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Dec 02, 2007

Jessica rated it:

Shivering in unheated gaslit quarters (Mrs. Winklebottom, my plump and inquisitive landlady, treats the heat as very dear, and my radiator, which clanks and hisses like the chained ghost of a boa constrictor when it is active, had not yet commenced this stern and snowy morning), I threw down the volume I had been endeavoring to study; certainly I am not clever, neither am I intrepid nor duly digligent, as after several pages I found the cramped and tiny print an intolerable strain on my strabism More...

22 comments like (83 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Matt rated it:

I get why people dislike the legal system. It’s slow, complicated, and costly. And the only time you hear about it is when an apparently horrible decision is reached. (I shudder at how many people were ready to scrap the jury system after the Casey Anthony verdict).

As a lawyer, though, I see the legal system’s virtues (and as a public defender, its virtues, for me at least, do not include a hefty paycheck). For one, lawsuits are a better alternative than self-help justice. If your n More...

5 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Dave rated it:

Finally finished it and it only took me four months [pats self on back, does a little victory dance and then weeps,] but I'm so glad I read it. This is a book--like The Brothers Karamozov--that makes the subsequent books the author wrote seem superfluous. It contains multitudes. All of humanity is represented here (well, all of Victorian English humanity at any rate.) The truest--and shortest--sentence of the book is the first one: "London."
The organizing metaphor of the More...

6 comments like (26 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2008

Laura rated it:

I know, something about a 900 page book with bleak in the title doesn’t exactly scream “summer fun”. Nevertheless, this was a page-turner with more laugh-out-loud moments than any book I've read in recent memory. Who could have seen that coming?? And it's gripping enough that I can understand why it was a bestseller, in spite of Dickens’ harsh social criticism and his rather daring innovation of dual narratives. But the story is a winner largely because of the dual narratives, which bob and weav More...

6 comments like (25 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

If you have a thousand pages at your disposal, you can critique every social ill including poverty, plight of orphans, the patronage system for doctors, domestic violence, greed, gluttony, industrialization (just at the last moment, let's move the story to Yorkshire so he can comment on the ironworks), a legal system that tramples justice, poor parenting, misguided do-gooders, religion, middle class pettiness, imperialistic national pride, and money-lenders. If you don't have to worry about gett More...

26 comments like (26 people liked it)

Oct 05, 2011

Lowed rated it:

Classic Literature is "sometimes" composed of boring words, made into a boring story with a boring pace, that has a boring plot, populated with boring characters playing different boring roles.

Fine. This may be an exaggeration, but try getting a copy of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. It's long, it's boring, it's several hundred pages that described how "fashionable intelligence" is observed by the upper class in the eighteenth century, and how the judicial system a More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Black Elephants rated it:

Grinding away the lives of all involved, the interminable case known as "Jarndyce and Jarndyce" in the Chancery courts is the sticky tape that brings our large Dickensian cast together. And that cast is pretty awesome as always with all their ticks, quirks and foibles. Bleak House, unlike the name, is anything but sorrowful.

There are two main stories that make up the book. The first is the court case, and the other is the mystery of a Mr. Nemo, his connection to Lady Dedloc More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2009

Rashaan rated it:

And Dickens created woman. Never breathed a more pure, more compassionate, more true soul than Dickens' take on the Platonic forms of Beauty and Good, our dear Miss Esther Summerson. So sweet, so kind, so generous and forgiving, our narrator and the main character of Dickens' magnus opus will make readers want to bop Chuck D on the head and rant "In the name of all women, what are you doing?". His idolization and idealization of the opposite and "fairer" sex will jostle reade More...

9 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Brad rated it:

A more damning indictment of the use of the legal system to obstruct justice, protect the powerful and stymie social change would be hard to find. Naming a character Sir Arrogant Numbskull is just a taste of the novel's satiric bite.

My generic comment about Charles Dickens:
First of all, although I am a partisan of Dickens' writing and have read and relished most his works, I concede to three flaws in his oeuvre that are not insignificant. First, while he seemed to develop More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2007

annie rated it:

Now, I am ashamed to say that I like Dickens. I like him best when I'm in a bad mood.

