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Feb. 15th, 2012 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo you know how sometimes in life, you just get an urge to reread a thousand-page brick by Dickens about how lawsuits are terrible?
. . . . maybe this is not exactly a universal impulse. Um.
Anyway: Bleak House. I don't know why I love Bleak House. It is the Dickens that most encapsulates EVERYTHING that people make fun of Dickens for. It's way too long, it's often super-preachy, it's really mean to lawyers and to activist women, it's got a a cast of so many people that every time that another character is introduced you just sort of moan "Dickens noooooooooooo!" and wave your hands faintly in the air in an excess of exhaustion.
And yet I do love Bleak House. Sometimes, life is just a mystery!
Maybe it's because Bleak House is basically a fantasy novel. It's all about how the Court of Chancery -- which dealt with, among other things, court cases involving equity and wills and trusts and guardianships and so on -- is a MALEVOLENT EVIL FORCE that sucks otherwise reasonable people into a black hole of DOOM and DESPAIR by its supernatural powers of . . . having lots of paperwork to go through. The whole book basically doesn't work unless you accept the premise that being named as a suitor in a Chancery court case is the Dickensian equivalent of having ever held the One Ring. Once you're involved, you can't ever get away! IT'S YOUR OWN. YOUR PRECIOUSSSSS.
Also there is a character who dies of spontaneous combustion, which is extra hilarious to me because Dickens was so defensive about it. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION IS REAL, GUYS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS SCIENTIFIC CASES HE COULD NAME shut uuuuuuuuup.
Anyway, there are like a million people who are involved in the court case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in some way or another, which has been going on for two or three decades and caused at least one suicide and two other cases of ambiguous orphan-ing before the book even begins, and the book is about how it makes a lot of other people miserable before it ends. There are two narrative voices. One of them is anonymous, distant, scathingly sarcastic, and very depressed, and is prone to talking about how the fog creeps through London like doomed souls etc. etc.
The other one is first-person narrator Esther Summerson, illegitimate child of mystery and ward of one of the Jarndyce suitors, who provides a hilarious contrast because she is the picture of sweet and self-sacrificing Victorian womanhood who is determined to believe that everything works out for the best!
Everyone in the book falls in love with Esther, because she is the Perfect Victorian Woman, but I like her anyway, for a few reasons: a.) I do find her convincing as an emotionally abused kid who really really wants to make people like her and is amazed whenever they do; b.) there is a part where a lawyer dude is basically stalking her and Charles Dickens gets across very well how uncomfortable and unhappy this is for a lady so kudos, Dickens, for that; and c.) she is a hilariously unreliable narrator. My favorite part is every time her love interest, Allan Woodcourt, ~Victorian Dreamboat~ shows up in a scene, because EVERY TIME her comment is a hastily added "oh yes I forgot to mention that guy Allan Woodcourt was there too I guess whatever."
In a way this is a shame, though, because I totally want to hear more about Allan Woodcourt, ~Victorian Dreamboat~! He is the best Dickens love interest ever. He is a doctor who is descended from Welsh Royalty and spends all his time wandering around being randomly helpful and heroic offscreen.
MISS FLITE: Hey, Esther, did you hear about our friend Allan Woodcourt? I hear he got shipwrecked!
ESTHER: WHAT.
MISS FLITE: No, it's fine, he single-handedly saved like thirty lives with his mad doctoring skills and I hear they're giving him a medal or something.
BECCA: . . . why are we not seeing that story?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Hello, incidental character! I have never met you before, but I can dedice from your clothes and your general air that you are a married to a bricklayer and you have a tragic dead baby in your past, and also a concussion.
BECCA: . . . . Allan Woodcourt, are you secretly Sherlock Holmes?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Now I'm going to make sure you get proper medical care and have enough money to get home. Are you going to be okay?
BECCA: . . . a version of Sherlock Holmes who is magically not a jerk?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Esther! I see you are out in the cold in distress on mysterious and potentially sinister business!
ESTHER: Yes, that does seem to be the case.
ALLAN WOODCOURT: I would like to accompany you and help you if you want, but if it would be inconvenient or unhelpful to have me go along, just say the word and I will go about my way.
BECCA: . . . wow, Mr. Woodcourt, you are a legitimate Victorian dreamboat!
The other best character in the book who gets no screentime is Mrs. Bucket. Mrs. Bucket is married to the book's one actual detective, Mr. Bucket, who pops up mostly in the last two hundred pages or so to deduce things and fight crime. It turns out that in the end the crime-fighting was only possible because his partner-in-crime, budding lady detective MRS. BUCKET, sneakily worked her way into the criminal's confidence and gathered all the evidence and then stopped the criminal from running away! And yet, in a book with literally hundreds of characters with screentime, we NEVER MEET MRS. BUCKET. I call that injustice.
Anyway, I could talk about Bleak House for probably another ten entries, because it's a thousand pages long and a million things happen in it, but I'm going to stop myself here. Instead, I'm going to rec a Yuletide story from a few years back, and now good morrow to our waking souls, which is fic about one of the other characters I didn't even get to talk about in this review, ICE-COLD AWESOME LADY DEDLOCK, who has a ~secret scandal~ in her past. The fic is about the backstory of the ~secret scandal~ and is really good even if you've never read Bleak House, although if you have read Bleak House it instantly becomes ten times as depressing.
