To date, I am 400 pages into Dickens' Bleak House. Make that 408 pages in.
For the first 100 pages or so there was a litany of new characters. Every chapter introduced new people. I had to underline. For the subsequent 200 pages, Dickens began to connect the characters. Underlining was not enough. Margin writing commenced. Such as: Lady + vagrant...Skimpole is a satire on society...soldier likes Esther...Mr. Guppy (lawyer) = jerk...
But then.
Foreshadowing.
OMG.
IS THE LADY ESTHER'S MOM?
OMG.
The Lady had a child with the dead opium copy writer who was friends with the soldier who likes Esther who was brought up by a mean lady but a nice maid who became acquaintances with the creepy lawyer who proposed to Esther but is slimy and might try to blackmail the Lady because he has vip information because he works for the law firm that represents the Jarndyce's in their decades long lawsuit, and John Jarndyce is Esther's guardian and they live next to the Lady but she didn't know her child was alive because her sister said the baby DIED.
...
362 pages left. I predict DRAMA.
"He...cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand; that the plain rule, is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing under-handed or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground."
Dickens (345)
Dickens (345)
Just wait until you get to the part where....oh, I won't tell you!! I ADORE Bleak House!
ReplyDeleteIf you like Dickens you will like Thomas Hardy (my ALL TIME favourite). Not as many characters to sort through but equally as tragic. If you're interested at all, start with Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Mayor of Casterbridge.
I can't wait for you future posts about Bleak House!!