Bleak House - Charles Dickens

I read Bleak House from the end of November to the middle of December, and it was the longest book I had ever read. Over the past year and a half I had read a few of Dickens' shorter novels. Twice in the past year I had gotten halfway through a longer novel and given up for one reason or another - this happened with both Dombey and Son and David Copperfield. I had been enjoying both of them, but was probably reading too sporadically or something, and felt as if it would take forever to get through them.

When I started Bleak House, I wondered if I was being foolish - finish what you've already started! Don't add another long Dickens novel to your list of half-finished reads! Maybe I'm starting to grow up, or am just becoming a better reader, but this time I read steadily through it over three or four weeks, and by the end found myself hooked completely, reading the final two hundred pages in two days.

I learned a little something about reading longer novels as I read Bleak House. Novel reading must be done with trust - trust in the story, in the development of characters, and in the author's plan for unfolding the whole thing. The introduction of new characters several hundred pages in could be frustrating for a reader, but if you trust that the author knows what he or she is doing, and how everything fits together, it's easier to find your way into the novel. That trust may be misplaced when reading some authors, but without that trust the great ones could all become those abandoned books still sitting on the shelf years after beginning.

Bleak House itself is full of wonderful people, from the three Jarndyce wards to the almost impossibly good John Jarndyce, from the admirable Sergeant George to the laughable but lovable Mr. Guppy. As I read Guppy's last appearance in the novel, I laughed and laughed out loud, unable to remember that with a sleeping baby upstairs it might be in my best interests to keep quiet! And all that is not even to mention the fascinating Lady Dedlock.

Among many perceptive and wise moments in the novel, my favorite passage came late in the book when Esther and Ada discuss Richard's steady decline. As his hopes turn into an obsession, Esther comments: "There is a ruin of youth which is not like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty had all fallen away." How many people have I known whose faces show the wear of years their bodies have not yet lived through?

All 989 pages of Bleak House were worth the time it took, and I feel like I'm now able to read longer books without fear.

In December, Dee and I watched the BBC miniseries of the novel, starring Gillian Anderson, and although it (even at 8 hours) has to trim events and characters from the story, it's really great too.