Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) Conclusion

Poor Richard!  He spent all his time worrying over that dreaded court case.  When it finally went wrong, he just wasted away and died within hours.  Really?  I mean, is it that easy to die in Victorian Britain?  Well, if you’re not in the “working class”, the answer is yes.  Those leisured classes were dropping like flies, swooning away for this and that at the drop of a hat.  When the court ended, Richard couldn’t even yell at the judge because he had blood in his mouth.  What?  Did he bite his tongue?  They kept alluding to him wasting away for months before this under the care of the good and wise Woodcourt.  Wasting away?  From worry?  Are they going to stamp that on the official certificate of death, signed by the coroner?  Cause of death – worry.

Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) Wacky Characters Part II

Esther and her mother.  Okay, not so wacky, but wacked out, maybe.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not here to throw mud on these people.  But let's be honest, the idea that Esther spends her whole life longing to do things for other people just to be loved is a bit hard to take.  At some point she's got to realize she is not the person her evil aunt told her she was.

Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) More About Those Wacky Characters

There's a particular character I want to discuss, because she is one of Dickens' finest drawn characters.  Mrs. Jellyby is just horrible.  So terrible you will just love her.  When we switch back to one of her scenes, you cringe to read it, but read it you must.

Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) Continued...

This is not the first time I've waded through this book.  I remember feeling bogged down like a wanderer in a misty wood, wondering who these characters are and how I should feel about them.  This time was better, although it helps to write names down.

Dickens was a master of pulling in a variety of characters who hover on the fringe of a storyline, each adding their part at the right time.  That's even more interesting considering how Dickens wrote.  You probably know his books were serialized.  Each month another chapter would be published in a magazine.  But wait, here's the catch.  He wrote them as he went along.  When he published chapter 12, chapter 13 wasn't written.  Pretty cool, right?  But I'll talk more about that in a post about Dickens.

Book Review: Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853) First Look

I'll have a few posts about this book.  I wanted to throw out some initial thoughts on it.

The first two chapters are boring.  I'm not going to lie to you.  But you have to get through them to understand what the heck is going on.  Or I can just tell you.  Chancery court is where they haggled over disputed wills, divorces, alimony and that sort of thing.  Big deal, right?  Well, Victorian Britain had huge problems with their Chancery court, with cases lasting for years and years.  Sometimes decades.  The lawyers got rich, much like here in America.  In the end, the actual individuals - plaintiffs or defendants - ended up with junk.  They got smack, zip, nada.  Dickens was using this for his social commentary.

Book Review: A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)

I review this because it's Christmas.  Plus, it's one of everyone's favorite Dickens' books.  Technically a novella, this is much smaller than some of his other works.

Three things about this book that I love are the well drawn character of Scrooge, the imagery of Victorian Britain, and the macabre subject matter.

Book Review: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (1837) - more thoughts

I read this book when I was young, and it was my first Dickens book.  Maybe that's why it's my favorite - nostalgia.  But since then I've read some of his later books.  Now that I've reread Pickwick with that experience under my belt, I can see the difference.

His more elegant writing doesn't show up in Pickwick.  In books like David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities, it has a more serious tone that lends itself to more serious and sophisticated writing.  But I guess those turns of phrases and exquisite descriptions took a few more years to develop.  I kept waiting for the beautiful similes that Dickens is famous for, but in Pickwick...not so much.

Book Review: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (1837)

This will always be my favorite Dickens' book.  I wonder if some writers start out writing humorous pieces but move into more serious storylines as they get older.  I know that was the case with Mrak Twain.  This book is Charles Dickens in his younger years, more light-hearted, less satirical.  I won't say this book is all fun and no social commentary, but The Pickwick Papers is so far the only humorous Dickens book I have read.

It's the story of Samuel Pickwick and his various travels and adventures.  The basic plot is simple.  Pickwick is the founder of the Pickwick Club, and his mission is to go on a walk-about into the world (greater London and the surrounding area) and learn all he can.  Then he writes it down and reports back to his club.