Classics and the Western Canon discussion

We start our discussion of Bleak House with the first two monthly installments, which appeared in March and April 1852.

The first sentence of the book, of course, isn’t. It is the one word London. And the second sentence isn’t a proper sentence either. Nor is the third. Nor, in fact, is any sentence in the first, or the second, or even the third paragraph. We don’t get a properly constructed sentence until the fourth paragraph.

Which as far as I know is unique in English literature. But isn’t it more powerful – I would even suggest far more powerful – than writing the same facts in normal prose would have been?

And there’s another very strange aspect to the book. It is told with two narrators; we start with a traditional third-person narrator in Chapters 1 and 2, then in chapter 3 suddenly switch, with no warning at all, over to a first person account. Another very strange and, I believe again, unique approach to novel writing.

And one third thing I would note about these early chapters. Each of the first three chapters is set in a totally different location and setting with totally different characters, yet all somehow linked to this mysterious case, which we know nothing more about than that it is a case, of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce.

We start in the Court in Chancery with the judge, lawyers, and all the other necessaries (maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, short hand writers, etc.) droning on in the endless case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a case where we are told “no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago” (although we do get our share of amusement with the crushing of Mr. Tangle and the unfindable terrific base voice “fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog”).

Just as we think we are starting to get our heads wrapped around this gloomy and depressing environment, we are suddenly thrust into “the world of fashion” (and who but Dickens would have dared to equate the majesty of Chancery with the vagaries of fashion?) with the equally depressing “place” in Lincolnshire, the “bored to death” Lady Dedlock, the baronet (“only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he”) who is “an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man,” and that repository of great secrets, Mr. Tulkinghorn who has brought papers which, though we have no idea why or how, link the Dedlocks with this case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.

And just as we are starting to get acquainted with this totally new set of characters, zip, ziff, bam, we are off not only to a different place but to a “not clever” girl somewhere (are we ever told where?), her doll, and her godmother who refuses to allow her to celebrate her birthday because she was not born, like other children, “in common sinfulness and wrath,” but is “set apart.” And into this little world comes yet another lawyer who is astonished that the young woman – “is it possible?” never heard of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.

Which of these three settings, which of these three groups of people, is the most depressing it is hard for me to say.

What is going on here? What is Dickens accomplishing by starting with such an ungrammatical (but highly evocative) opening, then bouncing us around among these vastly different settings, different sets of characters, and even different narrators, all in the first three chapters of the book? How is this impacting you as the reader? And in what mood do you emerge from these first three chapters?

Just touching on a fraction of your wonderful post, E'man.

There’s a point to my post, I promise, even though it may not at first seem apparent.

I was just shy of 17 when my professional opera career began. Although, at the time, not as much emphasis was placed on acting (many operatic performers from my generation resembled vertical doorstops on stage as much as anything else), if you could act as well as sing beautifully, you had a decided advantage in auditions. I had a talent for both.

Because I was still in high school, my career and my school studies occurred simultaneously. So, when my 16-year-old self was handed a copy of Bleak House to read for Lit Class, I approached it through the lens of what I was experiencing at the time. To me, it was a long, delicious script. Here was an author who was a genius with characters, script,set design and stage direction

It wasn’t until years later that I learned that Dickens was a passionate lover of the stage. Giving readings was his opportunity to be “on stage”. He adored it.

If he were alive today, he would have delighted in television, movies, the sheer richness of theater venues. He would have been behind the camera, in front of the camera, building sets, writing screenplays. For Dickens, today’s cinematic opportunities would have made him feel as if he had died and gone to heaven.

So, for me, reading Dickens has always been effortless. He was a master at quickly setting the stage, the scene, the mood. There’s a reason why his books are so easily adapted to stage and screen.

Dickens used words to put down his thoughts, but you can tell he didn’t think with words. He thought purely in images and senses, and used words to express the vividness of his imagination. This may seem like a stupid and obvious statement, but there are many writers who, you can tell, write in words, think in words and imagine in words. Dickens didn’t. For him, words were the conduit, not the source. It wouldn't surprise me if, sometimes, he yanked his hair in frustration at the inadequacy of words to convey the richness of his imagination and those amazing characters living inside his head.

So, if anyone has trouble “slogging” through Dickens, they should just think of it as pure theater, with the book being the script/screenplay.Lights. Camera. Action.

