A review by david_rhee
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
5.0
#Top5AllTime From what I could gather before reading Bleak House, I guessed that it would be Dickens' best even though his personal favorite was Great Expectations. Experiencing this novel gives the reader the feel of being a connoisseur at long last discovering the best of the best after years of searching. It is phenomenal and paralyzing. Bleak House is easily one of the greatest books I have ever read.
It is pure delight to behold the landscape sprawling with its vast complexity teeming with the actions and intrigues of a loaded cast. In the north, the Industrial Revolution twists and writhes in its birth and growth pains as it amasses its great wealth and power all the while grinding workers' souls and spreading dust and soot wherever it roams. The new vigor excites the new generations but the ancient ghost of "less straw, more bricks" threatens to overtake them. Eyeing this movement with disdain likely pretended to conceal a fear perhaps more real than realized is the landed gentry centered in the Dedlocks' estate of Chesney Wold. Their cold calloused pride forbids them to believe that anyone could dare to oppose them or that their foundations could even weaken from within. Then there is the Chancery Court where the perpetual circles, with circles within circles, of the bureaucratic roundabout coil around its adherents choking their hopes a little drier each day. The dreary scene of the world is generously littered with the most repulsive and detestable representatives of humanity one could ever imagine, so much so that a primary motivation of the reader is to proceed far enough to finally see them get what they deserve.
Just when the reader wonders to himself, how much worse can this world get?, there emerges a spark, the heroine Esther Summerson, who is best described as simply the "light of the world." She reaches into this world and touches the lives of so many. Thus begins the rhythmical and ingenious interplay of the worldly narratives and Esther's narratives. There is at first evident the stark contrast but they spill into each other and Dickens' inventive mastery conducts their interweaving. While the machinery of the world continues to churn, Esther moves among its unfortunates and they gravitate to her because of her neverending desire to embrace which proves more admirable given her pitiful childhood.
Dickens, however, is as real as it gets. The world is still its old unforgiving self. The ending is a shock though familiar. Shocking because of its familiarity perhaps. This ending ripples into a conclusion of many faces encompassing the death of old, the birth of new, fading of stale ideology, resolve of revived hopes, and the steadfastness of love...which again, stays true to the realness of life's drama folded neatly into a novel crafted immaculately by the greatest author this old familiar world has ever known.
It is pure delight to behold the landscape sprawling with its vast complexity teeming with the actions and intrigues of a loaded cast. In the north, the Industrial Revolution twists and writhes in its birth and growth pains as it amasses its great wealth and power all the while grinding workers' souls and spreading dust and soot wherever it roams. The new vigor excites the new generations but the ancient ghost of "less straw, more bricks" threatens to overtake them. Eyeing this movement with disdain likely pretended to conceal a fear perhaps more real than realized is the landed gentry centered in the Dedlocks' estate of Chesney Wold. Their cold calloused pride forbids them to believe that anyone could dare to oppose them or that their foundations could even weaken from within. Then there is the Chancery Court where the perpetual circles, with circles within circles, of the bureaucratic roundabout coil around its adherents choking their hopes a little drier each day. The dreary scene of the world is generously littered with the most repulsive and detestable representatives of humanity one could ever imagine, so much so that a primary motivation of the reader is to proceed far enough to finally see them get what they deserve.
Just when the reader wonders to himself, how much worse can this world get?, there emerges a spark, the heroine Esther Summerson, who is best described as simply the "light of the world." She reaches into this world and touches the lives of so many. Thus begins the rhythmical and ingenious interplay of the worldly narratives and Esther's narratives. There is at first evident the stark contrast but they spill into each other and Dickens' inventive mastery conducts their interweaving. While the machinery of the world continues to churn, Esther moves among its unfortunates and they gravitate to her because of her neverending desire to embrace which proves more admirable given her pitiful childhood.
Dickens, however, is as real as it gets. The world is still its old unforgiving self. The ending is a shock though familiar. Shocking because of its familiarity perhaps. This ending ripples into a conclusion of many faces encompassing the death of old, the birth of new, fading of stale ideology, resolve of revived hopes, and the steadfastness of love...which again, stays true to the realness of life's drama folded neatly into a novel crafted immaculately by the greatest author this old familiar world has ever known.