Reread a chapter a day with the Dickensian group.
I found I was quite frustrated in the early parts of this novel, I remembered all the great bits and the waffling about characters that I didn’t like particularly much was annoying (especially Skimpole and the horrible Smallweed family) but the good bits are so good. It is mostly a satire on the law courts, (Dickens really didn’t like lawyers much!), so much paper and so much wasted energy. The inevitable end of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce is a tragedy for those involved except of course the lawyers. There are also great characters, I love Inspector Bucket, Mrs Bagnet, and the tragic love story of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon, Miss Flite and her birds.
The descriptions of poverty in the novel are very powerful, from the sad story of Jo the crossing sweeper, the tough lives of the brick maker’s wives and the awful environment of the slum, Tom-all-alones.
So this long novel has everything. Humour, tragedy, romance, satire and social commentary. The complete Dickens experience!

At the center of ‘Bleak House’ we have the Jarndyce and Jarndyce court case and supposedly, Dickens wrote this novel as a part commentary of the English justice system. I do not know, nor do I care a bit, about what he intended to achieve in terms of discussing the law and the government’s failure to deliver justice. What I was most engrossed with was the story. Because…wow.

What most amazes me is the detailing of the novel and how masterfully it is written. I am not a writer so I don’t know how hard writers have to work, but I cannot imagine the amount of work put into producing this novel. I adore Dickens’ writing style and the way he weaves one story into another as we progress. I’d be lying if I said sometimes the innumerable characters gets to be stressful, but they all have a purpose and when you read the last page of the novel and close the book…you’ll love it. I have rarely ever been as deeply embedded into such a large work and despite all its complexity, this novel was incredibly difficult to put down. (Really, I can’t stress this enough—I’m a coward when it comes to big books. I don’t do big books.)

I did have to reflect more thoroughly on the way the novel is structured—in a dual narrative, with one side following a unidentified narrator and on the other, Ester Summerson. I loved Ester’s chapters much more then the other ones but in the end, I did struggle with understanding why she had to have her own narrative (and why she couldn’t be replaced by anyone else residing in the Bleak house). I have since dug deeper and realized that Ester’s instinct to want to heal others is a much-required contrast to the chaos which ensues in the other narrative.

Ester herself I truly loved. Her compassion was honorable and there were times when I just wanted to hug her for her sweet and admirable gestures, in attempts to keep everyone at peace. Mr. Jarndyce himself quite surprised me in the end with his supportive gesture towards Ester. I was saddened by the ending some of the other characters receive but knowing at least one of my favorite characters gets her own happy ending, I am content with it at this point. Although it’s hard not to feel disheartened by Lord and Lady Dedlock’s fates.

I can go on for a while here but I’ll end it there. Apologies for any errors, I am speed-writing this review and haven’t the time to recheck everything.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it.
Bleak House ~~~  Charles Dickens



n   Bleak Housen is a book I’ve wanted to tackle for quite some time. I’d long heard that it was Dickens’ masterpiece. My friend, Ted, gave me the kick I needed to finely read this during my annual Dickens’ December read.

While not my favorite Dickens, I do agree it is indeed his masterpiece.



Others have summarized n   Bleak Housen here in their reviews. Instead, I’ll focus on my impressions of Bleak House, and my love of Dickens.

Usually, I can read a full length Dickens in a week or less. Not so with n   Bleak Housen ~~ this read turned out to be a challenge ~~ in the best possible way.

First published as a serial between March 1852 and September 1853, and is, as I stated, considered to be Dickens’ finest novel, containing vast, complex and engaging arrays of characters and sub-plots. Just as I was beginning to wonder how Dickens would ever tie all these sub-plots up, he began to unknot all of them and miraculously drew them together.

At the heart of the novel is the Chancery court case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce ~~ it was deemed by many at the time as an attack on the British court system. Narrated in part by the orphaned Esther, and in part by an unidentified, third-person narrator with a plot that fuses two love stories with a mystery, social satire and morality issues ~~ n   Bleak Housen is a dense and complex read, that perfectly showcases Dickens’ brilliance.



I went into this read with fresh eyes, knowing very little of the plot. I'm so glad that was the case here since I had no opinions regarding Bleak House.

