Book Review: Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Tom-all-alone, the Court of Chancery, spontaneous human combustion, an illegitimate birth, and a murder mystery in Dickens's big bleak honkin' epic.

Published in 1852, approx. 356,000 words, Available for free at Project Gutenberg.

First published in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853, this novel follows the fortunes of three pedestrian characters; Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, and Richard Carstone. The story they tell embodies Dickens' merciless indictment of the Court of Chancery and its bungling, morally corrupt handling of the endless case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, giving the novel its scope and meaning.

Starting with Esther's account of her lonely, unhappy childhood, her role as protégée of the worthy John Jarndyce, Richard and Ada's guardian, the tale develops the relations between the three young people in the Jarndyce household. Numerous other characters contribute to the complex portrait of society which emerges from the novel. They include the romantic, effusive, and unworldly Harold Skimpole (based on Leigh Hunt, poet, journalist, and critic, who published The Examiner in which he introduced the public to Keats and Shelley); the boisterous, short-tempered Boythorn (based on Walter Savage Landor, poet and essayist, mentor to Robert Browning); Krook, the rag-and-bottle shopkeeper who dies a hideous death by 'spontaneous combustion'; Gridley and the crazed Miss Flite, both ruined by Chancery; Mrs. Jellyby, neglectful of domestic responsibilities in favor of 'telescope philanthropy'; the greasy Mr. Chadband, a parson 'of no particular denomination'; and Conversation Kenge and Mr. Vholes, lawyers both.

Of particular importance to the moral design of the novel is Jo, the crossing-sweeper whose brutish life and death are the instruments for one of Dickens' most savage judgments on an indifferent society.

( Dickens wants to kill all the lawyers. )

Verdict: An indictment of the Victorian legal system and society's discarding of all the poor, impoverished Tom-all-alones, Bleak House is one of Dickens's longer novels and requires some stamina to get through. I would not recommend it as a "starter" Dickens, but it's a complicated epic that's got everything that makes a Dickens novel great: humor, pathos, satire, and romance. (The romance, Dickens was usually better leaving alone.) There just may be a bit too much of it. I view Charles Dickens much like Stephen King (and I consider that in no way disparaging to either author): great tale-tellers who sometimes write much more than they need to to tell the tale, and yet you can't actually point to any parts that aren't entertaining.

Also by Charles Dickens: My reviews of A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations.

Bleak House is on the list of 1001 novels you must read before you die, but I did not read it as part of the books1001 challenge.

Book Review: Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Tom-all-alone, the Court of Chancery, spontaneous human combustion, an illegitimate birth, and a murder mystery in Dickens's big bleak honkin' epic.

Published in 1852, approx. 356,000 words, Available for free at Project Gutenberg.

First published in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853, this novel follows the fortunes of three pedestrian characters; Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, and Richard Carstone. The story they tell embodies Dickens' merciless indictment of the Court of Chancery and its bungling, morally corrupt handling of the endless case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, giving the novel its scope and meaning.

Starting with Esther's account of her lonely, unhappy childhood, her role as protégée of the worthy John Jarndyce, Richard and Ada's guardian, the tale develops the relations between the three young people in the Jarndyce household. Numerous other characters contribute to the complex portrait of society which emerges from the novel. They include the romantic, effusive, and unworldly Harold Skimpole (based on Leigh Hunt, poet, journalist, and critic, who published The Examiner in which he introduced the public to Keats and Shelley); the boisterous, short-tempered Boythorn (based on Walter Savage Landor, poet and essayist, mentor to Robert Browning); Krook, the rag-and-bottle shopkeeper who dies a hideous death by 'spontaneous combustion'; Gridley and the crazed Miss Flite, both ruined by Chancery; Mrs. Jellyby, neglectful of domestic responsibilities in favor of 'telescope philanthropy'; the greasy Mr. Chadband, a parson 'of no particular denomination'; and Conversation Kenge and Mr. Vholes, lawyers both.

Of particular importance to the moral design of the novel is Jo, the crossing-sweeper whose brutish life and death are the instruments for one of Dickens' most savage judgments on an indifferent society.

( Dickens wants to kill all the lawyers. )

Verdict: An indictment of the Victorian legal system and society's discarding of all the poor, impoverished Tom-all-alones, Bleak House is one of Dickens's longer novels and requires some stamina to get through. I would not recommend it as a "starter" Dickens, but it's a complicated epic that's got everything that makes a Dickens novel great: humor, pathos, satire, and romance. (The romance, Dickens was usually better leaving alone.) There just may be a bit too much of it. I view Charles Dickens much like Stephen King (and I consider that in no way disparaging to either author): great tale-tellers who sometimes write much more than they need to to tell the tale, and yet you can't actually point to any parts that aren't entertaining.

Also by Charles Dickens: My reviews of A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations.

Bleak House is on the list of 1001 novels you must read before you die, but I did not read it as part of the books1001 challenge.