Bleak House

 

Author:  Charles Dickens

Begun: Jan 18th 2025

Finished: Jan 30th 2025

Type: Audiobook on YouTube

Narrator: Mil Nickelson

Rating: 8/10

Spoilers ahead! Be warned.

One can't help feeling that Dickens made himself John Jarndyce and wrote a book about how wonderful and fabulous he was. So kind, so kind.  Everyone should love and adore him.  Ew gross. 

A twisty tale, intricate, with many characters, and so well written.  There are some cloying parts of it that made me shudder: the fawning over Ada, for example.  When Esther stands over Ada, who is sleeping, cries enough that tears fall on Ada (and doesn't wake her up! Come on, be serious!) and then puts a bunch of dried flowers to Ada's lips.  WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?  How is that not weird and utterly creepy?

And then there's the whole 40 year old dude meeting a 13/14 year old girl and planning to marry her one day.  I know Dickens thought it was so kind and generous of Jarndyce to want to marry someone who was - GASP! HORROR! - illegitimate, especially when she develops smallpox scars, but it's still creepy as all get out.  

Ticks me off that of *course* the mother and father had to die in tragic circumstances.  Can't have them living happily every after when they had been so very very wicked as to have a child out of wedlock, can we?  They must be PUNISHED.  BAH! 

A brilliant book.  I like it very much.  But it's also very problematic. 

Kind of bummed I couldn't find any Bleak House memes tbh.

Tom All Alones