Bleak House Readalong – Week 1

How are you all doing on Bleak House? I admit that I’m a little behind the group. According to the schedule, I should be through Chapter 7 and working on Chapters 8-13. But, I confess, Mockingjay threw that all off. (It was worth it, though.) Anyway, I’m on page 53 of my Barnes & Noble Classics edition. That’s roughly half way through Chapter 4. Here are my thoughts on the first three and a half chapters. Note that spoilers necessarily abound.

Preface
The preface, apparently written by Dickens after the book had been published in serial form, addresses two main areas of response to the book: the functioning of the Court of Chancery and the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion. I was particularly interested by the recounting of several famous instances of apparent spontaneous combustion.

Chapter 1
My, how Dickens loves to describe. There is no doubt that he was paid by the word. I definitely struggled to get into the flow of things here in Chapter 1. The language and style are troublesome at first. Also, as a lawyer, I was a little shocked by the loathing that oozed out onto the page about the Court of Chancery. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the chapter:

“[T]here is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give – who does not often give – the warning, ‘Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!’” (19)

I have to admit that I’ve said similar things to potential clients. I did laugh, too, about the famous (and infamous) case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. There are definitely cases like that in my own little legal community. Though this chapter is clearly just setting up the context of the rest of the book, I can see Dickens knows where he’s going.

Chapter 2
This chapter shifts from the Court of Chancery to two people with an interested in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, My Lady Dedlock and her husband Sir Leicester Dedlock. Mostly, we are given to understand that My Lady Dedlock is the epitome of fashion in London and that her movements and habits are tracked by all of London society. The Dedlocks’ attorney, a Mr. Tulkinghorn, comes to relay the latest happenings in the case, when My Lady Dedlock suddenly falls ill. I’m still feeling a little lost with both the language and the story. I can’t see where this is going yet, but I’m sure we’ll get to that soon enough.

Chapter 3
Now the narrative shifts substantially. In chapters two and three, the narrator is a stiff third person. Here, we get the rather charming first person narrative of Esther Summerson. She has a bit of a Jane Eyre childhood – apparently orphaned, raised in a cold and joyless home by a strict and rather angry godmother. When the godmother dies, Esther is sent off a stranger, to school to learn to be a governess – an adventure requested and funded by a Mr. Jarndyce. Esther excels at school for several years and is then sent by Mr. Jarndyce to be the companion of a Miss Ada Clare. The pair meet up in the Court of Chancery, along with Miss Ada’s cousin, Richard Carstone. I’m feeling better about this now. The language from Esther is much easier to follow, and I’m picking up my pace. And here, at last, a reference to Bleak House!

Chapter 4
The party of three is sent to spend the night at the Jellyby home before traveling on to Bleak House. The Jellyby home is quite unorthodox. Mrs. Jellyby wears the pants, if you will, and is always running about obsessed with some cause or other. At the moment, it’s Africa. Her many children are a little neglected and unkempt, as is the housekeeping. Of Mr. Jellyby, Mr. Kenge says

“‘Ah! Mr. Jellyby,’ said Mr. Kenge, ‘is – a – I don’t know that I can describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of Mrs. Jellyby.’” (48)

I’m sure that was more astounding back in the day than it is now. I quite sure Dickens wanted me to be shocked by the state of affairs at the Jellyby house. But I’m not. And it is interesting to note that it is said that Mr. Jarndyce has a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby. We shall see how this all pans out.

(A note on the B&N Classics Edition – It’s a little distracting with both footnotes and endnotes marked everywhere. Also, the print is pretty small. But, it was cheap, and I feel free to mark in it to my hearts content.)

While it’s a bit slow going, I have high hopes that the narrative will pick up and wow me despite Dickens’s heavy language and penchant for paragraphs of description. Check out our host’s post on the first week of the readalong. How did week one go for you?

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Tagged as: Readalong, Reading Journal