After finishing this book, my biggest amazement is that I read this book for the first time when I was 14 years old and did a book report on it. ( voluntarily).
I would love to see what I wrote in that report. What did I take away from this book at 14? I definitely have no memory of it at all.
This time, I fell completely under its spell. There is so much that happens in this book, it would be impossible to summarize.
What we do get is a book about a never ending trial- Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. We get involved in lots of secrets and with many, many characters, some of whom are good and some who are downright evil. There is romance, there are family relationships, friend relationships and there is also a mystery with a detective!!
The people in this book will stay with me, especially: John Jarndyce, Esther, Mr. Woodcourt, Lady Dedlock, Ada, Richard and Mr Bucket, the detective.
Dickens is a master! He wrote books that highlighted social issues. In this one, he tackles the court system with its tortuously slow proceedings which cater to the lawyers and leave most plaintiffs destitute.
He again highlights the plight of the poor- Jo comes to mind- who is constantly told to move along.
This is a complex book that requires careful reading. I read this book along with the Dickensian group, a chapter a day. My thanks to Jean for her leadership and her brilliant summation and information that she provided to us. Reading everyone’s comment enriched my reading experience.

Loved this book- looking forward to watching the BBC adaptation now.

My Dickens binge carries on relentlessly. It's like I'm stuck in the Victorian era... and am loving it! An absorbing tale that harshly, but fairly satirises the Law; alongside the lives, the times and the adventures of the Wards of Jarndyce; yet again a myriad cast of fully realised characters across the classes. 8 out of 12.

2009 read

I’m pretty sure this novel can be translated mathematically into a periodic function of sorts. Dickens provides a picture portrait of 1850s London that hums and whirrs like a clockwork model, where every character is a gear or cog and their every movement sets other gears in motion with mechanical inevitability.

I decided to make this my first Dickens because the premise caught my attention: a family dispute over a will taken to court metamorphoses into an incomprehensible behemoth of legal gobbledygook that drags on for generations. Dickens based the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit on two real Chancery suits, one of which, fittingly, poetically, only ended - in the way most of these suits end, with the disputed estate consumed by legal fees - half a century after Dickens’ death.

Unfortunately, despite a promising start, I pretty much guessed, courtesy of some heavy-handed foreshadowing, how everything was going to play out by circa p 300, which made this rather plump paperback a chore to get through. As humdrum predictable event followed humdrum predictable event, I kept trying to second-guess the would-be unexpected twist or hidden agenda of some character it was all building up to… only to have the mellowest most predictable outcome consistently assert its authority over the course of events, to the point where I felt like I was reading two novels in parallel, the second being the darker, more exciting version of Bleak House I was composing in my head as I trudged through the inane affairs of the first.

Dickens is a workmanlike writer who doesn’t flaunt his talent. His main concern seems to be to entertain. And that’s fine. My main gripe is that he’s a chatterbox who is, dare I say, in love with the scratch of his own quill. This book is almost 1,000 pages long and the length does not really feel justified. The story, while a good story, could have been told in a tight 300 pages and been all the more effective. And while I understand the length is in part a byproduct of the serial format in which it was published and that saying it could be shortened is tantamount to saying Breaking Bad could have been made into a movie, the point is that today it has reached us in the form of a book, and I cannot help but judge it as such. If I were made to sit through the entirety of Breaking Bad in a movie theatre I would also be pissed.

Every last minutia takes so many words and clauses and sub-clauses to define that one soon succumbs to skimming, which is a pity considering that, every now and again, we’re treated to some truly wonderful descriptive passages, such as all the ones concerning the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit, which feel lifted straight out of the pages of n  Gormenghastn:
n  

Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. 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. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.

n
Really it’s for passages like this that it’s worth reading Bleak House. You just have to arm yourself with patience for the endless tirades of characters bouncing their antics off of each other for scores of pages just to move one little plot point along.

Speaking of the famed idiosyncratic characterisation, this being my first Dickens and having abundantly read and heard about his style, I was interested to see how he pulls it off. And for the most part I thought his caricatures were great, some definitely more inspired than others, but a fun efficient way to embody the vice or virtue of a class or profession in a single soul. The ubiquity of his influence is apparent; I’m sure a perfectly straight line can be traced between the ever-outstretched finger of inspector Bucket and that of Phoenix Wright.

Having said that, the gimmick starts to lose its fizz after a few hundred pages. I think it would work much better in a shorter novel, as any mammoth book worth its girth has to pack at the very least some meaty character arcs. And Bleak House… doesn’t. Two of my favourite characters were Richard and Lady Dedlock. You know, characters that actually had an arc, a sad few in a cast of dozens.