London. Perfect. Boom, you are there. Right there in the middle of it all. That one word evokes thousands of mental images, sounds and smells, all of which hit you as viscerally as the lights going down and the curtain coming up. Gene Roddenberry, who was no slouch when it came to taking a good idea and running with it, used the same technique. No matter whether you loved the show or not, who doesn’t remember these words: “Space. The final frontier.”
So read Chapter 1 like a script written by a master and what do we have? London. November. Mud. Fog. Gas lights. Murkiness.

Message received, Captain.

Instant atmosphere.

Beam me up Scotty, Dickens was a genius.

Oh, and by the way: Dickens would have loved Star Trek - as long as he could play Captain Kirk :).

Wow! Two excellent posts to start off Bleak House. I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through for another group, but I'm going to enjoy following along with this discussion to get more insight and different perspectives.

Paula - I love your Star Trek analogy!

Exactly, Paula! Theatrical writing at its finest. And smoke--smoke and fog. I have an idea that smoke and fog will be stars of this performance.

Paula, you made an excellent point about the beginning paragraphs. I also likened it to reading a play rather than a novel. However, I didn't pick up on that analogy until I got to the descriptions of the bedchambers of Ada and Esther at Bleak House. Dickens descriptions reminded me of the many times I've been travelling somewhere and when writing home, I found I lacked the words necessary to properly describe the scene.

I also wondered when reading the descriptions of the rooms if there was significance to how he described them. Was Dickens decribing a set of rooms he already knew or was he painting a picture with words. And if the latter, did he pay special attention to the descriptions he gave. Considering the care he spends on his descriptions of place, I don't feel that the words were merely accidently or random.

Going back to the opening lines: in one of my writing classes at uni, I learned that the opening sentence or sentences are quite significant. One of the opening lines we looked at was Dickens' from A Tale of Two Cities. So I have to admit that I missed the significance of Bleak House because of how famous other opening lines were. I expected an opening more like A Tale of Two Cities. This got me wondering why Dickens choose not to use a proper sentence until the 4th paragraph. It certainly grabs your attention but beyong the one word opening, it's not the most memorable of lines (unlike the first lines of Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice and others).

To answer Everyman: I found the first three chapters very confusing. Even to the point of resorting to wikipedia to find out who the various characters are (and consequently have stumbled across some spoilers in the process). I don't mind books that have a large cast of characters but unless I'm given some time with them in order to get to know them, I'll completely forget who these characters were. (I had a similar problem with The Tale of Genji and Anna Karenina.) Many times, I just keep reading and ignore any potential back story of minor characters in order to preserve the sense of story that is being created. I know that as a result of this I miss out on things within the story that is brought out by the minor characters.

I also thought that the change in the POV was interesting. I know that some people dislike the first person POV and several of them have told me that they find it harder to read stories writing using this POV. That makes me curious as to why Dickens would make such a significant writing style change. It also appears that it will be a frequent occurance since Chaps 1, 2 and 7 are third person while 3-6 are first person.

I like the comparisons of the start of the book being like a play. The instant atmosphere created is very visual.

I felt mired down by the mass of details provided and the scene changes made me feel like I was slipping and getting no closer to clearing the fog away to see the whole picture. Additionally, the confusion caused by this helped me relate more with Esther because she seems not to know what is going on either.

I think what Dickens was trying to accomplish here was to draw readers in as quickly as possible with the effect of putting them in the same sort of fog that he so richly describes.

A great deal of time is spent on the fog, but I was equally intrigued by the descriptions of mud in the first paragraph. I got the sense that everyone and everything by the nature of being there was "muddied" and affected by something, no doubt Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, in the same way the Shakespeare quote in the preface evokes.

"My nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!"

Maybe Dickens hoped also to infer that just by reading and being familiar with the story that, like mud, it was going to stick to us too?

I also thought the mud might represent ancient debt sticking to everyone from the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce case by the mention of dinosaurs and describing the mud accumulating at compound interest.

I found the change of narrators to be disconcerting. I wasn't far into chapter three before I had to flip back to chapter one to make sure I hadn't misread the opening. But I hadn't misread it - the narrative voice shifted. And not only does it shift in perspective and time (present tense versus past tense), but the tone is entirely different. The third person narrator is dark and judgmental and uses fog to create a gloomy and oppressive atmosphere. This voice is juxtaposed to Esther's, who is extremely positive (too much so?) and reluctant to make a negative remark about anything, even something as obvious as Mrs. Jellyby's terrible parenting. The third person narrator returns and in chapter seven we have rain instead of fog, but the dark mood is reestablished just the same.