First off ~~ don’t let the dour title n   Bleak Housen fool you. Like all Dickens’ work, n   Bleak Housen sparkles with humor, action, wit, tenderness, a spectrum of characters and settings well-individuated and dazzling in their contrast. The action is deliberately set up, developed through a series of suspenseful complications, and fully resolved.

I discovered while reading n   Bleak Housen Dickens’ genius is that, when you read him as an adult, he persuades you to reconsider your own first impressions ~~ even as he reminds you how exactly he himself created those impressions.

Structurally, n   Bleak Housen is perfect ~~ every chapter, every character is essential. I was amazed by the cast of characters ~~ innumerable even for Dickens ~~ it was difficult keeping track of so many closely related, yet distinct, personalities. Midway through the book, the reader is still meeting new characters. However, there’s not one character that’s superfluous. n   Bleak Housen is enormous in scale, but economical in design ~~ pull out one thread, the whole unravels.

Don't believe me? Try removing any character, and see what happens. Jenny? Jenny’s nameless husband? Jobling? Smallweed JR? Mrs. Snagsby? Every minor character is instrumental in advancing the plot. Each of them starts inquiries that prove fatal; bringing major characters to the right locations at the right time; taking actions that cast suspicions on major characters ~~ all in a way that palpably and irreversibly changes the course of events.

n   Bleak Housen is brilliantly plotted. Mysteries mushroom everywhere. Each mystery is developed, tangled with the others, and satisfactorily resolved.



There is always a moral lesson to be learned with Dickens. So, what is the lesson of Bleak House? Dickens' advice here seems clear ~~ steer clear of the system. To engage with it at all is to court ruin. This is the fate that engulfs every character in n   Bleak Housen who engages with the lawsuit ~~ they are snapped up by the crushing jaws of the system. Those who steer clear ~~ those who have the means to live without waiting for their share in the legacy ~~ are those that survive.

My final thoughts ~~ Dickens fans or fans of good literature should not miss reading Bleak House, ~~ it has lost none of its power 170 years later. People are found and lost, hope crushed and regained, alliances formed and dissolved. What more could you ask for when reading Dickens?

The Bleak House narrative has at its core, the probate of the estate of Jarndyce and Jarndyce that had been wending its way, albeit slowly, through the court system for generations in the Chancery. As the book unfolds, we learn how many of the characters are affected or motivated in some way by the lawsuit as all of the myriad threads of this Dickensian tale come together.

"The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of the Chancery."

"This is the Court of Chancery, which has at its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which gives the monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, 'Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!'"

"The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it."

I loved the time spent in Bleak House. and I am definitely looking forward to reading it again as is true with many of the classics written by Charles Dickens.

"Chesney Wold ha cerrado sus puertas. Las alfombras están enrolladas y arrinconadas en las habitaciones vacías, el damasco brillante hace penitencia bajo su funda, las esculturas y los estucos dorados quedan ocultos y los antepasados de la familia Dedlock se desvanecen nuevamente en las tinieblas. En torno a la casa, las hojas se amontonan, nunca deprisa, revolotean en círculos con una ligereza muerta para volver a caer sombrías y lentas. Por mucho que el jardinero las barra, las amontone y las recoja, le seguirán cubriendo hasta el tobillo. El viento aúlla y silva alrededor de Chesney Wold, la lluvia azota los cristales, crujen las ventanas, rugen las chimeneas. La niebla cubre las avenidas, ensombrece las perspectivas y pasa como un cortejo fúnebre sobre las lomas. Por todas partes se alza en la casa un olor frío y blanco, parecido al que se respira en una capilla, aunque más seco, que sugiere la idea de que los antepasados de los Dedlock se alzan del sepulcro para ir a pasear durante las largas noches dejando tras ellos el vaho de sus tumbas."
— Charles Dickens, 'Casa desolada'.

Me acordaré siempre de estas lluviosas semanas de finales de abril, pasadas en compañía de 'Casa desolada'. Después de muchos años sin leer a Dickens, con qué placer he vuelto a perderme en una de sus novelas.

'Casa desolada' empieza envuelta en una densa niebla. Un ambiente sombrío que cubre prácticamente toda la novela. La lluvia sucede a la niebla y, de pronto, también llega la nieve. Uno tiene la impresión de que siempre es invierno entre las páginas de 'Casa desolada'. Pero, pese a lo que podría dejar pensar el título, es precisamente entre los muros de esa casa sombría, donde parece reinar el cálido ambiente de estaciones más clementes. Es aquí donde viven John Jarndyce y sus nuevos pupilos: Esther, Ada y Richard. Los tres jóvenes son huérfanos y, al igual que su benefactor, están implicados en un enmarañado y centenario proceso judicial; un pleito que es el corazón mismo de 'Casa desolada'.

