Bleak House: Issue 10

Charles Dickens

Jan 1853 · Bradbury and Evans

About this ebook

The law courts prevailing over the case of Jarndyce & Jarndyce are overwhelming in their pedantic, futile red-tape bureaucratic adherence to old principles and are partly based on Dickens' time as a young law clerk. With a massive cast of characters--many with ingeniously comic names--and his most complex plot, Bleak House is believed by many to be Dickens' greatest work.

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Ratings and reviews

I like the fact that he writes this from the point of a female (the narrator, Esther Summerson) which, to me, gives it a totally different feel from a book like David Copperfield. As with all his books, I find the characters a little exagerated, but this is what I find enjoyable. Surely everyone has known people like Harold Skimpole - someone who takes absolutely no responsibility for himself, or his family for that matter, and relies on the charity of others. Or Mr. Chadband who thinks that he is the only moral person alive and is forever dishing out his opinions on how people should live. Well worth the effort.

This book seems at times overwhelming in its complexity. With such a huge cast of characters to remember I found myself having to go back to prior pages (chapters) to find how they fit into the plot once in awhile. Mid book I almost gave up but I am so glad that I continued on to the end. Well worth the time it takes to read in entirety.

One of the most surprisingly optimistic novels I have ever read. Contrasting against the sooty fog, mud and mire of the Chancery Court environment is Esther, who as her name suggests, is literally the 'star' of the novel. Her beautifully simple, insightful and poignant narrations give hope, love and joy to many hopelessly complex and irredeemable situations, all stemming from the inordinately lengthy legal case before the Chancery Court called 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce'.