulberry Hawk has become what he is. 

Ralph Nickleby is the main antagonist here, I know, but I'm still hoping for his redemption, a deep regret in the end, at least. He is quite moved by Kate's miserable situation in earlier chapter, anyway. The problem is he is too attached to money. He had two choices, but he picked his business first. While Sir MH... I don't believe he ever thinks about anything else beyond getting what he wants. Regret? Maybe never...

Now let us hear your opinion! You can leave comments below, or you can post on your blog if you feel like it, but don't forget to leave the link here so we can visit and comment.