All in all, I’m glad to have made Dickens’ acquaintance, but I’m now more than ready to move on and not in a great hurry to delve into more of his stuff, especially his doorstoppers.

Contented sigh. What a beautiful beautiful book.

Bleak? Which home was bleak? And need there be any?

Vance is a masterful reader.

The wheels of justice grind slow and fine. Tilting at windmills, indeed.

I think Don Quixote must be next.

Dickens is just the perfect winter read.
Why has it taken me so long to read this wonderful book?
It’s been languishing on my book shelf since 1998!
One that I found hard to put down and at least one didn’t have to wait for the monthly instalments.
One of his best and one I would recommend not to be put off by the size.
Deserves more stars 5+

Bleak house. The very name of this book already tells us that the story will be somewhat bleak. There is some dark and tragic storytelling here, but there is also some mystery and even a tinge of romance thrown in too.

This is actually my first Dickens novel, and I haven't been left disappointed here. However, I did find the narrative style confusing and even frustrating at times and I think Esther's narrative was so much easier to digest, than some of the other chapters. I had heard that Dickens isn't the easiest author to read and now I understand why.
I do rather like this quote;

"And I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself"

I just loved Esther in this story. Hell, we all want to be as respected as she. Esther had a strong role in this story, and for that, I think I enjoyed it more.
I actually learned a new word from this book which is "growlery" It is where one goes when they are in a particularly foul mood. How grand is that?

At over 1000 pages, this certainly wasn't an easy read, but I definitely like it. The problem with me is, I haven't found a classic that is as good, or better than Les Miserables yet. That book is still under my skin. I'm not usually a fan of huge books, but this is well worth your time for a classic read.

This novel is a fucking masterpiece. I'm not sure what else to say, but I'll keep typing and see what comes out of my blown mind and into my fingertips on the keyboard.

There was so much going on here:
1.) A serious criticism of the Chancery Court system, where court cases took so long to complete that people were born, people died, the money in very large estates was completely used up, and parties to the cases who devoted their lives to pushing toward a conclusion of their cases went crazy or withered away.
2.) A serious discussion on philanthrophy and charity. What do we do with the less fortunate? Are they the responsibility of the government? Or should private citizens help them, even to the detriment of their own families? Are people in other countries more deserving of our charity than those right outside our door, eating a crust of bread on the doorstep of the church where people are having meetings about sending missionaries to Africa?
3.) A serious look at the class system, at love, at friendship, duty, selflessness, honor, family, villains, heroes, wannabe heroes, leeches, and at those who might be the center of the story and might also be the piece that completes several different puzzles if only we didn't see them as outsiders.

There are dozens (yes, dozens) of characters in the novel. I have read a few reviews that said it was difficult to keep up with all the characters, but I didn't have that problem. To my great pleasure, Dickens created some amazing characters here. For me, each one was a separate and distinct person with different ideas, thoughts, and even facial expressions from any other character. I could see them in my mind. I saw them grow. I saw them regress. I saw them to not be quite what I thought they were at the beginning. I laughed with them, I cried with them, and I cried n  forn them several times. Once or twice, I cried for myself.

At 1,087 pages, this wouldn't normally be a book I would recommend to everyone. But you need to go read this. It will change your life. It changed mine. And don't be intimidated by the title; Bleak House is anything but bleak, and I think that's only a tiny part of the brilliance of this book.

What else but five stars?

A note, though: At the end of a long and fascinating story, it seems very nitpicky to have to mention that there are a couple of places where Dickens uses racial/ethnic expressions that would not be acceptable today. But just saying.

This is only the second Dickens novel I've ever read and it was probably not the best novel to read around Christmas time. The story is bleak and gloomy. It's set in foggy, dirty Victorian London, there is a lot of mention of dirt, squalor, disease, death and poverty. Some parts were really quite depressing and upsetting.

The story is narrated in part by the orphaned Esther, who I had a lot of trouble warming up to in the story. I'm used to stronger female narrators but she was too modest, probably the Victorian female ideal, but it didn't win me over. I also got frustrated with her trying to be a mother to everyone and not thinking about her own happiness.

The story revolves around the Jarndyce vs Jarndyce court case, a long-running litigation case.The case had lots of satire surrounding it and I definitely see it as an attack on the British legal system at the time.

The characters Dickens came up with in this novel are quite hilarious. My favourites were Mrs Jellyby, who is obsessed with Africa, Old Mr Turveydrop, who can't stop thinking about "deportment," and Skimpole, who is basically a leacher. They are really ridiculous but at least their presence brightened up gloomy London.


