skygiants

omfg, I love Bleak House WITHOUT SHAME. The last full-time job I had was as a technical illustrator and while I worked I listened to a recording of the entire thing which was 44 hours I think. I learned several years ago that Dickens makes for the best audiobooks, which is why I forgive him everything except Tattycoram. I especially recommend Frank Muller's A Tale of Two Cities (he really goes the extra mile in making Sydney Carton sound, like, too anguishedly beautiful and dissipated for this world) and Mil Nicholson's reading of Our Mutual Friend (this is free!).

oh gosh oh gosh the super-serious 'there is too such a thing as spontaneous human combustion' foreword. I laughed so hard that I had to replay it. I TOOK PAINS TO INVESTIGATE THE SUBJECT! OK, dude.

There are actually cases like Jarndyce and Jarndyce in the real world, which I know because, uh, my mother was an heiress in one. She did not die of heartbroken consumption when it used itself up though so it only made my childhood like 8% more bizarre and picturesque, as opposed to the 100% Flite Standard.

I actually love the number of characters, and how they are all so near each other but DON'T KNOW, it is maybe my favorite literary device in the world. Have you read Sarah Waters' Night Watch? It does this also, more tightly and mysteriously.

I also love Bleak House because Dickens does a completely uncharacteristic and excellent thing in subverting the 'your husband should be like your father'/'you should be like a little wife to your actual father' thing that he is so fond of in Little Dorrit, where the father in question quietly comes to his senses and releases the young girl to marry a young man.

Also, I would read ten books of the adventures of Mrs. Bagnold and Mrs. Bucket, crime-fighting partners and best friends. Washing greens, wearing disguises, whacking people with the indomitable umbrella!