Canter Bridge

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Celebrate the day that Naxos decided to delve into audiobooks. Anton Lesser’s reading of Charles Dickens’ uproarious Pickwick Papers is a triumph. One wonders how so many voices can come out of one man’s pipes short of possession by the spirits of Snodgrass, Tuchman, and Pickwick themselves.

For those new to this bit of Dickens’ scribblings, Pickwick and his Pickwick Club are delicious characters that allow the author to take the mickey (affectionately) out of every aspect of Victorian English pomp. The stories of their adventures are Quijotesque without half the drama. One grows to love them, even to cheer for them, as they totter on their way from one near miss to another accidental triumph to, alas, happiness and retirement in the end.

Pickwick is a great place to start, for readers who want to know Dickens for the first time. It is arguably his lightest and most accessible work.

Anton Lesser is something close to immortal. Naxos is to be thanked.

Yet Dickens stands at the beginning and end of it all, one of the English language’s truly great writers.