A great word I learned from this book, which I think I will adopt, is the word "growlery" which is defined as a place where one goes in order to get over a bad mood!

Overwhelmed is how I would describe myself when facing the task of reducing this monumental work to a couple of paragraphs for easy consumption on the internet. Dickens manages to capture the spirit of his times on a grand canvas, doing for English literature and early Victorian society what Hugo did for the French, Tolstoy for the Russians, Goethe for the Germans. The main difference I noticed, is that Dickens focus is not on great battles that changed the course of history or larger than life heroes. He is showing the ordinary life of the little people, their struggles to make ends meet and to survive injustice, sickness and penury. More than a very successful writer of popular adventures, he is a social crusader, an early investigative journalist who is not merely observing and reporting the facts, he is editorializing from the pulpit against poverty, against lack of education and lack of mercy, against intolerance and prejudice.

Bleak House sets its guns on the Chancery Court, the antiquated legal institution that was suffocated in his time under entrenched bureaucracy and graft. Dickens had direct experience of its evil ways: 'although he had won a suit against plagiarists that he had brought before Chancery in 1844, he himself had to pay the considerable sum of 700 pounds incurred in the proceedings when the plagiarists declared bankruptcy. So
vexed was he by the experience that, when advised to initiate another piracy suit, he refused: 'I know of nothing that could come, even of a successful action, which would be worth the mental trouble and disturbance it would cost.' This from the introduction; in the book, Dickens gets even more radical in his comments : Being in Chancery it's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.

The opening chapter sets the mood for the novel: a city of lost hopes, shrouded in mists, barricaded in empty traditionss, burried under avalanches of paperwork. The famous Jarndyce & Jarndyce lawsuit has already lasted for decades and now it ensnares three young people in its mesh : Esther Summerson, the principal narrator, and two wards in the suit : Richard Carstone and Ada Clare.

The plot is almost inexistent for about two-thirds of this major volume, with most of the scenes and character studies apparently unrelated and simply assembled together in a comprehensive picture of London and the countryside in early to mid 1800, from the lowest slums of the capital to the sumptuous mansions of the gentry. The cast is huge, yet easy to follow up, given Dickens main strength as a narrator : creating memorable, colourful characters using his acerbic wit and barbed arrows of sarcasm. While I had observed that almost all of these personages are static, finishing the novel in the same moral position they started (good ones remain good, bad ones remain bad, with the possible exceptions of Carstone and Leicester, and with Ada the most useless and decorative of them all), they were nevertheless jumping off the page fully formed and individualized. A comprehensive list is beyond my purpose, so here are some snapshots:

Harold Skimpole: He is grown up - he is at least as old as I am - but in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child. . In another place : The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!

Sir Leicester Dedlock: His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills, but would be done up without Dedlocks. . In another place, on crossing the English Channel : The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like the small fry.

Mr. George : From rough outsides, serene and gentle influences often proceed

John Jarndyce, owner of the title house and a favorite of Nabokov (who I read earlier this month) who calls him 'one of the best and kindest human beings ever described in a novel'

Richard Boythorn : His lungs! - there's no simile for his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the house shake.

Mr. Tulkinhorn, who is living in a grandiose former house of state : In those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in nuts.

Mrs. Pardiggle : There are two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

Rather than continue with this enumeration, let's get back to the social panorama. From my last quote we see Dickens took issue with false charity, with empty gestures and meaningless causes. His satirical arrows have an uncanny accuracy, yet some of them rub a modern reader the wrong way from time to time, as when he takes on Feminism : Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of Home was an outrageous slander on the part of her Tyrant, Man. . I couldn't help notice that Dickens' feminine ideal (Esther) is rather bland and uninteresting in her exlusive focus on household chores and 'good deeds'.

Other times, I feel as Dickens is one of our contemporaries, as he is lampooning the fashion magazines and the Hollywood star system:

Fashion is Tony Jobling's weakness. To borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening, and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction, is unspeakable consolation to him.To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday, or contemplates the no less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow, gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind.

Even the bad guys get an understanding eye for their situation, they too are victims of the broken system or of their own blindness to the evolving times. See Leicester coming face to face with a future captain of industry from the North counties :

Upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have - a - obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!

See Judy Smallweed, scion of a despicable loanshark : she never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done, that the probabilities are strong the other way.

