Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

It’s Dickens Tuesday! This is a social media trend that I’m creating starting now and lasting for the next few weeks. Happy Dickens Tuesday, everyone!!!!

I’ve been on a Dickens kick over the last few years, but I almost gave up on this one. At nearly the exact mid-point, I put the book down and seriously considered moving on to another book. Then I checked in on the Charles Dickens subreddit (as one does), and saw that I wasn’t the only one who stopped reading Bleak House in the middle. And every time someone threatened to stop reading, there were always a few comments encouraging the reader to continue, with the promise that, “It’s about to get good!”

And you know what? Reddit was right. And if Reddit is right about Charles Dickens, it’s probably right about everything…

But the book does get good. Really good! There’s even a chase scene! IN A DICKENS BOOK!?! Wild! 

The story is split between two narrators: A third-person omniscient narrator, and a first-person account from one of the main characters, Esther Summerson. This can be confusing at first, especially if no one told you that the narrator was going to change. I didn’t know about this, and so a few chapters in, my brain got mad because it couldn’t figure out who was talking to me. (The same thing happens when I sit alone at night, gazing into the fire on the anniversary of the murder of…well, I’ve said too much.)

The story follows a group of characters as they fall in love, deal with British society and do all sorts of Dickensian things. There are a few normal characters and there are tons of wonderfully wacky characters. These characters are so odd and silly that they could slide into any I Think You Should Leave sketch.

(The wacky characters are part of the reason I’ve fallen in love with Dickens books over the past few years. You’ll see more Charley D. in upcoming book reviews. On Tuesdays! TELL THE SUBREDDIT!!!) 

In this book, everything is connected to a convoluted court case, Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. It takes 500 pages to set the stage and then everything comes together in the last 500 pages. Does it all crash together violently in the end like a kinetic Tarantino movie? Maybe not. But everything does fit together nicely in this expertly plotted tale. Bleak House started as one of my least favorite books and by the last page, became one of my favorites.

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