As a reader the jarring contrast between voices forces me to slow down and read more attentively. Another positive I find in having two narrators is that since I don't like either one the switch comes as a relief. If the third person narrator told the whole story I think the novel would be too dark and oppressive. If Esther told the whole story it would be too saccharin. So far Dickens has struck a pleasing balance. I'll be interested to see if these disparate voices create a harmonized or dissonant tone later in the novel.

I was also rather thrown by the sudden change of narrator. It left me second guessing if I had in fact misunderstood or missed something in the previous chapters.

I do find this story is hard to keep up with at times because of the fact that we are introduced to so many different characters, and different settings, it is hard to wrap my head around everything which is taking place, and how they all might be connected together with this strange case looming in the background of it all.

As soon as you do get used to one setting, one particular group of characters and thing maybe you are going to start to get somewhere in figuring some of this stuff out, you are suddenly dropped into an entirely different setting and different set of characters that throws me completely off balance.

I am curious to see just what the Deadlocks might have to do with any of this. I keep waiting for their connection to the other characters to be revealed, or to see them pop back up in the story again.

I am also intrigued by the strangeness and dark secret behind Esther's birth. At first I had just assumed that she was an illegitimate child, but than we soon learn that it is apparently something more than just that. Something of which cannot even be spoken of and makes Esther so unlike other children.

I have to say I thought it was quite wrong that she wasn't even aloud to attend a party given for one of the neighboring girls.

This is my second reading of Bleak House. the first time through I struggled just to keep things straight. This time because the characters and settings are more familiar I find myself really loving the story (which I really liked the first time) but also taking the time to appreciate Dicken's language. the third person narrator seems to me to be using a lot of the devices found in poetry. there's rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, and it some places it seems to me meter. I don't have a large store of knowledge about poetry though so I could be reading something into this that isn't there.

So, there I was, reading a somewhat silly Dickens novel of which I was previously unaware, when suddenly my Kindle inserted an Austen novel, complete with sickeningly self-deprecating female protagonist.

I actually had to go look up biographical info on Dickens and Austen to see if she had influenced him at all. Didn't I read somewhere that Austen didn't really become popular until much, much later? Or am I thinking of someone else?

So, yes, the change from 3rd to 1st person, and present to past tense, was jarring, but I can't say it was unwelcome.

Zippy

There has been over the years a lot of criticism and complaint over the "broken-backed" stucture of this novel -- the use of two narrators. I believe it has ben justified, but it is necessary to wait almost to the end, until all the facts are in place -- that is, impossible to discuss at this point because of the spoilers issue.

Dickens has come under stricture at times by critics who do not like his mannered style, as it is called by those who wish to denigrate it. When I was first in graduate school Dickens was on the out, and has since come in, and I suppose will got out again. The question of whether there is something wrong about the way he writes has been hotly argued -- though not, I think, now after the practices of Late Modernism have become familiar -- and what exactly is a mannered style. Why, for example, is it important that a novelist write complete sentences? I'm sure we will hear more in this area.

I also think it important here at the beginning to remark that Dickens writes as much for the ear as the eye. Try reading his aloud. Dickens himself was a huge celebrity for his readings of his own work. Many complaints about his style vanish when he is read aloud.

This is a complicated novel, full of secrets. Secrets are, in fact, it's major theme. It is no accident that it contains as a character the first detective. It's original readers delighted in this, and far from asking that matters be clear at every point and guided by a plain trajectory, actively sought the opposite -- a long tale, comprehensive, delightfully tangled.

Pardon the typos in my previous post. To continue: I also think it quite wrong to make comparisons between Dickens and classicists like Austen. One thinks of the changes underway across all the arts -- Hugo, Gautier, Corot, and Berlioz in France for example. Dickens is headlong, omnivorous, angry, sometimes maudlin -- every epithet you can think of. In Bleak House all that was implicit in Pickwick has come out, fully mature, magnificent, unconstrained. It is not possible to chain him up again.

Charles wrote: When I was first in graduate school Dickens was on the out, and has since come in, and I suppose will got out again.

