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Title: Bleak House
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 1047
Format: Digital Edition
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 1047
Format: Digital Edition
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Synopsis:
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Shamelessly Stolen from Wikipedia
Sir Leicester Dedlock and
his wife Honoria live on his estate at Chesney Wold. Unknown to Sir
Leicester, before she married, Lady Dedlock had a lover, Captain
Hawdon, and had a daughter by him. Lady Dedlock believes her daughter
is dead.
The daughter, Esther, is
in fact alive and being raised by Miss Barbary, Lady Dedlock's
sister. Esther does not know Miss Barbary is her aunt. After Miss
Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns the
Chancery lawyer "Conversation" Kenge to take charge of her
future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with
him at Bleak House.
Jarndyce simultaneously
assumes custody of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare
(who are both his and one another's distant cousins). They are
beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and
Jarndyce; their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the
two wills conflict. Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Mr
Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he stipulates that Richard must
first choose a profession. Richard first tries a career in medicine,
and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of
Richard's tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from
the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, John Jarndyce beseeches
him never to put faith in what he calls "the family curse".
Meanwhile, Lady Dedlock
is also a beneficiary under one of the wills. Early in the book,
while listening to the reading of an affidavit by the family
solicitor, Mr Tulkinghorn, she recognises the handwriting on the
copy. The sight affects her so much she almost faints, which
Tulkinghorn notices and investigates. He traces the copyist, a pauper
known only as "Nemo", in London. Nemo has recently died,
and the only person to identify him is a street-sweeper, a poor
homeless boy named Jo, who lives in a particularly grim and
poverty-stricken part of the city known as Tom-All-Alone's ("Nemo"
is Latin for "nobody").
Lady Dedlock is also
investigating, disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense. Lady
Dedlock pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Meanwhile, Tulkinghorn
is concerned Lady Dedlock's secret could threaten the interests of
Sir Leicester and watches her constantly, even enlisting her maid to
spy on her. He also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town,
to eliminate any loose ends that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks.
Esther sees Lady Dedlock
at church and talks with her later at Chesney Wold – though neither
woman recognises their connection. Later, Lady Dedlock does discover
that Esther is her child. However, Esther has become sick (possibly
with smallpox, since it severely disfigures her) after nursing
the homeless boy Jo. Lady Dedlock waits until Esther has recovered
before telling her the truth. Though Esther and Lady Dedlock are
happy to be reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther they must never
acknowledge their connection again.
Upon her recovery, Esther
finds that Richard, having failed at several professions, has
disobeyed his guardian and is trying to push Jarndyce and
Jarndyce to conclusion in his and Ada's favour. In the process,
Richard loses all his money and declines in health. He and Ada have
secretly married, and Ada is pregnant. Esther has her own romance
when Mr Woodcourt returns to England, having survived a shipwreck,
and continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement.
Unfortunately, Esther has already agreed to marry her guardian, John
Jarndyce.
Hortense and Tulkinghorn
discover the truth about Lady Dedlock's past. After a confrontation
with Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock flees her home, leaving a note
apologising for her conduct. Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense, who is
no longer of any use to him. Feeling abandoned and betrayed, Hortense
kills Tulkinghorn and seeks to frame Lady Dedlock for his murder. Sir
Leicester, discovering his lawyer's death and his wife's flight,
suffers a catastrophic stroke, but he manages to communicate that he
forgives his wife and wants her to return.
Inspector Bucket, who has
previously investigated several matters related to Jarndyce and
Jarndyce, accepts Sir Leicester's commission to find Lady Dedlock. At
first he suspects Lady Dedlock of the murder but is able to clear her
of suspicion after discovering Hortense's guilt, and he requests
Esther's help to find her. Lady Dedlock has no way to know of her
husband's forgiveness or that she has been cleared of suspicion, and
she wanders the country in cold weather before dying at the cemetery
of her former lover, Captain Hawdon (Nemo). Esther and Bucket find
her there.
Progress in Jarndyce
and Jarndyce seems to take a turn for the better when a later
will is found, which revokes all previous wills and leaves the bulk
of the estate to Richard and Ada. Meanwhile, John Jarndyce cancels
his engagement to Esther, who becomes engaged to Mr Woodcourt. They
go to Chancery to find Richard. On their arrival, they learn that the
case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is finally over, but the
costs of litigation have entirely consumed the estate. Richard
collapses, and Mr Woodcourt diagnoses him as being in the last stages
of tuberculosis. Richard apologises to John Jarndyce and dies.
John Jarndyce takes in Ada and her child, a boy whom she names
Richard. Esther and Woodcourt marry and live in a Yorkshire house
which Jarndyce gives to them. The couple later raise two daughters.
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My
Thoughts:
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First off, I started out trying to synopsize this myself and gave up
after 3 paragraphs. As you can see by the wiki synopsis, there is a
ton of stuff going on and I simply didn't feel like re-inventing the
wheel. I have this feeling I'll be doing more of that kind of thing
for big, complicated books from now on. Besides, beyond me, who
really reads those synopses anyway? And even I don't read them except
when I want to refresh my memory of what a book is about. I feel
ashamed though, deep inside. Like I'm a school boy cheating on his
test or something, hahahahahahaha! Yeah, ok, not really.
This was my 3rd time reading this and I have to say, it
does nothing but get better with each reading. There are a wide range
of characters, both in age and temperament that I suspect I'll be
able to enjoy at the various seasons of my life. From Richard and Ada
as young lovers, to Esther who is guided by duty and rewarded with
Love, to George the military man who just wants to do the right
thing, to Lady Deadlock who appears cold and haughty even while her
heart is breaking, to John Jarndyce, the Guardian and supporter of so
many. And that is just to name a few. Dickens brings these people
alive and makes them wonderful to read about. And the villains of the
story range from the cruel and grasping to the inept and almost
bumbling. I LIKED reading about them all.
This was a long book. Previously I've read it divided into 2 volumes
(as that is what I own) but the ebook I read was one single volume.
While it took me most of the month to work my way through this, I
didn't feel like I wished I was reading something else or that I was
wasting my time. Reading Dickens is never a waste of my time. I
realize that everyone isn't going to share my particular love of
Dickens but I sure wish everyone did. I tend to look at reading
Dickens as an investment in myself. I enjoy the story, I enjoy the
characters, I enjoy the themes (for the most part except when he gets
a bit preachy about some social issue which has no relevance today)
and I enjoy the writing style. Honestly, what more can I ask for from
an author?
I don't have any deep insights to offer and I'm not going to write a
bunch of bull to sound like some Literati, but if you've never tried
Dickens, for your own sake, please do. If he's not for you, he's not
for you, but if he is, my goodness, you're in for a world of wonder!
★★★★★