Still, I like Dickens. And this is supposed to be good Dickens - but I thought it was totally second-rate. His best characters (he only has about five actual characters, overall) stink in this, and having his most vapid character (the young woman) narrate is putting his worst foot forward. I want to strangle her, and she isn't even real. And I'm sure she would submit humbly to my strangulation More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Alec rated it:

There is no easy way to say it, other than I loved this book. I have to admit that the main reason that I read it was because I wanted to watch the Gillian Anderson miniseries. I never watch a movie unless I have read the book first. It took me several weeks to get through it, but once I was though, I was glad that I made it to the end.

This is not a perfect book, but I would still consider it a masterpiece. My main problem with the book is the excessive number of subplots and minor c More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

Suzanne rated it:

It is wonderful to me, how Dickens can weave metaphors through hundreds of pages, and use them as a tool to paint the perfect portraitures of his characters. Take Mr. Jarndyce's "east wind" for instance, which represents the difficulty he has in coping with difficult situations in his life. It is used when we first meet him and throughout the book, until the last pages, when Dickens introduces a decided resolution for Mr. Jarndyce, when his inclement "east wind" becomes the " More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 29, 2009

Laurele rated it:

I'm amazed at the way Dickens took so many themes and streams and wove them all together to form a satisfying conclusion in this long novel. He did an excellent job with his only female narrator, too.

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2009

Terry rated it:

This was the hardest book by Dickens I've read. I found myself very impatient with it. It always annoys me how Dickens' characters "just happen" to have connections. (Madam DeFarge just happens to be the sister of... Her husband just happens to be the old servant of...) For the most part, I accept it as a way of limiting characters and I acknowledge that sometimes in life people do in fact just happen to be connected. However, Bleak House takes this to an extreme - and I found mys More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2012

Rebecca rated it:

Bleak House (published serially 1852-1853) is a sweeping saga of epic proportions. Charles Dickens obviously planned the plot carefully, especially by providing introduction and characters for the bulk of the first third of the novel, so that the last third of the novel would swiftly move to a satisfying conclusion that ties all the previously unconnected threads together.

Because of its imposing nature (the novel in print is nearly 1000 pages), its abundance of memorable characters, an More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Bre rated it:

And now, a post script...at the beginning.
I have spent the last 24 hours synthesizing the three Dickens books I have read, four, if you count A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which is not a novel.
It occurred to me why Dickens's characters make such fabulous...characters, in movies and in plays.
Charles was known to have "tread the boards". This, I believe, influenced his writing, and his characters.
Melo-dramatic could most surely describe characters like Guppy and Smallw More...

17 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Lawrence rated it:

I think that we should all get down on our knees every day and thank God that Mr. Dickens wrote so many books and that they are so big.

There are many who say that Dickens portrays "caricatures" rather than characters. I disagree with this view. Dickens portrays persons who behave consistently with their personalities. This is, in my experience, true to life. Whether persons I know are loved or foolish, etc., they generally behave consistently in accordance with expectat More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Angela rated it:

COVER BLURB: Bleak House opens in a London shrouded by an all-pervading fog -- a fog that swirls about the Court of Chancery, where the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce lies lost in endless litigation. This drawn-out lawsuit over an inheritance stands at the center of a scathing portrayal of a moribund legal system and of a society permeated with greed, deception, delusion, and guilt. In no other work are the many facets of Dickens' genius -- his powers of characterization, dramatic construction, s More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 29, 2011

James rated it:

Having just begun a rereading of Bleak House I find myself comparing it to David Copperfield, which I recently reread. I note immediately the difference in narrative style as it opens with a third person narrator; however it soon, in the third chapter, introduces a first person narrator, Miss Esther Summerson, who is almost as charming as David himself. The opening sets the stage wonderfully with contrast of the London Fog and the Chancery of the first chapter with the world of Fashion in the se More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 17, 2008

Jen rated it:

My summer reading project has been completed. At 989 pages, I feel like Super Reader!! And I must say, it was well worth the effort.

Bleak House is a massive, sprawling novel teeming with a multitude of characters. About 1/3 way in, I began to make a Who's Who chart, it was getting to be so out of control. You couldn't afford to forget even a presumably minor, minor character, for he or she was bound to show up again.

