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 Smallweed. However, Dickens was intelligent in his use of this "overt" characterization.
Dickens's themes are typical throughout the whole of humanity, as I mention later in this review, though his stories took place primarily in England.
Therefore, he employed larger than life characters, as one might encounter in a play, in order to make those characters more than people.
My conclusion is that Dickens's characters ARE human virtues and vices, and he uses them in conjunction with his detailed narratives in order to impress upon the reader some vital lessons of mortality.

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What?
Only 4 stars?
Yes, I must be honest.
But...but...it's Dickens.
Yes.
He's brilliant.
Yes.
Then...why?
Perhaps, had I read this novel before DAVID COPPERFIELD, I would have bestowed four stars upon Copperfield and 5 stars on BLEAK HOUSE.
It was not as...enthralling.
The characters did not captivate me or "draw me out" as I might have hoped.
Still, this is a masterpiece.
Dickens made an astute study of the ridiculous aspects of the British law system in the 19th century. His prose on the subject is scathing and astute.
This book has at its core a monumental case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and Dickens craftily, though not subtly, follows the lives of those it affects and ultimately destroys.
It brought to mind Anna Nicole Smith's never-ending trial, involving the family of her deceased billionaire husband, and the lawyers who have been enriched by the proceedings,while the case goes on and on.
Within the fictional text, there is also a mystery regarding the paternity of the heroine.
Dickens draws clever parallels between the worlds of fashion, law, and politics.
Fascinating.
Charles captures in his 3rd person omniscient observations and character narratives, words, feelings, and actions which, in my mind, have been repeated in some form or another, throughout the history of mankind. This is why his works, though perhaps a bit melodramatic for the 21st century mind, are timeless.
Oliver Twist had shocking violence, David Copperfield mental cruelty, and
BLEAK HOUSE, love in its purest forms.
Within this tale, towards the end, which made it a special surprise, was one of the most beautiful "love scenes" in literature, and there was not a bed or naked body to be found.
And it is this scene which encapsulates the genius of this author.
If you plan on reading this work of fiction, do not read this excerpt, it will ruin a great surprise.
However, if you want to see what the world of literature and film-making has lost in reducing love to flesh, flesh, and more flesh, read the following words.
The last paragraph is just...sigh.



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We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I had. Too late.

"When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than when I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish thought—"

"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" I entreated him. "I do not deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!"

"Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins."

"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love, it is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow—joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours."

I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was derived from him when I thought so.

He broke the silence.

"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will evermore be as dear to me as now"—and the deep earnestness with which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep—"if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. I distress you. I have said enough."

Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he showed that first commiseration for me.

"Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part to-night, something is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish—I never shall—but—"

I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his affliction before I could go on.

"—I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall make me better."

He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could I ever be worthy of those tears?

"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together—in tending Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life—you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you."

He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt still more encouraged...


One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I reserved it.

"Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know from my lips before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or desire."

It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied.

"From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day."...


"Good night," I said, "Good-bye."

"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this theme between us for ever."

"Yes."

"Good night; good-bye."

He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears.

But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy my path, how much easier than his!