One of the aspects of the novel that hasn't aged very well, but that is consistent with the period and the preferences of his public is the exaggerated melodrama of some of its scenes. I have come to prefer a more stoic, 'stiff-upper-lip' atitude to the vicissitudes of fate, but I cannot quarell with the fact that Dickens had his heart in the right place. Although his favorite may be the little sweeper boy Jo, for me it was the portrait of Charley Coavinses, the child who was forced to seek employment in order to provide for her orphaned brothers:

I don't know where she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature, in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the court; and melt into the city's strife and sound, like a dewdrop in an ocean.

I've mentioned the social satire and the melodrama. The third pillar supporting this edifice is the author's erudition, his impressive familiarity with a wide range of subjects. I don't usually read the notes and commentaries on my books, believing it will pull me out of the story with trivia, but, in this particular case, I recommend the annotated edition. I would have missed the many references to Scripture, Shakespeare, Greek mythologies, contemporary authors and events without this carefully compiled addendum. (like this delightful little line from Thomas Moore : 'The best of all ways, to lengthen our days, was to steal a few hours from Night, my dear! )

A short final note on the electronic edition : ebooks have come of age and the functionality of the book was faultless on my iPad, with font resize, easy access to notes and commentaries and well rendered original illustrations. Barnes & Noble did a very good conversion of the original text.

Which house in Charles Dickens's novel is "Bleak House"?

It surely cannot be the house which bears its name; a large airy house, which we first visit in the company of the young wards of Jarndyce, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, and their companion Esther. Ironically, this "Bleak House" is anything but bleak. It is a pleasant place of light and laughter. Mr. Jarndyce imprints his positive outlook on life, never allowing the lawsuit to have any negative influence. Indeed, when he first took on the house from a relative, Tom Jarndyce, he says,

"the place [had become] dilapidated, the wing whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too; it was so shattered and ruined.”

Neither can it be another house, which is to bear its name far later in the novel. So does the title perhaps refer to "Tom-All-Alone's", originally owned by Tom Jarndyce, but now a decrepit edifice inhabited by poor unfortunates who have nowhere else to go, sleeping crammed on top of each other? Tom-All-Alone's certainly represents the worst of society's injustices. Or could it be the immensely grand, laybrinthine mansion, "Chesney Wold", owned by Lord and Lady Dedlock? That is a magnificent abode, complete with its ominously suggestive "Ghost Walk"; much admired, much respected, but devoid of happiness. It embodies a bleakness of spirit; those living in it live a lie, and mourn the past. Or is it more likely to be one of the smaller neglected dwellings, such as that of Krook the rag-and-bone merchant, whose house is packed to the brim with junk and paper - or his neighbour, the mad Miss Flite, herself once a ward of Jarndyce, now reduced to living with her caged birds,

"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach."

Or the house inhabited by Mrs Jellyby; yet another neglected house near to falling down, as she furthers her missionary zeal, leaving her daughter Caddy to cope as best she can with the crumbling household? Her self-righteous friend Mrs. Pardiggle's house, is also a candidate,

"The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him."

And the hovel lived in by Jenny and her brickmaker husband, is surely a contender; that meagre hut visited with an ostentatious show of charity by the abominable Mrs. Pardiggle with her "rapacious benevolence (if I may use the expression)"? There is no shortage of candidates for a "Bleak House" in this behemoth novel - but it is by far from clear which house is meant.

Dickens has given us a surprisingly short title, but it is as well disguised as the sixty-two word long title for the novel we now call, "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" or even simply, "Martin Chuzzlewit..." in which throughout the novel we think it is called after one character, but on consideration, it is more likely to be about another. Dickens loved his mysteries, and this is his greatest completed mystery novel. Even the characters are in disguise. One has called himself "Nemo" - "no-one" - and another has taken great pains to obfuscate her history; yet another has never known his own name. In some cases the disguise is not by intention; one of the main characters genuinely does not know who she actually is, and thinks she is someone else.

But before this review becomes as baffling as some of the nascent strands in this novel (never fear, with Dickens everything is tied up nicely by the end), perhaps I should set the scene properly.

Bleak House was Charles Dickens's ninth novel, written when he was between 40 and 41 years of age. Whilst writing it Dickens's wife Kate gave birth to their tenth child, Edward, or "Plorn". A few months later Dickens himself went on tour throughout England with his amateur acting troupe. He then became seriously ill with a recurrence of a childhood kidney complaint, and was bedridden for six days, but still had 17 chapters to write. He went to Boulogne, France to recover, and celebrated finishing Bleak House by holding a banquet in Boulogne, for his publishers Bradbury and Evans, his close friend, the writer Wilkie Collins, and several others.

