The dense fog is densest…near that leaden-headed old obstruction …the High Court of Chancery.”
Written
in 1853, when Dickens was at his peak, Bleak House is often considered Dickens’s best novel. Set in the 1850s, the novel tells several interconnected stories involving dozens of characters from all levels of society, giving a broad picture of life in London and in the countryside during this period. As is often the case with Dickens, his satire and humor enliven his sometimes dark subjects, without blunting his criticism of bureaucracy and the mistreatment of children. The novel is huge, not just in terms of length but in its universal themes, its characterizations, and the magnitude of its reach.
Esther Summerson, the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon, an early lover, is raised in secrecy by a resentful aunt. After the aunt’s death, Esther joins the household of the kindly Mr. Jarndyce, who is also mentoring Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, Ada’s cousin. Richard, Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce have been involved for years in a lawsuit, Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, about the terms of an old will, and this lawsuit, which has continued interminably in the High Court of Chancery, is the inspiration for the satire Dickens directs toward British bureaucracy and the paperwork which paralyzes it.
As the lives of Esther, Lady Dedlock, Ada, Richard, and Mr. Jarndyce unfold, the reader also learns about the lives of those who come into peripheral contact with them. Capt. Hawdon (Nemo), for example, is found dead by a sad, little street waif named Jo, whose miserable life offers little chance of improvement. An unprincipled lawyer is murdered, adding mystery to the novel. Dickens emphasizes the way characters actually behave, paying scant attention to their inner thoughts, but he individualizes them and brings them vibrantly to life through their actions (though some, such as Esther and Mr. Jarndyce, sometimes appear too saintly).
Humor perm
eates the novel, with some characters, particularly those involved in law, serving as caricatures. The touching romance of Esther and Allan Woodcourt, a physician, echoes throughout the novel, despite his long absences and her bout with smallpox, and contrasts with Lady Dedlock’s sad remembrances of her own past. Symbols, such as the ever-present London fog, emphasize the theme of isolation.
Throughout this doorstop-sized novel, Dickens’s treatment of the characters and his ability to bring the period to life create lively reading. His empathy with the underdog and his depiction of the inequities of the society combine with mystery, romance, and Esther’s coming-of-age to make this a vital novel, full of life, conveying a dramatic picture of mid-19th century British life and the lessons to be learned from it.
Notes: More than one film adaptation of this novel is available, including one starring Diana Rigg (shown here).
Also reviewed here are three other Dickens novels: HARD TIMES, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, and NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. See Authors tab at top of the Home page, if interested.
s concerned with issues of class, social injustice, and employment, Dickens shows in Hard Times, written in 1854, a broader concern with the philosophies and economic movements which underlie those issues. Three parallel story lines reflect a broad cross-section of society and its thinking. Mr. Thomas Gradgrind runs a school founded upon the principles of rationalism, a belief in the importance of facts, the antithesis of romantic “fancy” and imagination. Basically a good man, he denies the importance of emotion–for himself, his children, and his students. Only Student #20, Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus clown, fails to conform to his notions, and in a hilarious, satiric scene at the beginning of the novel, Dickens shows the absurdity of Gradgrind’s teachings.
ich involves the pursuit of an innocent character widely believed to have committed a robbery, draws all the themes together, showing the parallels, contrasts, and ironies which connect these characters, regardless of their social level. Less epic in plot than some of Dickens’s other novels, Hard Times provides an intimate look at a changing economy and an important commentary on the philosophies of the times.
rham, a cathedral town, Dickens’s final novel, unfinished, introduces two elements unusual for Dickens–opium-eating and the church. In the opening scene, John Jasper, music teacher and soloist in the cathedral choir, awakens from an opium trance in a flat with two other semi-conscious men and their supplier, an old woman named Puffer, and then hurries off to daily vespers.
dsome young man who finds himself the sole support of his mother and sister after his father’s death, Nicholas Nickleby is hopeful that his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a weathy speculator in London, will assist the unfortunate family in its hour of need. Ralph’s cruel response, however, is to make Nicholas the assistant headmaster at a notoriously abusive school in northern England and to make his beautiful sister a seamstress and part-time hostess at his own parties. There she is subjected to innuendo and to the drunken intentions of men whose accounts help keep Ralph a wealthy man.
Despite its great length, the novel is a fast read–and fun–but it is soap opera-like in its ups and downs, and the main characters are not fully developed. One knows little about Nicholas except what one “sees”–that he has a kind heart and acts on it–but we know little about his inner life. (David Copperfield and Pip in Great Expectations are still ten and twenty years away.) Sentimental and occasionally bathetic, the novel involves the reader in the social abuses, some of which were improved as a direct result of this book’s publication.
Fans of the Sherlock Holmes series may be as surprised as I was by the complete change of style that this novel represents for its author. Gone are the formulaic and formal language, the stilted dialogue, and the gamesmanship between author and reader that characterize the Holmes novels, however delightful and successful those may be as mysteries. Instead, we see Doyle letting his imagination run free in a sci-fi romp that is both fun and funny, and often thoughtful. Written in 1912, during an eight-year hiatus from his Sherlock Holmes novels, and six years after his last “historical novel,” The Lost World is the first of five works involving temperamental Professor Edward Challenger, a scientist investigating evolution and related subjects.
