Still Unresolved, Again

Checking my journal for 31 December, 2002 - gosh, twenty years ago - I came across this passage: 

I forgot to mention before that I finished Nickleby in KL. The most substantial bit of reading I managed in the rush of making the house livable. The last few chapters flagged a little though not as much as I feared they might. There was real power in the melodramatic sections and bursts of comedy everywhere. An amazingly energetic novel, and much better than critics might lead one to believe.

Realised this meant that it's been two decades since I last read a full novel by Dickens. I know this because with Nickleby I completed all the novels - feeling a bit disappointed there were no more to come, I seem to recall. The only longish thing I've read by the Inimitable since then was Sketches by Boz, which I recall reading in Melbourne, of all places, on one of our December jaunts.

I'm vaguely wondering whether to make a New Year's resolution of making a start on a read-through (or, rather, reread through) of all the major novels, but I doubt that I'll do so, lovely as that sounds. Just got too much on my plate, and still a number of classics of European lit to encounter, never mind stuff from other Far Places. Still, it's nice to contemplate getting immersed in, say, Martin Chuzzlewit to name but one. (A big favourite which I've only read once.)