I have never got on with Dickens. Too wordy for me, He got paid to write thigns in instalments for magazines and so the more words the better.
Yeah, some of his stuff, especially the earlier works, are overwritten to the point of nausea, yet, having read quite a bit of Victorian lit, from Grub Street penny rags such as Varney the Vampire to tales of urban poverty by the brilliant George Reynolds--having read all this, I'm rather used to it, by the by, as one becomes accustomed to an over-abundance of spicy foods until, at last, his palate cannot tolerate lesser foodstuffs, and, ultimately, one finds himself, much like a ravenous pulp worm, gobbling up each and every humbug; if, that is, humbugs are what one's palate has been conditioned to crave.
Heh heh. If commas did not exist, ol Boz would have had to invent them.