Sirviéndose de una narración dual, en primera y tercera persona, Dickens desvela la triste historia de Esther Summerson, gran protagonista de la novela y la encargada de narrar su propia historia, y las enrevesadas intrigas que rodean al infame juicio que enfrenta a Jarndyce contra Jarndyce.
Una enorme red de secretos, que repercute en las vidas y enlaza los destinos de una maravillosa galería de personajes, va quedando entonces al descubierto.

Os prometo que podría nombrar y destacar a todos los personajes, desde los más mezquinos a los más bondadosos. Ahí están Lady Dedlock, el inspector Bucket y el repugnante Skimpole; la señorita Flite con sus pajarillos enjaulados, Caddy Jellyby, George Rouncewell y su inseparable Phil; el bondadoso John Jarndyce y, por supuesto, el pobre Jo, cuya historia me rompió el corazón en mil pedazos.

A lo largo de las más de mil páginas de 'Casa desolada' entramos en la intimidad de numerosos hogares. Desde la opulencia de Chesney Wold, a las siniestras habitaciones que habitan algunos de los protagonistas. Conocemos a familias numerosas envueltas en un auténtico caos doméstico, y también a ancianas solitarias; a huérfanos que encuentran refugio en un nuevo hogar, y a otros que malviven y duermen en las calles sin saber si conseguirán ver un nuevo día...
Podría hablar horas y horas de 'Casa desolada'...¡la he disfrutado tanto! No pensé que pudiese desbancar a 'La pequeña Dorrit' como mi Dickens favorito, pero así ha sido. ¿Podrá 'Nuestro amigo común' quitarle el puesto?
Parece difícil, pero estoy deseando averiguarlo.

una classica storia intricata dei romanzi ottocenteschi, con segreti, coincidenze e una grande quantità di personaggi. non mancano momenti di commozione, grandi tragedie e grandi momenti di felicità (a volte anche un po' stucchevoli).
non mancano anche momenti di grande divertimento.
la scrittura di Dickens è quasi sempre eccelsa e vale la pena leggerlo soltanto per questo.
era il mio primo Dickens, non sarà l'ultimo.

What attracted me to Bleak House was the Chancery Court suit of Jarndyce V Jarndyce. Having always had an interest in stories with legal touch to them, it was natural for me to be drawn to the book. Besides, having learned that this book inspired a judicial reform movement which led to some actual legal reforms in later years and knowing the power of Dickens's satire and being curious to learn what in the story that truly inspired such a movement, I was most interested in reading it.

True to my understanding, the main part of the story is dedicated to the Chancery Court suit which is running for years without a foreseeable ending. Dickens, ever being the reformer, mocks the Chancery justice system which causes delays till the cases are passed from generation to generation. "The Lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s about a Will, and the trusts under a Will—or it was, once. It’s about nothing but Costs, now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about Costs. That’s the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away." This powerful satirical criticism of the system very much impressed me. I have always enjoyed the satire in Dickens's works, but if he ever used that tool to his greatest advantage, it was definitely in this work.

In addition to the main theme, there are several subplots. All the subplots are connected to the main theme or its characters. However, some of the subplots have their own story as well. These subplots touch on different themes. Poverty is one; especially the plight of poor children who are abandoned or orphaned. It was heart-wrenching to read the subplot touching on Jo, a poor orphaned (or abandoned) child who lives a miserable life far more suited to an animal than a human. The compassion in which Dickens says the story of Jo brought me to tears many a time. Love and Duty are another. This theme is only secondary to the Chancery suit and occupies a major part of the story through the stories and characters of Esther, John Jarndyce, Ada, and Allen Woodcourt. Philanthropy is also another theme, and here both real philanthropy and pretensions are brought to light. John Jarndyce represents the true and real philanthropist who disinterestedly acts for the benefit of others. And there are some other characters who make a show of it. I truly felt that these pretentious philanthropists were representing the British government of the time. Dickens was a social reformer and raised his voice through his pen to lash at the government for its inadequate measures to improve the lives and living conditions of the poor. All these themes coupled with the mystery theme bring intrigue, colour, and variety to the book. Reading the book was like reading many different stories.

