Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Apr. 20th, 2008 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been grinding its way through the courts for generations.
At its heart are Ada Clare and RIchard Carstone, who find love - and terrible loss - through their involvement in the endless legal battle. Meanwhile, their friend Esther Summerson, who believes she is an orphan, gradually discovers the truth of her identity. The court case throws out a web ensnaring all who come near it - from haughty Lady Deadlock, hiding the truth about her past, and the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn to determined detective Bucket, on the trail of a murderer, and tragic little waif Jo, holding the key to the mystery.
Secrets emerge, horrific crimes are committed and love affairs bloom, but will anyone ever benefit from the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce? Or will the quest for an inheritance come at a terrible cost?
I bought this on the strength of an excellent BBC adaptation, but it's taken me over a year to get through. The reason is that this isn't a book suitable for commuters - it's not something you can dip in and out of. Partly it's because of the complexity of the plot - Dickens weaves several storylines together (including Esther's first person narrative and the third person depiction of Guppy's, Lady Dedlock's, Tulkinghorn's and Major George's adventures) and you don't start to see them coming together until the final third. In a book that's almost 1000 pages long, that means investing a lot of time and it's not easy to follow if you're reading it in short bursts.
However, once I set aside some time each day, I found myself riveted to the story. Dickens is a master storyteller and here he's in complete control of his material, alternating between voice and experience with ease. What particularly surprised me was the humour in the text - at times affectionate, at times scathing about Victorian society and poverty and particularly about the legal profession. There was also none of the mawkishness that I tend to associate with Dickens work - there's affection for characters like the unfortunate Jo who is constantly forced to move on but morality is not bandied around, which makes the writing even stronger.
The mystery element (specifically the murder of Mr Tulkinghorn) dominates the final quarter of the book. Bucket is one of the first detectives in fiction (inspired apparently by a real life detective of the period) and again, it's a testament to Dickens's skill as a writer that even though I'd seen the adaptation I couldn't remember who'd done the murder and was fooled by some of the red herrings that Dickens plants.
By modern standards, there is slightly more padding to the text than contemporary writers could get away with. Specifically, Dickens likes to wax lyrical on scenary, sometimes to great affect (e.g. the opening description of the fog is a classic in English literature) but sometimes in a way that gets in the way of the story. However, it all adds to the experience of reading a Dickens work and it never annoyed me so much that I felt moved to skip past it.
This version has some useful footnotes at the back to explain terms used in the text that we might not be familiar with now. The foreword is okay, but a little too academic and there are some appendices given background on the way courts operated in the time and the chapter outlines that Dickens used to produce the novel.
The Verdict:
It's not an easy read and the sheer size of it means that it's not great commuter reading material. However the story is gripping, Dickens is fully in control of the material and it's not as sentimental as I thought it would be. Definitely worth a look.
The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been grinding its way through the courts for generations.
At its heart are Ada Clare and RIchard Carstone, who find love - and terrible loss - through their involvement in the endless legal battle. Meanwhile, their friend Esther Summerson, who believes she is an orphan, gradually discovers the truth of her identity. The court case throws out a web ensnaring all who come near it - from haughty Lady Deadlock, hiding the truth about her past, and the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn to determined detective Bucket, on the trail of a murderer, and tragic little waif Jo, holding the key to the mystery.
Secrets emerge, horrific crimes are committed and love affairs bloom, but will anyone ever benefit from the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce? Or will the quest for an inheritance come at a terrible cost?
I bought this on the strength of an excellent BBC adaptation, but it's taken me over a year to get through. The reason is that this isn't a book suitable for commuters - it's not something you can dip in and out of. Partly it's because of the complexity of the plot - Dickens weaves several storylines together (including Esther's first person narrative and the third person depiction of Guppy's, Lady Dedlock's, Tulkinghorn's and Major George's adventures) and you don't start to see them coming together until the final third. In a book that's almost 1000 pages long, that means investing a lot of time and it's not easy to follow if you're reading it in short bursts.
However, once I set aside some time each day, I found myself riveted to the story. Dickens is a master storyteller and here he's in complete control of his material, alternating between voice and experience with ease. What particularly surprised me was the humour in the text - at times affectionate, at times scathing about Victorian society and poverty and particularly about the legal profession. There was also none of the mawkishness that I tend to associate with Dickens work - there's affection for characters like the unfortunate Jo who is constantly forced to move on but morality is not bandied around, which makes the writing even stronger.
The mystery element (specifically the murder of Mr Tulkinghorn) dominates the final quarter of the book. Bucket is one of the first detectives in fiction (inspired apparently by a real life detective of the period) and again, it's a testament to Dickens's skill as a writer that even though I'd seen the adaptation I couldn't remember who'd done the murder and was fooled by some of the red herrings that Dickens plants.
By modern standards, there is slightly more padding to the text than contemporary writers could get away with. Specifically, Dickens likes to wax lyrical on scenary, sometimes to great affect (e.g. the opening description of the fog is a classic in English literature) but sometimes in a way that gets in the way of the story. However, it all adds to the experience of reading a Dickens work and it never annoyed me so much that I felt moved to skip past it.
This version has some useful footnotes at the back to explain terms used in the text that we might not be familiar with now. The foreword is okay, but a little too academic and there are some appendices given background on the way courts operated in the time and the chapter outlines that Dickens used to produce the novel.
The Verdict:
It's not an easy read and the sheer size of it means that it's not great commuter reading material. However the story is gripping, Dickens is fully in control of the material and it's not as sentimental as I thought it would be. Definitely worth a look.