If my experience was at all representative of other recent students, then Dickens is already on his way out again. I was assigned one Dickens novel (Hard Times) as an undergrad and none as a graduate student (graduated 2013). Bleak House is on the M.A. reading list, but it's an optional work. By way of comparison, I was assigned Frankenstein five times! (three times as an undergrad and twice in graduate school). Maybe my experience was anomalous though. I'd be interested to hear from other people.

I've always liked the dual narratives in Bleak House. There's so much going on,that, somehow, the shifting tenses and narratives break up the novel, giving it a sense of, I don't know the right word, but I would say "movement".

The sense of contrast between the light and dark. It allows Dickens to fully explore his main themes...the almost Dantean Limbo of the Chancery and the poor souls who have been sucked into the mud and fog of its sticky web; then, a more beautiful, but equally claustrophobic world of the aristrocracy. Both are in sharp contrast to the very human world of which Esther has been given the responsibility of relating to us.

Then there are the other themes that intricately thread their way throughout all the locales, characters and events, ultimately weaving them all together.

Light, dark. Pain, happiness. Social injustice, true compassion and charity. The multiple locations and narratives allow Dickens to focus the lens of his incredible "eye" to each series of events. The structure is beautifully built and executed.

When I first read Bleak House, the icky, sticky, self-deprecating sweetness going by the name of Esther Summerson really got on my nerves.

But my view has matured and broadened in perspective over the years; so, when considering her background, the, yes, emotionally abusive upbringing and how she coped with it, and the coping mechanisms she continues to use and cling to throughout the book, has given me a much more compassionate view. But believe me, those first sets of Esther narratives gave me a reaction very similar to sugar on sensitive tooth enamel. I still struggle with her early on in her narratives.

I find that Dickens usually helps us out by introducing his main themes and main characters right off the bat. Chancery, Lord and Lady Dedlock, Tulkinghorn and Esther. Yes, it means the settings shift a bit jarringly at first, but again, the device is one that is very much used in plays. Shakespeare did it all the time. Then, once introduced, Shakespeare and Dickens widen their nets, drawing in more peripheral locations and characters. Bringing more color and movement to their world-building.

Sorry, I know I'm going on and on, but I really love this book. Dickens was at the very peak of his craft when he wrote it.

Charles wrote: "The question of whether there is something wrong about the way he writes has been hotly argued -- though not, I think, now after the practices of Late Modernism have become familiar -- and what exactly is a mannered style..."

"wrong?" "Wrong" is a strong word! :-)

"To continue: I also think it quite wrong to make comparisons between Dickens and classicists like Austen."

Do you really think it's impossible Austen could have influenced Dickens? Esther and Elinor Dashwood are so dissimilar?

Paula wrote: "Just touching on a fraction of your wonderful post, E'man.

There’s a point to my post, I promise, even though it may not at first seem apparent.

I was just shy of 17 when my professional opera c..."

Marvelous post!

You noted that "It wasn’t until years later that I learned that Dickens was a passionate lover of the stage. Giving readings was his opportunity to be “on stage”. He adored it." But were you aware that in association with Wilkie Collins he co-wrote two plays, one of which, "The Frozen Deep," he produced and acted in, including a performance for Queen Victoria?

Tiffany wrote: "I also thought that the change in the POV was interesting. I know that some people dislike the first person POV and several of them have told me that they find it harder to read stories writing using this POV. That makes me curious as to why Dickens would make such a significant writing style change."

It is significant in this book, I think, because of the shifting back and forth between two narrators, but Dickens used first person for two of his other major works, David Copperfield and Great Expectations But what is perhaps interesting is that BH house is his only female first person voice. It might be interesting at some point to ask how well he represents the female voice.

Tiffany wrote: "To answer Everyman: I found the first three chapters very confusing. Even to the point of resorting to wikipedia to find out who the various characters are."

A luxury that his original readers, of course, didn't have. As Paula noted, Dickens at this time was at the height of his narrative power. So there must have been a good reason for him to introduce such a range of characters so briefly there in the very first chapters. As you say, it can be confusing.

Why does he do it? I suggest that he wants the reader to be a bit confused about how all this fits together. There is some mystery here -- in fact there are several mysteries: what the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce is about, who are Esther Summerson's parents, why and how did John Jarndyce even know about Esther Summerson's existence and why did he offer to pay for her schooling (is he her secret father? Or maybe uncle?), and maybe most mysterious of all, how do all these disparate groups of people relate to each other?

