Classic book #10 finished!

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Here’s my review from over on Goodreads:

I think this novel just stepped into the #1 place for all of Dickens’ novels. Yes, there is a boatload of coincidence that just happens to tie everything and everyone together. Yes, Esther Summerson is too good for real life. But I don’t care. Just the plethora of characters, good and bad, make the book worth every minute of time I spent on it. From the admirable John Jarndyce all the way down to Peepy. Mrs. Jellyby, who can care about Africa, but not about her own home and children. And Mr. Jellyby who just lays his head against the wall. The awful and wicked Mr. Tulkinghorn. So many. So many. Dickens was also a man on a mission: to expose and to make plain the awful, grinding poverty of the day. He could have written screed after screed about it and no one would have listened. But put poor little Jo in the book and maybe, just maybe, someone’s heart will be touched. And they will imitate the good and great John Jarndyce. He who does what he does without the least fanfare and with no desire for thanks or praise – because that brings on the East wind, you know. Dickens also sees what the poor are to one another. That many of them are far more generous with their little bits than we are with our excess. The brickmakers wives are kind to poor little Jo, when the rest of the world just wants to keep him “moving along” so we don’t have to *see* him. Is it pathos laid on thick? Perhaps. But in a cause that is worth the effort. Since I am a girl who always, always, loves the supporting characters most, I will always love Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet (the “old girl”) for their love for one another, their children, and their friend George. Dickens does well at portraying happy marriages and theirs is one of the best. It would take a very special book indeed to knock this off the #1 spot in my Dickens library. Nicholas Nickelby and the Pickwick Papers are on tap for later in the year. I don’t expect them to beat this one. I listened to the Simon Vance narrated version of the book. It was FANTASTIC. (less)