Each part of the serial was illustrated by his favourite illustrator and great friend Hablot Knight Brown, or "Phiz", with remarkable skill. His illustrations take great care to convey the dark brooding mood of the novel, or the quirkiness of the characters. They even cleverly manage to convey the novel's theme of disguise. Esther's face, for instance, is rarely shown. She is usually turned away from the viewer's eye.

This novel is often considered Dickens's finest work although it is not by any means his most popular. His working title for Bleak House was actually "Tom-All-Alone's", which seems to indicate that of all the many themes in this book, the paramount one in his mind was his hatred of the London slums. Dickens loathed both the despicable conditions there, and the governmental practices which allowed them to exist. He tirelessly campaigned for their improvement. But the action itself is intended to illustrate the evils caused by long, drawn-out suits in the Courts of Chancery. Much of it was based on fact, as Dickens had observed the inner workings of the courts as a reporter in his youth. In Bleak House he observes bitterly,

"The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble."

This, then, is the crux of the story, but it is wrapped in a magnificently complex tale of mystery and intrigue. In fact there are about five major stories all interwoven in Bleak House, and it would be difficult to say which the main story is. Each is connected to the case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, and the destructive ramifications of two conflicting and contesting wills echo down the generations, and across all strata of society. It is a breathtaking accomplishment to plot, develop and tell such a complex story in such a riveting way. For it has to be borne in mind that this, like his preceding novels, was only accessible to Dickens's readers in small chunks of three or four chapters at a time, once a month, stretched over a year and a half: March 1852 to September 1853.

Yet his readers were gripped, entranced, demanding; able to remember the myriads of characters from one episode to the next. Perhaps this is why Dickens gave his characters such memorable tags: Jo, the crossing-sweeper, who "don't know nothink", subject to grinding poverty and ignorance, forever being "moved on"; the languid "My Lady" Dedlock, fashionably fatigued, forever full of ennui and "bored with life, bored with myself", Miss Flite, who "expects a judgment shortly", John Jarndyce, to be avoided if "the wind is in the east" and he is in his "growlery", Harold Skimpole, protesting he is "but a child" in matters of money.

The Smallweeds are a grotesque family of caricatures. The miserly money-lender Grandfather Smallweed is a very old man confined to a chair, where he is probably sitting on a large sum of money. His wife is living in fear of him, and permanently panicked by any mention of money. She starts up and talks nonsense until Grandfather Smallweed throws his cushion at her, silencing her but reducing himself to a bundle of clothes, whereupon we get his catchphrase, "Shake me up, Judy!" There is the lawyer Tulkinghorn; the man of secrets, "a great reservoir of confidences", or the lesser lawyer Vholes, the "evil genius". There are many short quips such as these, carefully planted by Dickens, to jog our memories should we need them.

Perhaps the easiest story to follow is that of Esther Summerson, a nobody whose "mother was her disgrace". She was a poor child, with a sense of being guilty for having been born, feeling that her birthday "was the most melancholy ... in the whole year". She was offered an education and a home by the benefactor John Jarndyce. Dickens invites us to view her story as key, by alterating passages of the novel, making some chapters by an omisicient narrator, and some by Esther. Unfortunately for a modern audience, we quickly lose sympathy with Esther, who seems to protest her gaucheness and ineptitude rather too much. Perhaps after all it is telling that she is Dickens's only female narrator.

In the narrative she makes it very clear how unworthy she is, how unattractive and dull compared with her peers. She also makes it abundantly clear that anyone reading her words knows that everyone in Bleak House argues with her about this, always complimenting her kindness, virtue, wisdom, hard work and her strong sense of gratitude and duty. It is tempting to view this as an ironic depiction of Esther, were we not now to know that a modest, self-effacing woman such as this, was what Dickens himself admired - or at least professed in public to admire. The character of Esther was thought to be based on Georgina Hogarth, his wife's youngest sister, who had joined his household in 1845, and was taking over more and more of the running of the house. She was apparently a self-sacrificing sort of person, who immersed herself in household duties and was dedicated to the welfare of others.

Many other characters in Bleak House were also, as was so often the case, based on people Dickens knew, and sometimes they were famous with his readers too. For instance Harold Skimpole, that dissembling, conniving hypocrite, lover of Art, Music, culture and everything that was fine and tasteful, was a thinly veiled portrait of Leigh Hunt, an English critic, essayist, poet, and writer, who continually sponged off his friends, Shelley and Byron. Dickens himself admitted this,

"I suppose he is the most exact portrait that was ever painted in words! ... It is an absolute reproduction of a real man".

