Bleak House in Reading with Style

May 21, 2015 Bucket rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, reviewed, life-and-death, love, 1001-read-all-editions, literary

Considering how mixed my feelings and reactions were throughout the reading of this novel, I'm thoroughly sad that it's over. Anything with 1000-ish pages leaves you either missing it or thrilled it's over when you finally finish, but I didn't expect to miss Bleak House this much. The reason is that I usually am most excited by books with extremely real (and flawed) characters and care nothing for plot, but this book has most of its merit in the plot's twists and turns. The major characters (Est Considering how mixed my feelings and reactions were throughout the reading of this novel, I'm thoroughly sad that it's over. Anything with 1000-ish pages leaves you either missing it or thrilled it's over when you finally finish, but I didn't expect to miss Bleak House this much. The reason is that I usually am most excited by books with extremely real (and flawed) characters and care nothing for plot, but this book has most of its merit in the plot's twists and turns. The major characters (Esther, of course, but also Jarndyce, George, Lady Dedlock, and perhaps also Richard, Ada, Bucket, and Tulkinghorn) are depthful, but not always very real.

George was the most interesting character to me - he has sort of given up on life after making mistakes in his youth and cutting himself off from his family, but he is still focused on helping others (Phil, Jo, Miss Flite) when he can and on protecting those who matter to him (the Bagnets, Nemo, Gridley). When he first protects Nemo by withholding the letter, then has to give it up because of the threat to the Bagnet family, his struggle is very real and thought-provoking.

However, most of the story is spent with Esther and Jarndyce, two characters who are too good and moral to be real. In the case of Esther, she has a Victorian-feminine sense of what is proper and is also incredibly self-denying and self-deprecating, doing exactly as she's told, feeling worth little, and waiting for others to provide for her happiness. This does makes sense with her upbringing - she was made to feel worthless as a child - but it seems to me that this should have damaged her, not turned her into the perfect woman who everyone loves. It's a scary thought that not so many generations ago the perfect woman was one like Esther.

I think that, besides George, what kept me intrigued was the endless parade of bizarre, fascinating and just generally interesting minor characters.

There's Miss Flite, who goes to court every day with her "papers" and keeps a large flock of birds with foreboding names she intends to release when her suit is finally over.

There's Mrs. Jellyby who is obsessed with a tribe in Africa to the point of completely ignoring her husband, children and home.

There's Mr. Bagnet who calls his wife "old girl" and pretends to be in charge of decision-making in his home, but really he always has his wife make decisions by telling everyone that she's just saying what he thinks so he doesn't have to.

There's Krook, a mean drunk who collects endless junk (papers, rags, bottles, etc) and who spontaneously combusts early in the novel.

And then there's Skimpole, a middle-aged man who calls himself a child and pretends to know nothing of the ways of the world. This allows him to sponge off his friends, never pay for anything, be completely selfish and irresponsible, and never apologize for anything. He's obnoxious, but for some reason Jarndyce, Esther, and others all love him, the same way you'd love a child.

The plot was fun, meandering, and well-constructed, with each of the innumerable characters playing his or her role in glitchless harmony. There were some tragedies and some great happinesses, but I was never so empathetic to anyone that I felt them deeply - with the exception, perhaps, of George's happy ending. ...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Isabell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, ed-english, unabridged, english-lit, 19th-century, listened, read-2012, librivox, public-domain, big-books

I really feel that this review won’t (and can’t) do the book justice, because I really struggled with this audiobook. I listened to the free LibriVox edition read by Mil Nicholson. She gives every character it’s separate voice, which is a good thing. But somehow her voice didn’t hold my attention. I couldn’t concentrate on listening to the audiobook; or at least I couldn’t remember long after listening what I had actually listened to. I think the main problem in this case was that Mil sometimes ...more

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