I loved Bleak House, but I think I just might love this one more. This book is about what it means to be truly free and happy.

Amy Dorrit was born in the Marshalsea prison for debt. Her father was once a prosperous gentleman, but now he’s imprisoned for life. Amy, the youngest and smallest of her siblings, quietly and devotedly manages things so they can all survive.

One day, when Amy is 21, a 40-year-old man named Arthur Clennam comes on the scene, and he’s a friend to her and her family. He plays a key role in making a discovery that leads them out of the Marshalsea and restores all their former fortune and then some. The Dorrits go from a literal prison to a metaphorical one (London high society). Meanwhile, Clennam falls upon hard times and there’s a reversal of fortunes. But wait, there’s another twist.

Amy and Arthur’s story is just one fraction of the book. There is a huge cast of characters who are all trying to break free from something. What does it mean to be truly free in body, mind and soul? Some characters are imprisoned by expectations, by guilt, by vice, by emotion (romantic love in particular). It is so beautifully rendered and woven together. It’s far too complex to write about here, but I thoroughly enjoyed steeping in this theme for a month.

As is always the case with Charles Dickens, his antidote is Christian love. Even though Dickens was a flawed man who made a lot of mistakes, he writes so clearly about the power of Christian morals and ethics to bring true freedom and happiness.

I highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson. I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it half so much if I’d read it in print. I also highly recommend watching the BBC miniseries first, as it’s shockingly faithful to the original.

Now, some quotes:

Regarding Mrs. Clennam: Verily, verily, travellers have seen many monstrous idols in many countries; but no human eyes have ever seen more daring, gross, and shocking images of the Divine nature than we creatures of the dust make in our own likenesses, of our own bad passions. Ch. 30

Regarding Arthur and Amy: Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. Every thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere waste and darkened sky. Ch 27

For we all know how we all deceive ourselves—that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive themselves—as to motives of action. Ch. 13

Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Ch. 8

It is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! Ch. 7

Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a dull relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took one step upward. Ch. 6