Penguin Classics Bleak House [Mass Market Paperback]

While I cannot deny that "Bleak House" is a work of genius, my review (presumptuous as it is for me to review Dickens at all) is that of a modern reader with different expectations than those who read his work 150 years ago. While I can appreciate his genius and talent, I don't have to find CONSTANT enjoyment in reading his works, which I do not.

When I was young, my father would entertain me by asking me to write down a number between 1 and 9. From my awkward 6-year-old scribbling he would cleverly draw a face, a different face every time. This amazed and entertained me. Similarly, I think you could give Dickens a few human characteristics, (say something like "a tall thin man who wears glasses and has a big nose. He smokes a pipe and stays up late reading hunting magazines") and from this skeleton he could create a detailed and interesting character, complete with verbal idiosyncracies, facial tics and unique mannerisms, an appropriate home and friends, and a complete biography. And he could do it in an instant. But like my father's caricatures, Dickens' characters are mere cartoons next to portraits of everyday reality. You don't expect to ever meet anyone like Mrs. Jellyby, Mr. Skimpole or Mr. Bucket. But you remember them nevertheless. Still, they are nothing like real people. Esther Summerson should be in heaven at this moment, because she has never so much as lost her temper. Ditto for John Jarndyce, Ada and Allen Woodcourt. They're saints. Meanwhile, Grandfather Smallweed should be in hell, because he has never had anything but selfish motives for so little as waking up in the morning.

But while you won't find too much reality or moral ambiguity in Dickens' works, that doesn't make his work less enjoyable. He creates so many characters that you're bound to like some while you hate others or are simply bored by a few. But somehow, in the vast gallery he creates, they are all different from one another, and instantly recognizable.

Some of my favorites in Bleak House are Mr. Turveydrop, Gridley, Mrs. Pardiggle, Boythorn, Mr. Skimpole and especially Reverand Chadband. To me, at least, the pompous preacher is a laugh riot. But the minor characters hardly serve a purpose at all. Charley, Jo, the Snagsbys, don't have to be part of the story, they're just there because Dickens likes to introduce us to people. He's very good at it. Unfortunately, I don't feel the same enjoyment when reading about the major characters. While I'm interested in what happens to Richard and Ada, Esther Summerson and Allen Woodcourt, the Jarndyces and the Dedlocks, they're just not as fun to read about as some of the minor characters. But reading a Dickens novel has been compared to attending a large dinner party and being introduced to a few dozen guests. You're bound to meet people you like and people you don't like. And we all choose uniquely.

But to my modern and cynical sensibilities, Dickens is first of all way too melodramatic. Understandable, I think, because that which shocked Victorian-era Londoners hardly raises an eyebrow among today's urban-dwelling Americans. Illigitemacy? Please, it's everywhere. Poverty? Suicide? Shocking? Hardly. There is also too much coincidence in his plots for my tastes, not to mention over-the-top pathos. The death of Jo, the crossing sweeper, for instance, leaves me cold. I feel absolutely nothing because it is so overdone. Ditto for Krook's death. I read it and yawned. Dickens' characters are seldom gray or morally ambiguous. And they behave predictably as a result.

But all those criticisms aside, I still managed to enjoy "Bleak House" a great deal. I just feel like he could have been less verbose. He didn't need 50 or so characters and nearly 900 pages to tell this story. He introduces characters who speak a few lines then disappear forever. And though he does it well, he describes things endlessly. The brilliant opening, for instance, could be reduced (in ideas at least) to "It's a foggy and muddy November in London, and the weather reflects the ongoings within the Court of Chancery." But of course, that hardly contains any interest at all. The beginning, by the way, truly is magnificent writing, but to what end? It's just too much FOR MY TASTES.

Read it, by all means, read it. You'll even enjoy huge portions of it. But don't expect never to be bored or confused by the lengthy convoluted sentences and SAT vocabulary where one-syllable words will do. Dickens is a genius, no doubt about it. And people will be reading his books 1,000 years from now. But how many of us read Shakespeare for pure enjoyment? Similarly, 1,000 years from now, Dickens will be an academic chore, not enjoyment. Luckily, that's still a ways off and you can still enjoy his works today without worrying about 1,000 years from now.