Mrs. Jellyby was based on Caroline Chisholm, who had started out as an evangelical philanthropist in Sydney, Australia, and then moved to England in 1846. Over the next six years Caroline assisted 11,000 people to settle in Australia. Dickens admired her greatly, and supported her schemes to assist the poor who wished to emigrate. However, he was appalled by how unkempt her own children were, and by the general neglect he saw in her household, hence his portrayal of Mrs. Jellyby.

Another character, Laurence Boythorn, who was continually at odds with Sir Leicester Dedlock over land rights, was based on Dickens's friend, Walter Savage Landor. He also was an English writer and poet; critically acclaimed but not very popular. His headstrong nature, hot-headed temperament, and complete contempt for authority, landed him in a great deal of trouble over the years. His writing was often libellous, and he was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with his neighbours. And yet Landor was described as, "the kindest and gentlest of men".

Perhaps the most poignant character is Jo the crossing sweeper. He has, "No father, no mother, no friends", yet is essential to the plot, and clearly has a lot of innate intelligence. Perhaps Dickens took especial care with this portrayal, as according to Dickens's sixth son, Alfred, Jo was based on a small boy, a crossing sweeper outside Dickens's own house. Dickens took a great interest in the lad, gave him his meals and sent him to school at night. When he reached the age of seventeen, Dickens fitted him out and paid his passage to the colony of New South Wales, where he did very well, writing back to his benefactor three years later.

If Jo is the character likeliest to tug at the heartstrings, Inspector Bucket may be the one to admire most; the one who seems before his time, presaging much of the detective fiction we enjoy today. The character of the astute Inspector Bucket, uncomfortable unless he gives "Sir Leicester Dedlock - Baronet", his full title every time, is the first ever portrayal of a detective in English fiction, as he,

"stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle-age...there is nothing remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing".

Dickens based him on the real-life Inspector Charles Frederick Field, about whom he had already written three articles in "Household Words".

Lady Dedlock's maid, Mademoiselle Hortense, is one of Dickens's most powerful females; a prototype of Madame Defarge in "A Tale of Two Cities", full of passion, outrage, and talk of blood. She was modelled on a real-life Swiss lady's maid, Maria Manning, who, along with her husband were convicted of the murder of Maria's lover, Patrick O'Connor, in a case which became known as "The Bermondsey Horror." All Dickens's contemporary readers would have been familiar with the case.

Amusingly, one character is named after a real person - though she is not a human being at all but a cat! Krook's cat "Lady Jane", is named after Lady Jane Grey who reigned as Queen of England for a mere nine days in 1533. (She was forced to abdicate, imprisoned, and eventually beheaded.)

Although the theme of greed and corruption within the law is bitingly serious, and a passionately held belief by Dickens, and although the mysteries pile one on top of another throughout the book, Dickens provides plenty of comic characters to lighten the mood and pepper his stories. As well as those mentioned, there is the twittery Volumnia Dedlock, a poor relation of Sir Leicester Dedlock, described as "a young lady (of sixty)...rouged and necklaced". And we have the junior lawyer Mr. Guppy, almost too clever for his own good, presented in a ridiculous light, although actually having a sound and loyal moral core. He is one of my personal favourites.

There is also Mr. Turveydrop, the owner of a dance academy, and a "model of deportment ... He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear." Esther comments, "As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes." His hardworking, dancing master son "Prince" (named after the Prince Regent) is another humorous portrayal, as is Caddy Jellyby. Albeit a drudge and slave for her philanthropic mother, we are first intoduced to Caddy as a comical crosspatch with inky fingers. The tiny tot Peepy Jellyby is a delight, and Caddy's father too, is almost pathetically comical, finding consolation in leaning his head on walls; any wall seeming to suffice.

We do get a slightly different view of the other characters through Esther's eyes, which makes for interesting reading. Harold Skimpole, for instance is, I think, only shown within her purview. But with the comic episodes it matters not whose eyes we are viewing them through; we just enjoy their exuberance as a contrast to the simpering sentiments of Esther, "Dame Durden", "Old Woman", "Little Woman", "Mrs. Shipton" "Mother Hubbard", or any of the other appellations coined by the inhabitants of Bleak House. She herself is irritatingly wont to call Ada "my dear", "my darling", "my pet", or "my love", rarely using her actual name, even in reported speech. My, how tastes do change.

So which house do I personally think "Bleak House" refers to? It could well be Chesney Wold, which by the end has itself become a kind of tomb for the ghosts,

"no flag flying now by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of life about it",

But given all the metaphors in the novel, I am bound to conside the title itself as a metaphor.