Are we made to grope through a narrative fog that reflects the actual fog through which the characters in the novel must navigate? Certainly we don't see our way clear to some of these answers, do we?

Charles Wrote: I also think it important here at the beginning to remark that Dickens writes as much for the ear as the eye. Try reading his aloud. Dickens himself was a huge celebrity for his readings of his own work. Many complaints about his style vanish when he is read aloud.
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Yes, yes...my thoughts exactly!! You succinctly put your finger on an important approach. Much better than my verbose attempts :). Dickens was an actor and that's how he approached his work.

Dickens was also a word painter. He emoted, and he invited his readers to do the same. I find that, when I read him, if I immediately allow my mind to translate and paint those images in my head, the prose just flows and its beauty shines.

And, as you said, reading the book aloud makes the prose just glow.

David wrote: "I like the comparisons of the start of the book being like a play. The instant atmosphere created is very visual.

I felt mired down by the mass of details provided and the scene changes made me fe..."

Nice post. I agree with you when you say that " the confusion caused by this [the rapid transitions in the first chapters] helped me relate more with Esther because she seems not to know what is going on either."

Also, "I think what Dickens was trying to accomplish here was to draw readers in as quickly as possible with the effect of putting them in the same sort of fog that he so richly describes." Very nicely put.

Everyman wrote: "But were you aware that in association with Wilkie Collins he co-wrote two plays, one of which, "The Frozen Deep," he produced and acted in, including a performance for Queen Victoria?"

I think I had a teacher (eons ago in the dark ages of my youth) who may have mentioned working on a play with Collins, but that was it. There's a vague scratching at my memory. But I think it went in one ear and out the other. Thank you for mentioning it! I have to look more into that.

David wrote: "A great deal of time is spent on the fog, but I was equally intrigued by the descriptions of mud in the first paragraph. "

London in the mid 1800s was considered one of the dirtiest, if not the dirtiest, cities in the world. Although the Romans had invented sanitary drainage, London at that time still didn't have it. There were open sewers which overflowed when it rained. The streets were filled with horses, their leavings ground into the dirt by the passage of other horses, carts, and pedestrians. The soot from the incessant coal fires dropped down into this ooze and combined with stone dust ground up by the iron wheels of the many carts and wagons to mix into this mire. If anything, Dickens understates its nastiness.

I was not as thrown off by the different perspectives like some are reporting. I am supplementing my reading by following along with an audio book that uses a male and a female narrator. Switching to Esther's story and the female reader seemed quite natural.

While worth noting, I did not think different narrators/perspectives in a single work were all that shocking or unique. Maybe they were for the time? Could a purpose of the two narrators in Bleak House be used to create a frame like they were in Frankenstein?

Silver wrote: "I have to say I thought it was quite wrong that she [Esther] wasn't even aloud to attend a party given for one of the neighboring girls. "

While Dickens doesn't spend a lot of time on her childhood, one can only imagine how dismal it must have been with a godmother who considered her very existence shameful and who denied her not only her own birthday parties but even attending those of her schoolmates.

How must this upbringing have affected her?

One thing that I wonder about. Why did she bury her doll when she left home (if one can consider it a home)? It was her only companion, her comfort. Her godmother had just died and been buried; why would Esther at this point in her life decide to ritually kill and bury her only companion?

Was it just symbolic of her ending one life (the death of that life) and starting a new one? But why make her doll suffer for that? Did she want to bury any connection with her godmother's life and home? There must have been some strong compulsion within her to make her take this step, but I didn't see Dickens explaining it to us, leaving us simply to guess. All we are told is that "A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her—I am half ashamed to tell it—in the garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage." But why??

BTW, I said earlier that I wasn't sure we were told where Esther grew up. But looking up the passage about the burying of the doll I realized that we are told.
"This interview [with Kenge, after her godmother (now known to have been her aunt) died] took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading."

Windsor is perhaps 15 or 20 miles up the Thames from London. Reading is perhaps another 20 miles or so to the West, further from London, about, as we see, a day's travel from Windsor. (A distance we today on the motorway can travel in less than half an hour.)

