Commentaires client les plus utiles
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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
5.0étoiles sur 5
Dickens at his greatest., Janv. 3 2006
Nothing in Dickens prepares us for the greatness of Bleak House, asserts Norrie Epstein in the superb Penguin book, The Friendly Dickens. I couldn't agree with Epstein more. That writer even goes on, amazingly, to describe this novel as "the jewel in the crown of 19th century English literature." Wow! I guess that's liking something!My own opinion is that, if Dickens had never written anything else, he would still have deserved his final resting place beneath the floor of Westminster Abbey. I returned to Dickens at a stage in my life when I have time now to do so, having read nothing by him since the three required novels of my high-school days. It's an understatement to say that I enjoyed it hugely. Bleak House, while not a very well-known Dickens novel, is frequently described as his greatest. Now in his early 40s, he seems to me to have reached the height of his creative genius, the peak of his writing and imaginative power. Time and again throughout Bleak House, I found myself stopping, backing up, and re-reading a sentence or a paragraph, and reveling in delight at the almost miraculous language, the imagery and the command and the brilliance of a first-class craftsman. In a book of almost 1000 pages, we meet a large number of characters, from the pathetic to the unbearable, to the elevated and the admirable. As elsewhere, Dickens has characters' names do much of his work for him--names such as Lady Dedlock, Mr Smallweed and Mr Krook are a treat. The Penguin Classics version I bought from Amazon is clean and readable, with notes at the back for difficult or unusual references. This edition includes the original 1852/53 sketches as illustrations throughout the text, and we are even shown where Dickens started and ended the installments to be mailed to those lucky subscribers each month. Pages of Dickens's working and planning notes are thrown in at the back for good measure. So read it and enjoy it; the 19th Century novel doesn't come any better than this--rank heresy, I know, from someone who grew up only two miles from Haworth Parsonage. As expected from Dickens, we are treated to a social and economic history lesson as part of the ride--again a treat for someone who specialized in economic history at the London School of Economics--in a novel apparently set in the late 1830s, and mostly in London (but only mostly). (If the book isn't enough for you, a DVD version of the Bleak House serial that has just run on BBC television in the UK will be available after Feb28/06 at an attractive Amazon price, and can be pre-ordered already--I know it because I've done it.)
Ken Greenwood
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2 internautes sur 3 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
4.0étoiles sur 5
Be warned, you have to pay attention, Déc 22 2003
I loved this book, for the following reasons. First, in Dicken's usual fashion, he makes his characters memorable. There is no character that Dickens does not take the time to make an intricate work of art. The criticism that these characters are "stock" seems ridiculous to me, since very few authors could create "stock" characters as memorable and lively as what Dickens does.
Secondly, this book has an amazingly intricate plot that Dickens somehow manages to keep under control. In some of Dickens' novels he loses control of the narrative and has to introduce last-minute characters and wildly hilarious coincidences in order to resolve the plot. Not the case here. Dickens does not have to resort to any desperate last-minute tricks to tie his plot strands together. However, there is so many plot strands to track, that if you read this book lazily, you will surely be lost already in the first 200 pages. So pay attention!
Thirdly, Dickens' satire of the court of Chancery and human foibles in general remains timeless, as it is in most of his novels I have read. Even though this novel is firmly set in the 19th century, I found myself recognizing today's situations in it. Not so much has changed, after all.
So why only four stars? Ultimately, I think Dickens could have served his purpose better with a less complex novel. Some of the stories which are told serve only as filler, and are a little tiring to work through. Also, sometimes Dickens' characters' behaviour is a little unbelievable, thinking especially of some characters' insane affection for one another.
However, I highly recommend this book. Dickens' style takes some getting used to, but it's well worth the effort.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
Brilliant!, Fév 25 2008
How to describe the story? I leave to better reviewers than I. A long and complicated tale about a dispute over a will and a family inheritance that destroys most of the litigants, either to madness or death, leaving it all to the bloodsucking attorneys.
There are many many unusual characters in the book and you have to pay close attention (or better yet, keep notes), as in the end the author brings everything full circle and not a character is wasted, and ends up playing a part in the tale. It's just amazing how Dickens slowly tells his story, like peeling an onion. Layer after layer is slowly revealed one after another until it all pulls together in the end. I haven't seen another author do this quite as good since reading Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged version of course).
Definitely one not to be missed, and I would hope it's required reading at law school, but I seriously doubt that.
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