In Bleak House , Dickens uses a wide array of characters ranging from the aristocrats to the poor living in slums. In my reading life, I doubt if I ever have come across so many characters in one book. Although I have read reviews where it is commented that it was hard to follow so many characters, I didn't have any difficulty keeping track of them. Perhaps it may be due to my reading the book very slowly. The use of the different characters and a large number of them kept the story alive and moving. There was no reading minute that I felt to be boring. Many of the characters held my interest, but I liked John Jarndyce, Esther (our heroine, surprisingly new in a Dickens novel), and Allen Woodcourt the most. And my sympathy was freely won by Jo, Lady Deadlock, Ada, and a little grudgingly, by Richard.

One of the major writing tools of Dickens is his use of satire. In Bleak House, this tool is amply directed at every quarter. However, in addition to the satirical, philosophical, and matter-of-fact Dickens we usually meet, I also met a sensitive, sympathetic and compassionate Dickens in Bleak House. His prose is beautiful and the style is elegant, that even the too verbose parts were read with pleasure.

True to the title, the story is bleak, although there are few happy endings. But no matter how "bleak" the nature of the story was, it was a treat to read it. I truly enjoyed the read. Its diversity in themes, characters, and settings took me through a very pleasant and memorable journey. I have read that Bleak House is considered to be the best work of Dickens. While I may have my own opinion about that point, I can see why it's being so said.

‘The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself...'

Sadly, this quote from Bleak House is as true today as it was in Dickens' time. Being caught up in a protracted legal battle myself, I have first-hand experience of this (and, no, I don’t want to talk about it, thanks). It was almost enough to make me want to put off reading this book until a later, less angst-ridden, date… but no; I’d decided I wanted to sink my teeth into a longer book after reading so many short (< 400 pages) novels recently, and Bleak House was the longest book on my tbr pile, so I took the plunge.

I am now going to commit the cardinal sin of criticising a work of art by the man who is almost universally hailed as the greatest novelist of all time. I feel I am in a position to do this because I too am a beloved, best-selling author who has entranced more readers with my numerous books than anybody since Dickens himself. (Hang on a sec… won’t be a minute… Ah, I’ve just been informed by my therapist that I’m getting myself confused with Stephen King again… Sorry about that.) Well, despite my lack of credentials, I’m going to do it anyway.

While this book is undeniably beautifully written and probably a genuine work of genius, with its labyrinthine but still coherent plot and its cast of seemingly hundreds of unique and often hilarious characters, Mr. Dickens was in desperate need of an editor! Now, I realise that this novel was originally serialised in a periodical and each segment had to fill a certain amount of space, which accounts for its slightly bloated nature to a certain extent, but reading it as a novel entire, I found it a little bit tedious in places, particularly in the parts of the novel that deal directly with the legal system. Some of these sections were quite funny and clever but others, I have to admit, had me struggling not to doze off. This is not a good thing when you’re listening to an audiobook while driving on the motorway.

This is the sole reason I’ve not given this book five stars, though, and I absolutely loved most of it. I’m not even suggesting major cuts; I wouldn’t want it trimmed down to six hundred pages or anything like that; just a little trim of some of the unnecessary fat.

As with most of Dickens’ work, the prose in Bleak House sparkles. He is brilliant in his ability to have you laughing at the almost pantomime-like shenanigans of his characters one moment, only to have you shedding a tear the next as he shines a light on the abject poverty a lot of people were living in at the time and the tragedies that arose from it.

My favourite scene in the book is when George is sitting in his cell, waiting to be hanged. The ‘speech’ he gives at that moment was bloody heart-breaking and, despite never having been in that situation myself, I found myself empathising with him so strongly I had to take a moment to compose myself before I read on.

Dickens’ plotting is so intricate and clever that you can find yourself thinking ’What on Earth has this got to do with anything else in the story?’ at times… but then it all comes together at the end, like thousands of girders coming together to form the Eiffel Tower, and you can’t help but think ’Well played, Mr. Dickens; well played…’

Speaking of the end, anybody who criticises The Lord of the Rings for having too many endings clearly hasn’t read Bleak House!

