Bleak House in Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)

Dec 31, 2021 Jeff Koeppen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, classics, 2021-read

Bleak House was my first Dickens since I read A Tale of Two Cities probably two decades ago. I listened to an Audible version narrated by Simon Vance and double-dipped with the wonderfully illustrated Barnes and Noble facsimile edition of the 1938 The Nonesuch Press book. Simon Vance did an incredible job differentiating the voices of the massive cast of characters. The book is told from two points of view - an unnamed narrator, and first person from main character Esther. The audio would've wor ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

May 24, 2022 Donna rated it it was amazing

Bleak House is a wonderfully crafted and imaginative Dickens novel - one of his longest by page count at 900+ pages and some consider it his greatest. It has a huge cast of characters and quite a few subplots, but the central plot involves a court case known as Jarndyce & Jarndyce. At dispute in this decades-long case is the absence of a definitive will and a potentially substantial inheritance.

The wheels of justice, as embodied in the Court of Chancery, have ground to a halt with regard to Jar Bleak House is a wonderfully crafted and imaginative Dickens novel - one of his longest by page count at 900+ pages and some consider it his greatest. It has a huge cast of characters and quite a few subplots, but the central plot involves a court case known as Jarndyce & Jarndyce. At dispute in this decades-long case is the absence of a definitive will and a potentially substantial inheritance.

The wheels of justice, as embodied in the Court of Chancery, have ground to a halt with regard to Jarndyce & Jarndyce. The stagnated court case has brought to ruin those in the family who previously have gotten caught up in seeing the case settled. Two remaining family members, the orphaned cousins Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, both stand to inherit the Jarndyce fortune. They are taken in as wards of the court and given over to the guardianship of another cousin, John Jarndyce. At the same time, Mr. Jarndyce takes on the legal guardianship of another young woman and orphan, Esther Summerson. He welcomes the three young people into his home, the eponymous Bleak House, where they individually begin to come of age and form close bonds with one another.

Bleak House has elements of romance as well as mystery. But the main theme in the novel is the ineptitude and corruption of the Court of Chancery and the many lawyers who feed off of the system and its unfortunate victims. Dickens’ signature commentary on Victorian life is at play in the novel, especially his stinging criticism of self-serving “do-gooders” who spout a lot of platitudes but fail to see the poverty, sickness and distress around them. One example of this is the matronly Mrs Jellybe, who is so obsessed with her projects to help a settlement in Africa (“Borrioboola-Gha”) that she ignores everything else, including her own children.

One of the stand-out characters for me was the detective, Mr. Bucket, who is called into action several times, including to solve a murder that occurs. Watching Mr. Bucket at work was a delight, as he uses his considerable powers of observation and is not above using trickery, misdirection or “schmoozing” witnesses to get evidence and solve his cases. Notably, Mr. Bucket is the first detective to appear in fiction and serves as a prototype for Poirot, Holmes, and all of those who came after him.

In Dickens’ time, Bleak House was published in installments for the reading public with gaps of time in between installments. I read it in a similar way, a chapter at a time over about two months. I had the advantage of an on-line discussion group to read along with and I know this greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. The prose is sometimes archaic and formal and some of the scenes might seem melodramatic by today’s standards. But I was so often in awe of the almost cinematic scenes that Dickens wrote as well as his ability to encapsulate universal human behaviors. Just the sheer complexity of this novel made it exceptional. Reading it was time and effort well spent ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 02, 2013 Leanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics

I began watching the Mini-series, but then grew both confused and intrigued, so I read the book before finishing the movie--ended up loving both of them. I would never guess that I would become a Dickens' fan, but just like in Great Expectations, I find his stories and characters fascinating--especially if you can hang in there long enough for all the riddles to be worked out! ...more

Like · see review