Bleak House

[meg-reads]

Bleak House is Esther Summerson’s story. Keep that in mind while you’re reading (it sounds obvious, but seriously).
Bleak House has two narrators: Esther Summerson (protagonist) and a third person omniscient narrator (this is where things get crazy). This omniscient narrator knows a whole lot of people. A whole, whole lot. So, if you aren’t great with names, you may want to take notes.
All of the characters in this text are miraculously connected to each other in one way or another. What you need to keep in mind, again, is that this is all about Esther.
Dickens is seriously a mastermind when it comes to characters and plots and keeping it all straight while also managing to send across some DEEP messages about social issues (I won’t mention what these issues are because it can lead to some serious spoiler alerts).
Esther is the ideal Victorian woman. She is modest, beautiful, nurturing, and a hell of a housekeeper… not to mention, she puts absolutely everyone before herself. This can lead to some seriously weird situations. Esther always seems to be in the centre. She is the centre of Bleak House the novel and of Bleak House the house. She is the centre of everyone’s romantic relationships and is often playing the middle-man/messenger. I can’t decide entirely how I feel about Esther as a character. She is so sweet, and secretly selfish (Yes, she is actually human! (But only on the inside)). However, her sweetness just goes on overload sometimes and you have to wonder if it’s all a bit of a show.
Anyways, I’m going to give you a bit of a tip (all of you who are brave enough to pick up this brick… I mean book...Kidding! It’s just really big). Bleak House is all about finding out where Esther came from. It’s a mystery novel, and apparently one of the first English mystery novels (according to my prof). I think the problem was I read it way too quickly because it was for a class and totally missed the point until it was blatantly obvious that we were dealing with a mystery. So, my tip is: Do not glance over any small or seemingly insignificant details!
What I can and will say, is that Bleak House is so so so long and sometimes you just want to put it down and never read anything again, but trust me… it is so worth the read! Not only is it a sense of accomplishment to read such a heavy novel and one that is so well known, but the ending just makes it all worth it. Everything ties together so well, and you just feel kind of nice. Yes, there were some things in the end that were like, “Ummm kind of creepy, but alright….” or “Borderline inappropriate, but I see what you’re trying to say here, Dickens” (again, social issues). But over-all, what a great novel! I honestly cannot wait to RE-read it.
For you brave book-loving souls out there, read this!

[gali]

Duplicated topic