Bleak House will probably never be my favourite Dickens but it’s still a great novel, even supposing -

Abgesehen von der Weihnachtsgeschichte war dies tatsächlich mein erster Roman von Dickens, den ich gelesen habe. Stilistisch und teilweise auch sprachlich hatte ich etwas anderes erwartet, womöglich durch die Vorstellung getrieben, dass Dickens durch die Beschreibung von Armut, dreckigen Städten und Kinderleiden bekannt wurde. Aber dieser Realismus stellt nur einen Teil von Bleak House dar. Die andere Hälfte ist noch so romantisch, dass der Gegensatz zwischen den zwei Erzählstimmen (Esther, die romantisch Verklärte und andererseits der allwissende, sarkastische und schonungslose Erzähler) sehr groß ist. Letzterer hatte mir wesentlich besser gefallen. Esther dagegen war zum Augenrollen naiv und dümmlich.

Worum geht es in Bleak House? Das läßt sich schwer in wenigen Worten zusammenzufassen. Es ist ein wahres Themen-Potpourri, dass Dickens hier verarbeitet. Der Rahmen bildet ein Erbschaftsstreit im Hause Jarndyce, aber die meiste Zeit geht es gar nicht um diesen Streit, sondern um Armut, Mord, Betrug, Geldgier und gespickt mit den skurrilsten Persönlichkeiten, die man sich vorstellen kann. Das wirkte an vielen Stellen gar nicht so realistisch, sondern bezüglich der Figuren sehr überzeichnet, an manchen Stellen schon fast albern. Ich hatte kaum das Gefühl, dass diese Figuren die Handlung vorantrieben, sondern dass sie nur symbolisch wie Menschentypen stehen mussten. Das ist ganz nett, trägt mich aber nicht über 1.100 Seiten. Da fange ich in den Verästelungen der unzähligen Nebenhandlungen und Randfiguren sehnsüchtig zu vergleichen an und stelle das Werk neben anderen Büchern aus den 1850ern, wie Moby Dick oder Madame Bovary, von den Russen ganz zu schweigen. Und dann merke ich, dass der Aufbau des Romans einfach für mich nicht die vergleichbare Freude auslöst. Vielleicht liegt es an der Art des Fortsetzungsromans oder an dem Versuch, einen Gesellschaftsroman zu schreiben, in dem alle relevanten Themen auch in irgendeiner Form Einfluss in die Geschichte finden. Aber dann kommen immer wieder diese tollen atmosphärischen Beschreibungen von Örtlichkeiten oder der süffisante Humor des Autors und schon war das Lesetal durchschritten. Kurzum: eine interessante Erfahrung, aber womöglich nicht der beste Roman zum Einsteigen in das Gesamtwerk.

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 weave around each other like boxers before becoming hopelessly entertwined.

It opens with a grim, omniscient narrator describing the thick fog that pervades every part of London, suspending the city in a static morass of mud and smoke. In the center of the pestilence, where the fog is thickest, lies the High Court of Chancery — a place where cases become trapped in the quagmire of self-perpetuating legal proceedings, suffocate, and die. The most Byzantine of cases is JARNDYCE AND JARNDYCE, which has been going on so long that at least one generation of Jarndyces has expired while waiting for a judgment, and not even the lawyers have any grasp on its intricacies. The second chapter describes the similarly static aristocracy, specifically the wonderfully named Lord and Lady Dedlock, who seem to be existing in a state of suspended animation. Then, out of this somber drone of diseased stagnation emerges the other narrative, told with preternatural peppiness by Esther Summerson. At first her story, related with so much self-deprecation that you begin to wonder if she’s for real, seems to be the sort of story Victorian audiences were familiar with: a sweet young orphan overcomes her sad situation, finds a family, and lives happily ever after. Sigh. However, this sweet young orphan is introduced as being tied obscurely to JARNDYCE AND JARNDYC, so even before the two narratives get underway we know the melodrama narrative will be infected by the social criticism narrative. (To see how the one narrative literally infects the other, you'll have to read the book; it's a masterful stroke, even for Dickens.)

My favorite aspects of this novel, besides Dickens’ ability to turn a phrase better than anyone else, are the interwoven story lines, the very clever character doubling, and the unexpected depth he gives characters who could easily have remained garden variety. In fact, the most poignant moments were courtesy of totally unlikely minor characters, not the poor people/dying babies situations that you’d expect from a Dickens novel (and they’re in Bleak House a-plenty). Of course I cried at the poor people/dying babies moments also, but the others were better.

