Bleak House in MobileRead

Jul 07, 2012 Paola rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

It took me very long to finish this book - one reason is that after the first half I started finding it really tedious - true as it is that Dcikens' characthers are stereotyped vignettes, after all of them have been introduced, indulging on them felt very repetitive, and eventually wearisome. As for those few characters whose personality changes as the novel develops, it felt to me more of a mask falling off and revealing a different persona rather than the character being developed - most notab It took me very long to finish this book - one reason is that after the first half I started finding it really tedious - true as it is that Dcikens' characthers are stereotyped vignettes, after all of them have been introduced, indulging on them felt very repetitive, and eventually wearisome. As for those few characters whose personality changes as the novel develops, it felt to me more of a mask falling off and revealing a different persona rather than the character being developed - most notably in the case of Lady Deadlock.

As for the women, they are indeed rather flat, and already midway through I could not stand Esther's properness and compassion, which to me were sickeningly sweet - she is probably the character that stirred the most violent reactions in me, though for the wrong reasons - and the passiveness with which she is so easily transferred from John Jarndice to Allan Woodcourt is one more aspect of her supineness.

In terms of the narrative tension, I wonder whether it suffered from the original serialization - if the various groups of chapters were released in monthly installments, I presume Dickens somehow had to "remind" the readers of the plot, so that many "surprises" had been announced quite a bit earlier (e.g. the first eyeing between Esther and Lady Deadlock has more than a hint to the relationship between the two).

As for the positives, I quite enjoyed the descriptions of London, and indeed I found a cinematic aspect to some of them. For instance, I can imagine a camera zooming away from Mr. Snagsby to fly with the crow into Mr. Tokinghorn's chambers in this description:

The day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his shop-door looking up at the clouds, sees a crow, who is out late, skim westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden, into Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn.

I also liked the vividness with wich lowlifers were described - in this respect I particularly liked Jo and Phil, who does not speak much and yet is very well characterised. And Mr. Tulkinghorn is also an interesting character to me - appearing out of nowhere, evil but in a principled way, with his little indulgences and shortcomings, like his overconfidence in his knowledge of human nature, that eventually leads him to a fatal misjudging of Hortense's reactions.

What I really found touching is the deep, passionate, desperate love of Sir Leicester, this most upright of man who is ready to forget all he stands for his fallen woman, and the description of the vigil was probably the most moving part of the novel for me.

Although I did not enjoy it very much while reading it, I have to recognise that the rather "flat" characters after all put together form quite a picture that did stay with me for a while.

(edited version of my own post in the Mobile Read Literary Book Club discussion)

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