Bleak House (Penguin Classics)

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Summary: Dickens's best book, should be required reading for lawyers
Review: This book is without a doubt as relevant now as it was when Dickens wrote it. In fact, its probably more so. As G.K. Chesterton said, when Dickens wrote this book, he had grown up. We have the civil courtroom as it really is, a grinding machine that breaks lives underneath it every day. We see the lawyers who feed off of all this human misery, and encourage their clients to wreck their lives while piously portraying themselves as upholders of the law.
Of course, this book is about a lot more than just the law. One of the most amusing subplots involves various women involved in charity. As the character Mr. Jarndyce says, there are two kinds of people who do charitable work. Some accomplish a great deal, and make very little noise, and some make a great deal of noise, and accomplish nothing. Of course, most of the ones in this book are of the second catagory. The most memorable by far is Mrs. Jellybee, who obsesses over a colony in Africa while her own family falls apart around her. It's exactly like people today, who want to save the whales or free Tibet while people in their own neighborhoods starve.
The characters in this book are excellent, and far more realistic than in most of Dickens's works. Mr. Jarndyce is the heroic father figure, but he is a real one, who tried to be kind and guide his family but can only watch helplessly while his nephew slowly destroys himself trying to overcome the court, which of course is impossible.
Many people have had trouble with the character of Esther Summerson, and her relentless goodness and self-effacement. I think she is a fantastic character, and is Dickens's way of reinforcing the message of the book, that you need to find happiness in your own life, and things like lawsuits do nothing but destroy happiness and should be avoided. No one changes the world in this book. They just help those that they can and try to go on with their own lives. That's why this book shows a more mature view of Dickens. This is great reading for anyone, especially anyone involved in the law. Five Stars for this book!!

Rating:
Summary: One of Dickens' best
Review: This is one of Dickens' most mature, sophisticated, and modern works, largely free of the sentimentality and crowd-pleasing melodrama for which he is known. An angry work filled with spleen about the inhumanity of the legal system and the way it grinds people up and spits them out, Bleak House is also notable for the strong ray of hope it holds out in the person of its protagonist, Esther Summerson, and her guardian, Tom Jarndyce. The story concerns an interminable legal case, Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, that has been grinding on for so long that nobody involved with it really knows what it's about anymore, and any money that could possibly be won by any of the litigants has long been swallowed up by legal fees. Caught up helplessly in this incomprehensible mess are Tom Jarndyce and his orphaned wards Esther Summerson and the kissing cousins John and Ada Clare. Also involved in the affair in some mysterious way are the haughty and aristocratic Dedlocks and an enigmatic legal clerk known only as Nemo--the Latin word for "no one." Part mystery, part legal thriller, Bleak House is also one of Dickens' most satisfying books for a modern reader. As a spirited indictment of the legal system it ranks with Nicholas Nickleby and Our Mutual Friend as among Dickens' strongest statements on the side of the poor and disenfranchised against the faceless powers that would crush them.

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Summary: "Bleak House" book review (byAJ from OLSOS)
Review: Yes, this is a truly wonderful indictment of the British legal system of the time. And I would have to say, equally applicable to the legal systems with British origins today!

No, I have to disagree with a previous reviewer who liked Esther, she's a right pain, like all Dickens' lily white children/women-on-a-pedestal.