Dickens goes for broke with his humorous characterizations and bizarre names (the creepy small-fry Mr. Guppy; the detective Mr. Bucket; the thwarted suitor Mr. Woodcourt, who would court if he could - ha!). However, where this book really stands apart is the thematic relevance of its structure — what looks like a traditional melodrama being embedded in a social criticism. Read it and watch genius at work. Also fun is the way Dickens presents all sorts of “detectives” in the story, but makes the reader into the real detective. Not that the central mystery (Esther's parentage) needs much detection unless you're really not paying attention, in which case you should find something else to read, but keeping track of all the characters and their web of relationships does. Again, read it and watch genius at work, which, for $12, is a bargain.

(Personal note: Dickens’ hatred of the law — and especially lawyers — was born of his own experience clerking as a youth and wrangling over copyrights as an adult. Though Bleak House is an actual house in the story, it's really a metaphor for London, where multitudes of people lived in squalor and poverty just steps away from the oblivious middle-class. But it’s also a metaphor for a court system so tangled and corrupt that plaintiffs got sucked in for years, never to emerge with both health and sanity intact. Spookily relevant as I read the novel while dealing with the absurd mess of my grandfather’s estate. I felt like mailing copies of it to the more appalling members of my extended family, but of course cautionary tales are never understood by the people they’re meant to caution.)

Bleak House in a nutshell:
John: this case is a curse on the family, it's about nothing but costs now
Rick: mhmmhmm, but what if we suddenly get money out of it and get filthy rich


No one:
Absolutely no one:
Mrs Snagsby: it is clear as crystal that mr snagsby is that boy's father !!


Literally everyone: we love esther

Is a lawsuit justice, when it goes on and on ....and on, seemingly in perpetuity ? In Bleak House located in the countryside outside of London, that is the center of the story, years pass too many to count, the lawyers are happy the employed judges likewise ; the litigants not... money is sucked dry from their bodies...like vampires whose fangs are biting hard, the flesh weakens and the victims blood flows , ( cash ) evaporates and soon nothing is left but the corpses... the gorged lawyers are full until the next too trusting suckers walk by . In the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce the quite unimportant truth be told, little known except to those who are very sadly...
involved in the Court of Chancery, notorious well renowned for its slow pace ZZZ... The court clerks, audiences or should I say spectators, and even the attorneys are amused, laughter frequently heard, not a surprise this British institution no longer exists... Esther Summerson is a typical orphan in another Charles Dickens book raised by a cold woman, (and others previously of the same type) that calls herself the child's godmother, Miss Barbary, with a mysterious background too somehow connected to the young girl but how... Often telling the unloved Esther it would have been better for all , if she had never lived. Nevertheless this enigma which the few people in contact with Summerson, maybe that name is really hers , none will discuss with the teenager. The unfriendly lady keeps the puzzle a puzzle, from the past... she won't reveal who the Miss is, the old woman Barbary can keep a dark secret. Sent to a girls boarding school later, Esther bills are paid by an extraordinary kindly gentleman John Jarndyce, yes the man unwillingly entangled in the detestable lawsuit ( like many others) started by his uncle, ironically deceased still he inherited the case. Soon the courts give custody to him his two distant cousins, orphans, there are many in Victorian England, set circa the 1830's before the railroads made travel easy. Richard Carstone an amiable but lazy boy and the beautiful loyal Ada Clare, they are also distant relatives. Bleak House Mr. Jarndyce home is not empty any more, to this rather gloomy place arrives another ward of the court Esther, their guardian is the bright spot, strangely she has somehow a relationship to the suit also. The three become quick friends all around 17. Richard and Ada fall in love, Esther is their best friend. Sir Leicester Dedlock, the arrogant Baronet (get the symbolism) is a party in the suit, his haughty wife Honoria, pretty and intimidating but there is something not quite clear there. The family lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn, has unseen power over the proud aristocrats, he is a very capable man yet somewhat soft spoken and very quiet for his noisy profession...
...but what is it ? And the Inspector Mr. Bucket of the London police he never seems to sleep... hovering over everyone, especially the notorious underworld criminals of...
the entire city, solving crimes...One of Dickens best novels and I've read ten so far..The opening scene a description of London's famous bad weather is priceless, nobody could have done it better...