In most of his works, Dickens imbues buildings, particuarly old houses, with their own personality. Each become a character in its own right. Bleak House, in my view, is a metaphor for the High Court of Chancery.

So would it be too fanciful of me to suggest that the main character in this novel in the Law itself? Read it and see what you think. You don't need to take 18 months, as Dickens's public had to. But it may be a good idea to not race through this book, if you want to follow all the mysteries. Perhaps you may wish to explore the contrasting themes of antiquity and tradition represented by Sir Leicester Dedlock, set against the ever encroaching Industrial Age; an age of progress, represented by the housekeeper's grandson, the iron-master's son, Watt (such an appropriate first name!) Rouncewell. Or perhaps the theme of being trapped, being a prisoner, being caged calls to you. There are a host of examples within. Or the theme of unhappy families; bad child-rearing is shown time and time again in all its many guises, with equally devastating effects for rich and poor alike. Nearly all the lives of these characters seem to be unfulfilled, and have been blighted by coincidences or misunderstandings. They are people trapped by their circumstances.

You may find that you enjoy spotting the codes, or the continuing motifs of paper, birds, disguised faces, fire, and so on; not to mention getting the most out of Bleak House's masterly complexity and thrilling atmosphere. You may love the richness of the language and description. Or you may, in the end, become addicted to the mystery element and read it strictly for the story itself. There are many interwoven plots in this novel and altogether there are ten deaths as it proceeds; all of them tragic in different ways, and most of them key characters. One is due to a hot topic in scientific debate, so contentious that Dickens felt the need to defend it in his preface. In February 1853, just over halfway through this novel, he became involved in a public controversy about the issue of spontaneouse combustion. George Henry Lewes had argued that the phenomenon was a scientific impossibility, but Dickens maintained that it could happen.

I do not tell the story, it would be well nigh impossible anyway in this space, but I do encourage you to read this masterpiece.

A labyrinth of grandeur...an old family of echoings and thunderings which start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and departs.

And so thirty-one Regency romances, fifteen Kindle freebies, innumerable cups of tea and many more books later, I have finally finished this Dickens masterpiece. It took me exactly thirteen months, and I had time to read an alarming total of eighty-three books in between the start and finish of Bleak House.

Why the five stars then, you ask? If it took me that long to get through it, surely it's not worth the effort?

Well, it is. It's awesome.

Very put-downable in my opinion though, and I will be completely honest, extremely boring in some instances. I wasn't even half-way through the first chapter that I was already feeling like Lady Dedlock.



I don't know what possessed me to start reading that book during summer, when it's the perfect time for fluffy romances, popsicles and beaches, but there I was, struggling to get into dreary, smoky London streets and rainy, gloomy Chesney Wold. No wonder my sense of boredom only intensified!



Do I really not have anything else to do but read this? Do I really want to commit to this tiny-printed 880 pages manuscript?



Nawww, not really. Get the brain candy out, I already need it after ten pages. Why are there so many descriptions? So many details? Do I really have to sit through the effects the rain has on everybody and everything? Who are these people anyways?


So, back on the shelf this door-stop went, and remained untouched for many a month, gathering up dust and cobwebs (not really, but almost!), while I escaped most of the time to Regency England, only to come out, ignoring the nagging voice that urged me to pick this back up, before plunging again and forgetting all about it.

Then one morning, I finally decided that my behaviour was ridiculous, jumped out of bed, and rescued poor dusty Bleak House from its place under the bed on the shelf, and read it through in one sitting.

Ha! Just kidding, but I wish, as it would have saved me so much time!! What really happened is that after taking it in small doses and getting to a point where I seriously thought of abandoning it for good, a lovely and clever friend of mine suggested I should perhaps...watch the BBC mini-series??!

Heck, why not! It can't get any worse than it is now, I thought.

So I watched it. And fell completely head over heels in love with it. No joke. It's THAT good.

I don't blame anyone who wishes to stay away from Dickens novels, but that movie, you need to see it. Seriously, start by watching the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_9SB...

Sounds amazing, no?

That's when I realized that beneath all the lavish descriptions, the long speeches, the fancy turn of phrases and the annoying characters, lay an incredible, suspenseful and thrilling story.

At the heart of Bleak House is the on-going, never-ending court case of Jarndyce & Jarndyce. John Jarndyce of Bleak House is long dead, but he wrote more than one will, so nobody knows who should inherit the money. The present Mr. John Jarndyce, now residing at Bleak House, had decided to take Miss Ada Clare and Mr. Richard Carstone, two cousin orphans, under his protection. He is also their distant cousin, and a very kind, devoted and benevolent man.



