A well-written, brilliant story but it was very difficult to grasp during the reading of it due to the rich number of characters, more than fifty of them, and the forever twisting storyline.

The story opens with the famed description of a polluting fog, and deservedly so as too many areas of stays blurred until the end. From that stance, the story is a mystery and from another stance, it is a love story.

Esther Summerson is raised by her aunt who tells her that her mother had died. After her aunt, she becomes the ward of Mr. Jarndyce who sends her to school in Redding, where Esther becomes a competent young lady. Mr. Jarndyce also has two other wards, Ada and Richard. Esther, Ada, and Richard are sent to Bleak House at St. Albans for work. To talk more about the plot would be dampening the curiosity of other readers, but there are important points in it that I shouldn’t leave unmentioned.

The author lampoons the English legal system with a court case that has kept on going for decades in the Chancery but the reason for the case is so murky that everyone involved in it is in a fog of what it is about. Mr. Jarndyce himself abhors it and doesn’t talk about it.

The fascination and the obsession with the case finally does Richard in and ruins life for his wife and child.

Another important point is Esther’s real background and that her real mother was not dead but she was born out of wedlock and her aunt took over raising her. At the end, she’ll find out who she really is.

Esther is selfless, forgiving, and compassionate, too good a character. Her real mother is a lady married to an aristocrat, Sir Leicester Dedlock, who lives in her husband’s home in Lincolnshire.

The Dedlock’s attorney Tulkinghorn, who is crooked and always thinks of his own ends, finds out about her illegitimate child, and consequently, he is done away with by Lady Dedlock’s maid Hortense.

Yet another point is that entire twisted story takes place in or around London.

The story is told from two points of view: from the author’s omniscient POV, and from Esther’s first person POV. I liked both points of views so well meshed together because one without the other would make the story duller and even more complicated to understand.

By the same token, I am not sure this story would be as appreciated if only the main plot were to be told. It would be easier to grasp, yes, but it wouldn’t reach its present richness, in which are included several subplots, each varying in importance and relationship to the main storyline. I think this was due to the fact that this book was published as a twenty-episode serial during the year 1852.

I enjoyed Bleak House a lot, if only because of Dickens’s talent in storytelling and his satirical look at the events in the story, the institutions of his day, and his characters; although, I had to go back and read some parts of the book twice.

noticing the social commentary hidden in the story by Dickens/

was Charles Dickens,(1812 - 1870), an author, journalist, editor, illustrator and social commentator. His most famous books include Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities.

I am finding out I am a Dicken's fan. Difficult to read because of the cruelty to children inside it, but it is well worth it.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Bleak House   from Amazon.Com!

Created Aug 30, 2020 at 12:51pm • Submit your own review...