. . . . maybe this is not exactly a universal impulse. Um.
Anyway: Bleak House. I don't know why I love Bleak House. It is the Dickens that most encapsulates EVERYTHING that people make fun of Dickens for. It's way too long, it's often super-preachy, it's really mean to lawyers and to activist women, it's got a a cast of so many people that every time that another character is introduced you just sort of moan "Dickens noooooooooooo!" and wave your hands faintly in the air in an excess of exhaustion.
And yet I do love Bleak House. Sometimes, life is just a mystery!
Maybe it's because Bleak House is basically a fantasy novel. It's all about how the Court of Chancery -- which dealt with, among other things, court cases involving equity and wills and trusts and guardianships and so on -- is a MALEVOLENT EVIL FORCE that sucks otherwise reasonable people into a black hole of DOOM and DESPAIR by its supernatural powers of . . . having lots of paperwork to go through. The whole book basically doesn't work unless you accept the premise that being named as a suitor in a Chancery court case is the Dickensian equivalent of having ever held the One Ring. Once you're involved, you can't ever get away! IT'S YOUR OWN. YOUR PRECIOUSSSSS.
Also there is a character who dies of spontaneous combustion, which is extra hilarious to me because Dickens was so defensive about it. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION IS REAL, GUYS. THERE ARE NUMEROUS SCIENTIFIC CASES HE COULD NAME shut uuuuuuuuup.
Anyway, there are like a million people who are involved in the court case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in some way or another, which has been going on for two or three decades and caused at least one suicide and two other cases of ambiguous orphan-ing before the book even begins, and the book is about how it makes a lot of other people miserable before it ends. There are two narrative voices. One of them is anonymous, distant, scathingly sarcastic, and very depressed, and is prone to talking about how the fog creeps through London like doomed souls etc. etc.
The other one is first-person narrator Esther Summerson, illegitimate child of mystery and ward of one of the Jarndyce suitors, who provides a hilarious contrast because she is the picture of sweet and self-sacrificing Victorian womanhood who is determined to believe that everything works out for the best!
Everyone in the book falls in love with Esther, because she is the Perfect Victorian Woman, but I like her anyway, for a few reasons: a.) I do find her convincing as an emotionally abused kid who really really wants to make people like her and is amazed whenever they do; b.) there is a part where a lawyer dude is basically stalking her and Charles Dickens gets across very well how uncomfortable and unhappy this is for a lady so kudos, Dickens, for that; and c.) she is a hilariously unreliable narrator. My favorite part is every time her love interest, Allan Woodcourt, ~Victorian Dreamboat~ shows up in a scene, because EVERY TIME her comment is a hastily added "oh yes I forgot to mention that guy Allan Woodcourt was there too I guess whatever."
In a way this is a shame, though, because I totally want to hear more about Allan Woodcourt, ~Victorian Dreamboat~! He is the best Dickens love interest ever. He is a doctor who is descended from Welsh Royalty and spends all his time wandering around being randomly helpful and heroic offscreen.
MISS FLITE: Hey, Esther, did you hear about our friend Allan Woodcourt? I hear he got shipwrecked!
ESTHER: WHAT.
MISS FLITE: No, it's fine, he single-handedly saved like thirty lives with his mad doctoring skills and I hear they're giving him a medal or something.
BECCA: . . . why are we not seeing that story?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Hello, incidental character! I have never met you before, but I can dedice from your clothes and your general air that you are a married to a bricklayer and you have a tragic dead baby in your past, and also a concussion.
BECCA: . . . . Allan Woodcourt, are you secretly Sherlock Holmes?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Now I'm going to make sure you get proper medical care and have enough money to get home. Are you going to be okay?
BECCA: . . . a version of Sherlock Holmes who is magically not a jerk?
ALLAN WOODCOURT: Esther! I see you are out in the cold in distress on mysterious and potentially sinister business!
ESTHER: Yes, that does seem to be the case.
ALLAN WOODCOURT: I would like to accompany you and help you if you want, but if it would be inconvenient or unhelpful to have me go along, just say the word and I will go about my way.
BECCA: . . . wow, Mr. Woodcourt, you are a legitimate Victorian dreamboat!
The other best character in the book who gets no screentime is Mrs. Bucket. Mrs. Bucket is married to the book's one actual detective, Mr. Bucket, who pops up mostly in the last two hundred pages or so to deduce things and fight crime. It turns out that in the end the crime-fighting was only possible because his partner-in-crime, budding lady detective MRS. BUCKET, sneakily worked her way into the criminal's confidence and gathered all the evidence and then stopped the criminal from running away! And yet, in a book with literally hundreds of characters with screentime, we NEVER MEET MRS. BUCKET. I call that injustice.
Anyway, I could talk about Bleak House for probably another ten entries, because it's a thousand pages long and a million things happen in it, but I'm going to stop myself here. Instead, I'm going to rec a Yuletide story from a few years back, and now good morrow to our waking souls, which is fic about one of the other characters I didn't even get to talk about in this review, ICE-COLD AWESOME LADY DEDLOCK, who has a ~secret scandal~ in her past. The fic is about the backstory of the ~secret scandal~ and is really good even if you've never read Bleak House, although if you have read Bleak House it instantly becomes ten times as depressing.
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Date: 2012-02-15 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 05:46 am (UTC)