The narration technique was a little strange--some chapt More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2007

Kelly rated it:

My favorite Dickens novels are the ones that deal with the refusal of English society to take responsibility for the abysmal living conditions of the poor. Of all these books, Bleak House remains my favorite. It is big, sprawling in fact, it is complicated, the whole Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case is mind-numbing at times, and it is certainly bleak but this novel exemplifies Dickens. Orwell says that Dickens is not a "proletariat" writer because he never really advocates for the advancem More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

aisha rated it:

Well, I have finally finished it. I must confess that I wasn't sure if I would, but I persevered and am so glad that I did! It was a little heavier read than am used to, so I had to mix it up with some lighter diversions along the way.

Dickens is such a master of creating scenes and characters. He's amazing. For awhile I wondered how all of his many and varied characters would come together in the end, but Dickens ties everything up seamlessly.

The themes of irony, pass More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Don rated it:

This was probably the fourth or fifth time I read this book, which leads me to think that this just may be my favorite novel (even better than Have Space Suit Will Travel).

One of the things about this book that continues to fascinate me is the character of Esther, the partial narrator. At first, she comes across as cloyingly sweet, innocent and pure--in short, the kind of character you really want to make fun of. And yet--over the course of the novel, you can't help by come to id More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 04, 2007

David rated it:

I understand that many consider Bleak House Dickens' best novel. I can't say that, not yet anyway, because I haven't read all his novels. But I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it's his best. It is very good.

The narrative alternates between third person and first, a device Dickens also used in David Copperfield. The first person narrative here is that of the character Esther Summerson. Dickens' characters, it seems to me, are often theatrical. His villains are made to be hiss More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 04, 2009

Heather rated it:

"Demanding" is the first word that comes to mind about this book. Almost nine hundred pages long and filled with four dozen characters, Bleak House required more from me than most books I've read lately, but I think that's why I admire it. Dickens presents some of his most memorable characters in this book, from the myopic Mrs. Jellyby who devotes her whole life to helping Africa while neglecting her children, to the narcissistic Harold Skimpole who thinks everything--even slavery--exi More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Karen rated it:

I finally began reading this book in late September. It has taken a while to get going, but now I am fully into the plot. And it is thickening...Jump to Jan 2, 2010-- FINISHED and loved this book. Could have finished reading about a week earlier but realized that I would be saying goodbye to the characters in this book that I had grown to love, I slowed down...Dickens has done it again! The title is rather dismal but the story itself is not. Dickens is a genius! Next on the list is "A Tale More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 07, 2012

Matt rated it:

This is Dickens, so yes, it's a good read. Compared to Great Expectations however, the first Dickens I ever read, it's not quite as good. The book is quite long, the main narrator Esther is too perfect in a largely Victorian sense, and the some of the plot is predictable (as with Great Expectations). Still, the language is really fun (e.g. snow as "untaxed powder", especially if you enjoy looking up archaic British terms, and it's a nice window into what's changed over the last 150 yea More...

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Nov 13, 2011

Joy H. added it

Added 11/13/11.

I've posted the following at my Goodreads group:
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I am currently streaming from Netflix the 1985 film adaptation of Charles Dicken's _Bleak House_ (first published 1853), starring Diana Rigg.
Masterpiece Theatre: Bleak House (TV mini-series 1985)
It also stars Denholm Elliott who has a familiar face but until now I wasn't familiar with his name. Below is a link to his photo:
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/wp-content/im... More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 12, 2011

Vivian rated it:

My summer reading project has been completed. At 989 pages, I feel like Super Reader!! And I must say, it was well worth the effort.
Bleak House is a massive, sprawling novel teeming with a multitude of characters. About 1/3 way in, I began to make a Who's Who chart, it was getting to be so out of control. You couldn't afford to forget even a presumably minor, minor character, for he or she was bound to show up again.
The narration technique was a little strange--some chapters had th More...

0 comments like

Oct 02, 2011

Peter rated it:

"Set in Chancery, a slow-moving and expensive court which deals primarily with wills, this story by Dickens was good, but not great. Dickens found a wonderful, humble protagonist in Esther Summerson, who is so appealing and her personal struggles after being ""disfigured"" by a smallpox-like illness were wonderfully thoughtful and believable. There is less sentimentialism here than in other Victorian literature. Her guardian, fatherly John Jarndyce was also charming. T More...

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