Everyman wrote: "London in the mid 1800s was considered one of the dirtiest, if not the dirtiest, cities in the world."
*****

Have you read "The Ghost Map, The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic" by Steven Johnson? Very interesting book on this exact topic.

Paula wrote: "I've always liked the dual narratives in Bleak House. There's so much going on,that, somehow, the shifting tenses and narratives break up the novel, giving it a sense of, I don't know the right wor..."

I do think the technique of using dual narrative is an interesting, and I agree it does help break up the story. Though the first time it happens it was so unexpected that it gave me pause and took me a moment to process what was happening. But once once gets accustomed to it I do think it can be quite a clever way to tell a story because both 1st person and 3rd person narratives have something different they can offer to the reader, and both can achieve things which the other cannot, so the idea of combining the two together might give the reader a more rider range of the story, instead of just one narrow view.

I also really liked the points you made about the duality between the light and dark within the story. I think you make some good points.

I did very much enjoy some of the early descriptions within the story and the sort of gloomy (should I say Bleak atmosphere) which is presented.

Everyman wrote: "One thing that I wonder about. Why did she bury her doll when she left home (if one can consider it a home)? It was her only companion, her comfort. Her godmother had just died and been buried; why would Esther at this point in her life decide to ritually kill and bury her only companion?"
***********************

Actually, I can relate. Not to get too personal, but...I was in an emotionally abusive marriage for 16 years. During that time, I developed all kinds of hobbies. They were my positive outlets, my own coping mechanisms for the pain, confusion, stress and anger that this kind of relationship creates. One huge outlet for me was quilting. The routine and precision, the sense of creating something beautiful, soothed and comforted me. It kept me going through very dark times.

Anyway, when I finally ended that marriage and moved to my own place, I had all these beautiful quilts that I had poured my creative heart and soul - and also my pain - into. They had, at one time, been my solace, my comfort.

But, when I was in my new home (what a haven) and looked at those quilts, I could admire their beauty just as always, but I couldn't not see the shadows of my former pain. What had once been my solace was now something that triggered memories I didn't want to relive and I was too recently away from that pain to want my quilts to "live with me", as it were.

So, I can understand Esther. That, while her doll had been her comfort, the doll was also a repository of her pain, loneliness, hurt, confusion and fear. She wanted that past life to end, to "die". And so, she buried her doll. I think she was acknowledging that her doll wasn't "real". Doll was her imaginary friend, a fantasy she had clung to because there were no other options. And, perhaps now, there would be.

As for my quilts, I didn't bury them. But I did donate them to a hospital that gave them to children with cancer.

Everyman wrote: "Are we made to grope through a narrative fog that reflects the actual fog through which the characters in the novel must navigate? Certainly we don't see our way clear to some of these answers, do we? ."

I rather like the idea that the story is made a bit confusing at the start on purpose to further enhance the mystery of the story, and keep us in the shroud of secrets of which we can only hope might slowly start to unwind and become more clear.

I do feel a bit like the old woman of whom appears at the court house every day awaiting for a judgement upon the case which is never given. So we too are left ever waiting for the answers to be presented to us, and it seems we might never find our way to the truth of the matter.

It is an interesting idea that the readers are in a way put on even footing with the characters in how we too have to try and navigate through this complex system.

Being left in suspense does help to keep ones attention and keeps one wanting to continue to pursue forward.

Perhaps it does also have the reader relate more to what the characters are having to undergo. I can also see how a book like this could produce much discussion in parlor rooms.

Silver wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Are we made to grope through a narrative fog that reflects the actual fog through which the characters in the novel must navigate? Certainly we don't see our way clear to some of t..."

Great post, Silver!!!

Everyman wrote: "One thing that I wonder about. Why did she bury her doll when she left home (if one can consider it a home)? It was her only companion, her comfort. Her godmother had just died and been buried; why would Esther at this point in her life decide to ritually kill and bury her only companion? ..."

I think that her burying the doll in part is symbolic, and it does represent the way in which she is going to enter into a new life but I also believe, much like Paula already pointed out, it was also a way of trying to bury her past and the isolation and suffering she had formerly known.

While during that time in which she was denied companionship of other girls because her godmother emphasized how much she was set apart from them, and with her whole existence being cast in shame her doll was her only true friend and companion and gave her comfort in those moments.

