Bleak House: An Authoritative and Annotated Text, Illustrations, a Note on the Text, Genesis and Composition, Backgrounds, Criticism (A Norton)

Rating:
Summary: Dickens Best and Hardest
Review: This is Dickens best novel, the satire is very funny and the Characters are all very interesting. He occasionaly falls into his normal trap of treating women as shallow air heads . Besides being the best novel of all-time it is also the hardest. I normally brezze through Dickens but it took me at least 4 tries to get through the first chapt. You should definintly not read this if you have never read Dickens before. <P>And anyone who doesn't cry when Jo dies does not have a soul

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent House.
Review: This is the second book by Dickens I have read so far, but it will not be the last. "Bleak House" is long, tightly plotted, wonderfully descriptive, and full of memorable characters. Dickens has written a vast story centered on the Jarndyce inheritance, and masterly manages the switches between third person omniscient narrator and first person limited narrator. His main character Esther never quite convinces me of her all-around goodness, but the novel is so well-written that I just took Esther as she was described and ran along with the story. In this book a poor boy (Jo) will be literally chased from places of refuge and thus provide Dickens with one of his most powerful ways to indict a system that was particularly cruel to children. Mr. Skimpole, pretending not to be interested in money; Mr. Jarndyce, generous and good; Richard, stupid and blind; the memorable Dedlocks, and My Lady Dedlock's secret being uncovered by the sinister Mr. Tulkinghorn; Mrs. Jellyby and her telescopic philanthropy; the Ironmaster described in Chapter 28, presenting quite a different view of industralization than that shown by Dickens in his next work, "Hard Times." Here is a veritable cosmos of people, neighbors, friends, enemies, lovers, rivals, sinners, and saints, and Dickens proves himself a true master at describing their lives and the environment they dwell in. There are landmark chapters: Chapter One must be the best description of a dismal city under attack by dismal weather and tightly tied by perfectly dismal laws, where the Lord Chancellor sits eternally in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Chapter 32 has one of the eeriest scenes ever written, with suspicious smoke, greasy and reeking, as a prelude to a grisly discovery. Chapter 47 is when Jo cannot "move along" anymore. This Norton Critical is perhaps the best edition of "Bleak House" so far: the footnotes help a lot, and the two Introductions are key to understanding the Law system at the time the action takes place, plus Dickens' interest in this particular topic. To round everything off, read also the criticism of our contemporaries, as well as that of Dickens' time. "Bleak House" is a long, complex novel that opens a window for us to another world. It is never boring and, appearances to the contrary, is not bleak. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent House.
Review: This is the second book by Dickens I have read so far, but it will not be the last. "Bleak House" is long, tightly plotted, wonderfully descriptive, and full of memorable characters. Dickens has written a vast story centered on the Jarndyce inheritance, and masterly manages the switches between third person omniscient narrator and first person limited narrator. His main character Esther never quite convinces me of her all-around goodness, but the novel is so well-written that I just took Esther as she was described and ran along with the story. In this book a poor boy (Jo) will be literally chased from places of refuge and thus provide Dickens with one of his most powerful ways to indict a system that was particularly cruel to children. Mr. Skimpole, pretending not to be interested in money; Mr. Jarndyce, generous and good; Richard, stupid and blind; the memorable Dedlocks, and My Lady Dedlock's secret being uncovered by the sinister Mr. Tulkinghorn; Mrs. Jellyby and her telescopic philanthropy; the Ironmaster described in Chapter 28, presenting quite a different view of industralization than that shown by Dickens in his next work, "Hard Times." Here is a veritable cosmos of people, neighbors, friends, enemies, lovers, rivals, sinners, and saints, and Dickens proves himself a true master at describing their lives and the environment they dwell in. There are landmark chapters: Chapter One must be the best description of a dismal city under attack by dismal weather and tightly tied by perfectly dismal laws, where the Lord Chancellor sits eternally in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Chapter 32 has one of the eeriest scenes ever written, with suspicious smoke, greasy and reeking, as a prelude to a grisly discovery. Chapter 47 is when Jo cannot "move along" anymore. This Norton Critical is perhaps the best edition of "Bleak House" so far: the footnotes help a lot, and the two Introductions are key to understanding the Law system at the time the action takes place, plus Dickens' interest in this particular topic. To round everything off, read also the criticism of our contemporaries, as well as that of Dickens' time. "Bleak House" is a long, complex novel that opens a window for us to another world. It is never boring and, appearances to the contrary, is not bleak. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Satire of the Victorian Age
Review: This novel explores the Victorian age in England through intricately woven plots, and hundreds of perfectly formed characters. Dickens explores the faults of the Court of Chancery as seen by 2 different narratives. No one can duplicate the ability of Dickens to weave the plots and characters as shown in "Bleak house" It is an ideal book for studying literature or history