Along with them also comes Miss Esther Summerson; a very quiet, sensible and intelligent young woman, who shall serve as companion to Miss Clare. Miss Summerson is also an orphan, but there is a great mystery surrounding her birth. Nobody knows who her parents are, and the lady who brought her up always said that she was a disgrace.



Off they all go to Bleak House, where they are to reside in peace, tranquilly awaiting the result of Jarndyce & Jarndyce. Miss Clare and Mr. Carstone have a claim in the case, and may inherit a lot of money from it. However, the case has ruined many men who'd pined all their hopes on it, and Richard is encouraged to seek a profession and make his own way in life, without waiting for the case to be solved.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tulkinghorn, the lawyer, is paying a call on his most important client, the proud and respected Sir Leicester Dedlock. He and his Lady are sitting in the drawing-room and Mr. Tulkinghorn is about to read to them on the advancements in the case of J&J. Perceiving the hand-writing on one of the documents, my Lady is greatly disturbed, and so too is Mr. Tulkinghorn in seeing the effect it has on her.



As soon as he is back in his office, he starts off an investigation that will prove as intriguing and mysterious as it is cruel and manipulative. Mr. Tulkinghorn, that cold, calm, menacing and calculating lawyer, has caught the start of an intrigue in which its chain of events will forever change the lives of more people than originally bargained for. Everything is intertwined and suspiciously connected, and it will be layer upon layer of twists and turns before it is all resolved.



In my opinion, there are two major heroines in this novel. The first, the young and courageous Esther Summerson, who is all happiness and consideration towards Mr. Jarndyce, who has done her the very great honour of making her his housekeeper. Torn between her devotion to Mr. Jarndyce, her love for the young doctor Mr. Woodcourt and her desperate desire to find the identity of her mother, Esther remains true to herself and loyal to her friends. She is kind, generous and very dependable.



The second heroine is the great Lady Dedlock. She is one of the most fascinating women I have ever read about, and a great favourite of mine. Tall, graceful, once an acknowledged beauty in the long-gone days of her youth, Lady Dedlock is a model of perfect composure, deportment and manners. She appears ice-cold and impenetrable, carries herself as if she were a Queen and rarely betrays any emotion of feeling. But this great Lady has a secret, deeply buried inside her, and she suffers under its weight every day.



Married for many years to the proud Sir Leicester Dedlock, she has done her best to be as good a wife to him as she can possibly be, and he in return loves her unconditionally. Though many years her senior, and a bit rough around the edges, Sir Leicester's devotion and admiration for his Lady are extremely touching.

n  "His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his general conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly and true."n

However, the importance he attaches to his good name and the reputation of his family are very great indeed. Lady Dedlock knows that. And the more Mr. Tulkinghorn inquires about, the more in dread she becomes of ruining the Dedlock family.

When watching the mini-series, the excitement and suspense are there from the very beginning, and don't drop once until the ending. When reading the book, there are many slow parts and endless paragraphs, but with a little bit of skimming here and there, it becomes as exciting as the movie - or almost. ;) The whole thing is so intense and so genius though, that once you've past the first 250 pages or so, it becomes easier to read as the suspense grows.

Many characters are hella annoying, fair warning, both in movie and book, and it is only with the fear of making a whole in my wall with the heavy brick that I didn't throw it in frustration, nor did I do anything to do the DVD since I had borrowed it from the library. But gaahhh, some of them drove me nuts!!

I don't want to spoil anything (because y'all gonna go read this now, right?? Or at least watch the movie, RIGHT?? Riiiiight???), and so I will say nothing about the ending, simply that whether or not it has a HEA is entirely arguable and depends on each individual's point of view.

Five stars Bleak House gets, for its sheer excellence and brilliancy, even though I was as excited as a five-year-old on Christmas morning when I turned the last page and realized it was finally over. :P :P

Many thanks to Hana, who decided to buddy-read it with me (even though she finished waaaayyyy before me) and made me watch the movie to keep me going, Tweety who encouraged me to finish it before its year-old anniversary (I didn't make it but it was a good challenge!), Becca who forbade me have anything to do with RA pictures (cruel, but served its end!) and Jaima, who suggested we should binge-read Regency romances after finishing our big books. Thank you also to all who encouraged me to push through and keep going, I am so glad I was able to finish it!! :D

Group read with the Enchanted Serenity of Classics group, buddy read with Hana and group read with the Bleak House View and Read group.