But now she is stepping forward into a new life, in which she knows not what might await, and so she buries the doll to leave her last tie to the past behind with her godmother dead, the doll being the only link she has left.

Though the doll was her friend I don't think she wants to carry the baggage it represents into her new life.

And though she doesn't know it at the time, the doll is soon replaced by new, real, human companions.

Silver wrote: "And though she doesn't know it at the time, the doll is soon replaced by new, real, human companions."

She seems to go from one extreme to the other; from being forbidden to see and be with friends, to becoming a professional companion to another. I suppose the doll would not have been "professional" and had she kept it, especially if she continued confiding in it, one might begin to suspect her mental stability.

Is she a more "pure" or devoted companion because of her isolated past?

It seems to me that the early chapters are more connected than has been said. When Tulkinghorn appears at the Dedlocks it is to inform them about the day's proceedings in Jarndyce, in which the Dedlocks are implicated, and Lady Dedlock takes an unusual interest in the law writer, after which she quickly retires. The Lord Chancellor refers to children in his chambers who must be put under care, and a cousin is referred to. Then in Esther's narrative we hear of a Mr Jarndyce who will look out for her.

The first time I encountered such bits of connective tissue I was struck with a delightful frisson. Oho! There is more here than I know. Read on, McDuff!

David wrote: "
Is she a more "pure" or devoted companion because of her isolated past? ."

That is a very interesting question. Because of his isolated past she has not developed any prior loyalties/friendships which might conflict with how she perceives having to accept a new companion.

Being that she previously had no friends previously, she may be made all the more grateful for her new companion, and there will be no one in her mind and heart to compete with her for affection. She also comes as something of a clean slate to her new companion.

And we do see how quickly Esther comes to love her new companion and how much she adores her. Perhaps her affection would not be so fast and devoted if indeed she had more friends in the past.

Charles wrote: "It seems to me that the early chapters are more connected than has been said."

Agreed. Those subtle threads appear from the very beginning...then more...then more, with Dickens weaving them together ever tighter as the novel proceeds. Frisson is the perfect word, thank you!

I had a similar experience reading Infinite Jest. So much connective tissue...some obvious, some so subtle that successive readings continue to unearth them. Part of the fascination of that novel for me.

Zippy wrote (#15) Do you really think it's impossible Austen could have influenced Dickens? Esther and Elinor Dashwood are so dissimilar?

I'm not enough of a scholar here to pronounce on Austen's influence, nor on critical themes such as the comparison of characters among authors. I was intending to speak of style, which as Everyman said in another place was certainly unusual for his time, no matter what we have encountered since, and markedly different from Austen's Palladian constructions. I meant that using a classicizing style inherited from Addison and Johnson should not be a standard against which Dickens's Romanticism should be measured.

Everyman wrote: "Tiffany wrote: "I also thought that the change in the POV was interesting. I know that some people dislike the first person POV and several of them have told me that they find it harder to read sto..."

Think of all the narrator changes in "Wuthering Heights," a novel with a similar title.

Charles wrote: "I also think it important here at the beginning to remark that Dickens writes as much for the ear as the eye. Try reading his aloud. Dickens himself was a huge celebrity for his readings of his own work. Many complaints about his style vanish when he is read aloud."

Absolutely. As it happens, I'm listening to a recording of Bleak House along with reading it. (At separate times.) I get quite different things out of the listening process.

Paula wrote: "Have you read "The Ghost Map, The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic" by Steven Johnson? Very interesting book on this exact topic. "

I haven't, but I found that our library has a copy, so I have put it on request. Thanks for the reference!

Silver wrote: "I do think the technique of using dual narrative is an interesting, and I agree it does help break up the story.... I do think it can be quite a clever way to tell a story"

I agree. It will be interesting, as we get into the story, to see whether we can recognize a consistent difference between the narrators which narrator is used for what purposes. We get outside the story with the omniscient narrator and inside the story with Esther. To what extent, for example, does the difference enhance our understanding of, say, Ada and Richard's characters, John Jarndyce's, or that of other characters we may see being treated by both narrators later in the book?

Also, I wonder whether the third person narrator ever talks about Esther, or whether we only see her from her own point of view.

@Silver 29: I do feel a bit like the old woman of whom appears at the court house every day awaiting for a judgement upon the case which is never given. So we too are left ever waiting for the answers to be presented to us, and it seems we might never find our way to the truth of the matter.

