Bleak House - Lots of Potential Scattered and in Shambles

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I wanted to like this book.  I expected to like this book.  Everything seemed predetermined for me to like it. 

It features a looming probate case (which is right up my alley), and it is considered one of the best works by a literary giant.  I gave it many chances and clung to the idea that it would turn, but it never did.  I really did not like this book and was relieved to finish it.

I had never read Dickens before.  Bleak House was clearly not the right book as introduction to his writing (which can be amazing in stretches and just horrible at other times).  Even when it was interesting and started to get good, Dickens ruined it by veering off into idle chit-chat, or switching to a different story line that had already exhausted me, or by simply extending a simple matter for many pages without adding depth (I love extended scenes if it provides depth). 

The mysteries of the book were easily telegraphed and comically foreshadowed, yet the book spun its wheels endlessly before finally making an overly-dramatic reveal to a resolution that had become obvious and stale. 

I really liked how the infamous probate case ended, and it is the exact kind of ending that I was hoping for to that particular story line.  The problem is that the case is really a tiny part of the book.  It is ever-present, but it was never really plumbed to any depth.  Instead, it was a vague background.  When the case came into play, it was interesting and I kept thinking it would reveal more about the motives of the characters, which seemed like such an obvious tool for connecting the characters that I still can't believe how badly that was under-utilized.  Instead, we'd just go back to chit-chat and longings and elaborate conversations without direction.

There was also a spontaneous combustion.  There were some entertaining elements to the people who are "spontaneous combustion chasers," but that whole segment was, again, over-done and campy.



The majority of the story lines were just not interesting to me and characters driving those portions were flat.  I found the courtship of a young girl (Esther) and her guardian to be creepy and, even though it was resolved in a way that led to a different outcome, I still just never felt comfortable with their interactions. 

Skimpole illustrated the child-like demeanor of extremely irresponsible people very well, but, again, he was in and out, here and there, and not really deeply involved or well followed.  (Richard did this as well as to indecisive people).  The characters who were thoroughly followed left almost no impression on me.  Some characters seemed very important early and just sort of disappeared.  Others were ever-present, but never developed or flat.

Bleak House had moments, and all the pieces to a really clever tale centered around the frustrations of a drawn-out legal process were there.  I could imagine the pieces I found making up a really interesting 300-page book.  But, the pieces were scattered all around and left to be found and collected together among 1000 pages. 

I switched to audiobook just to give myself more opportunities to finish it faster.  I hoped it would improve the experience.  Instead, it exposed me to a voice actor who read every character in increasingly-cartoon-like voices (and there were way too many versions of cockney). 

It was a terrible experience.  I hate that I didn't like this book, but it was awful. It's below a 2, but I can't quite go down to a 1, so I'll say about a 1.5.



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