Rating:
Summary: Probably the greatest English novel
Review: To my mind, this is the greatest novel in the English language, but that is a matter of personal taste. I won't bother summarizing the book or discussing the characters; you can find plenty of that elsewhere. Like many, if not most, great novels, this book needs to be read again and again, admittedly a daunting task for such a massive tome. I have a word of caution for those reading the Penguin edition: Be very careful of the editor's footnotes. They give away crucial plot elements! To my mind this is unforgivable! Suffice it to say that a murder occurs fairly late in the book, and this gives rise to a fascinating detective story subplot. But the footnotes not only tell you who was murdered but who the murderer was, some 600 or more pages before they occur! Since I had never read the book before, this came close to spoiling the book for me. I have written a letter to Penguin complaining about this, but so far I have received no response. The Penguin footnotes are helpful in explaining what some obscure or out of date phrases may mean, and in telling what real life figures some of the characters are based on, but dare to look at them only if you don't care if some of the surprise elements are spoiled. Otherwise a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the greatest English novel
Review: To my mind, this is the greatest novel in the English language, but that is a matter of personal taste. I won't bother summarizing the book or discussing the characters; you can find plenty of that elsewhere. Like many, if not most, great novels, this book needs to be read again and again, admittedly a daunting task for such a massive tome. I have a word of caution for those reading the Penguin edition: Be very careful of the editor's footnotes. They give away crucial plot elements! To my mind this is unforgivable! Suffice it to say that a murder occurs fairly late in the book, and this gives rise to a fascinating detective story subplot. But the footnotes not only tell you who was murdered but who the murderer was, some 600 or more pages before they occur! Since I had never read the book before, this came close to spoiling the book for me. I have written a letter to Penguin complaining about this, but so far I have received no response. The Penguin footnotes are helpful in explaining what some obscure or out of date phrases may mean, and in telling what real life figures some of the characters are based on, but dare to look at them only if you don't care if some of the surprise elements are spoiled. Otherwise a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Umm, I thought the book was too short! I fell in love with the book within the first ten words, and like all love affairs, this one ended too quickly. For those who thought Bleak House was dull, boring, lengthy, and wordy, may I suggest a television reality show?

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Umm, I thought the book was too short! I fell in love with the book within the first ten words, and like all love affairs, this one ended too quickly. For those who thought Bleak House was dull, boring, lengthy, and wordy, may I suggest a television reality show?

Rating:
Summary: A Bleak World
Review: We all know the criticisms of Dickens and why he wasn't taken seriously as a major writer until very recently: That he is sentimental, that his characters are two-dimensional, that he toadies to common and vulgar sentiment, that he is unrealistic. These criticisms, I submit to you, are true to one degree or another (usually to a very large degree), and all these elements abound in Bleak House. And yet, it IS a great work. The reason, say 50 years ago, that to mention Dickens was to invoke laughter among highbrow company is that, at the time, Joyce and Eliot and Pound and interior monologue and "New Criticism," whose creators, for criticism is creation too, such as E.B. White and Cleanth Brooks, condemned their school of thought by bestowing upon it a name that makes it look silly 50 years later, were in the ascendant and Dickens, frankly, was considered a vulgarian who wrote shameful potboilers for the Victorian masses....Again, he did. Those workhouse scenes from Oliver Twist were taken from his own life, and he wrote, especially early on, to eat. So, why is Bleak House a great work given that all the criticisms of it are pretty much on the spot?....Because, the criticisms miss the point of such a work entirely, and, of course, becuause once pedants and academics latch on to a notion of what makes a literary work good or bad, they stick with it, wrong though they may know it to be. Otherwise, their careers spontaneously combust, just as the corporeal presence of a certain character in Bleak House does....What DOES make Bleak House great is hard to put one's finger on. To begin with, it is not, emphatically, the legal satire that several readers have pointed out as being the essential point of the work. Although the legal satire is obviously a major theme of the work, it is not what makes it a great work of art-Everybody knows that lawyers are rats.-Rather, it is the view of the world embodied in London and its environs (picked up on by a few of the more keen reviewers) that makes the novel unique and one for the ages. There are several passages I could quote to illustrate this subtle genius of Dickens at presenting a unique worldview of the space and time that the characters find themselves in. The best, I think, is Esther's accout of the final walk to the burial ground: "I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that it was neither night nor day; that morning was dawning, but the street-lamps were not yet put out; that the sleet was still falling, and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. At the same time I remember...that the stained house fronts put on human shapes and looked at me; that great water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head, or in the air; and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real." This is the true vision of the world they all live in. It is this powerful dark visionary imagery interspersed throughout the book that render it immortal. In Bleak House, Dickens gives us unique vistas into the haunted world his characters inhabit, and that we, in turn, inhabit. This is why it will endure. It touches the mystery of human existence.

Rating:
Summary: Maximum Complexity with Maximum Conciseness
Review: When I first picked up Bleak House, I was daunted by its size. As I read, I found each page was filled with "maximum complexity with maximum conciseness," housing a great deal of character and setting details and descriptions. However, the novel proved to be full of clever satire, which I later found out to be directed at the High Courts of Chancery and lawyers of England. The character descriptions in the book are fantastic, and the witty satire borderlines the same genius. Perhaps my favorite part of the book is the character of Mrs. Jellyby who is so concerned with foreign aid (what Dickens calls 'Telescopic Philanthropy' as a title of the fourth chapter) that she neglects her children. Her dirty and mistreated son Peepy gets his head stuck in bars in the stairs and then falls down them, only for Mrs. Jellyby to continue a conversation. Dickens' satirical look at many things in the book make it what I think is the best Dickens I have read so far in my life.