It is an interesting idea that the readers are in a way put on even footing with the characters in how we too have to try and navigate through this complex system.

Two really nice points.

Charles wrote: "It seems to me that the early chapters are more connected than has been said. When Tulkinghorn appears at the Dedlocks it is to inform them about the day's proceedings in Jarndyce, in which the Ded..."

Well, I did mention in my first post that "yet all somehow linked to this mysterious case, which we know nothing more about than that it is a case, of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce." Do you see more linkage than just the fact of the case? Some shared content? Tulkinghorn does mention the affidavits to the Dedlocks, but they weren't mentioned in Chapter 1, and we never hear what the affidavits actually say.

David wrote: "Silver wrote: "And though she doesn't know it at the time, the doll is soon replaced by new, real, human companions."

She seems to go from one extreme to the other; from being forbidden to see and be with friends, to becoming a professional companion to another. I suppose the doll would not have been "professional" "

But she goes from her Windsor home not to be the professional companion, but to Miss Donnys' boarding school in Reading. Would it be so strange for a boarding student entering a new school for the first time to bring a little doll with her? She spent six years there (which she totally glosses over to the point that they are almost forgotten by us as soon as she leaves there), at which time as best I can tell she was 18 or maybe 19, so she would have been 12 or 13 when she went to the school. So we need to treat the burying of the doll really as the act of child, barely adolescent, not an adult.

Laurele wrote: "Think of all the narrator changes in "Wuthering Heights," a novel with a similar title. "

Good point. Wuthering Heights was published five years before Bleak House.

Everyman wrote: "...So we need to treat the burying of the doll really as the act of child, barely adolescent, not an adult...."

Nonetheless, my mind made this connection:

[11] When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man [an adult], I put away childish things.
[12] For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
[13] And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

1 Corinthians 13 KJV

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/k...

Everyman wrote: so she would have been 12 or 13 when she went to the school. So we need to treat the burying of the doll really as the act of child, barely adolescent, not an adult. .."

I do think that age is a point where she might be just upon the cusp. On the one hand it would not be unreasonable that a girl of 12 or 13 would still play with her old dolls (especially if said doll was her only companion) on the other hand I think it is approaching a time in which one might start to think that playing with dolls might be too childish. Especially when one does come to a point of transition within their life.

: "Everyman wrote: "...So we need to treat the burying of the doll really as the act of child, barely adolescent, not an adult...."

Nonetheless, my mind made this connection:

[11] When I was a child..."

Uncanny. I almost posted this quote because I was thinking the same thing

Paula wrote: "Uncanny. I almost posted this quote because I was thinking the same thing ..."

;-) Probably simply more knowing that, in the period in which Dickens wrote, Biblical knowledge, and therefore Biblical allusions, were authorial stock in trade. It scares me, the extent to which that knowledge may be disappearing in today's reader. But, it harkens that knowledge of other sacred texts may be increasing.

The use of different points of view was actually not all that uncommon in Victorian fiction (though it's not exactly common, either). Wilkie Collins does the same thing in The Moonstone and The Woman in White. My professor for my Victorian Novels class last year saw this as a manifestation of the Victorian preoccupation with perspective. You also see several first-person narratives in the Victorian period, most of which are told by unreliable narrators. What's really interesting about Bleak House is that he mixes in the narration, not of another character, but of a third-person narrator who (at least so far) is omniscient.

On the subject of Esther's narration, I'm not sure I would characterize it as saccharine. She certainly tries to make it so, but, in my opinion, she never quite succeeds. The tragedy of her life keeps coming through, despite her almost combatively upbeat attitude. She can't help giving the truth away in the details. For me, the juxtaposition of all that personal tragedy with a relentlessly positive narrative voice creates a very interesting dynamic.

The third-person chapters of Bleak House are reminding me of why I love Dickens' writing. The first chapter is, in my opinion, a masterpiece, probably my favorite first chapter in literature. His sense of humor is also very much on display here, particularly in his treatment of Sir Leicester and the Dedlocks. Some of the quotes were just too good to pass up, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

“Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing.”

“His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills, but would be done up without Dedlocks.”

“The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He supposes all his dependants to be utterly befeft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any.”

“It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend, that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves, for seven hundred years.”

“Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion, because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes; a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim.“