Luís's Reviews > Bleak House

I discovered the masterful Dickensian novels with this reading. I don't seem to have seen an adaptation of this vast soap opera (in a good sense) for television or cinema. Its original publication spanned a year and a half, in monthly deliveries, from March 1852 to September 1853. Suppose many of its characters today can put off a little, even a well-meaning reader. In that case, we must not forget that in 1852, one eagerly awaited the next month's bundle and (probably) reread those already published. The novel's construction is original: chapters told from the omniscient narrator's point of view, ironic towards legal and political powers, alternate with those of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson. Because this is a novel about an interminable trial in the Chancery, which has lasted for decades, Esther is concerned by the prosecution, which bears her guardian's name, Jarndyce. Still, she will not discover the full extent of her involvement, which is linked to her origins, until the novel's end. I enjoyed losing myself in the maze of these interwoven stories, accompanied by characters so striking (sometimes annoying) as Dickens knew how to characterize them.