Bleak House Reading Update #2: Parts 6 - 10

 

Recapping Parts 6 - 10 of Bleak House by, Charles Dickens will be a bit more challenging than recapping say, the first half of The Brothers Karamazov. There are no long philosophical debates in this novel that one can spend an eternity discussing, thus making it easier to avoid major spoilers. Bleak House, in true Dickensian style, progresses in a way that definitely reminds the reader that this novel was serialized. It feels episodic. By the halfway point of this novel, there are some very interesting plot developments. The storyline proceeds with the reader still left in the dark as to what the court case Jarndyce and Jarndyce is actually about, Richard and Ada have a bit of drama, the married couple Mr. & Mrs. Snagsby have a whole lot of drama, poor Jo is always in everyone else’s way, and Dickens is throwing major hints at who Esther’s mother may be. If you can’t already tell, this novel needs a character tree because… there are a lot of them and these are only some of them. 

There is this whacky character named Mr. Skimpole, a grown man that Mr. Jarndyce refers to as a child because the man doesn’t function an an adult should - someone who can take care of their business without bumming off others. Skimpole is artistic and philosophical, but he’s living in a way that isn’t really functional. Dickens is posing a question here: What happens to a man that never settles down? Richard is seeking to obtain a career and he’s indecisive, while also getting distracted by digging in to the weeds of the court case. If Richard isn’t careful, and doesn’t focus himself, he could end up paralleling Mr. Skimpole. 

“The oddity of the this is … that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible.” 

Well, duh, Skimpole, you are expected to pay rent…

Dickens continues his commentary about how the wealthy are hypocritical and are willing to help abroad, while ignoring those in need within their own communities. He also blatantly states that those who may appear benevolent on the outside, due to their wealth and social status, can be some of the most devious of all. 

“I thought of the one family so near us, who were neither gone nor going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so placid.”

“For, howsoever bad the devil can be .. he is a more designing, callous and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt front, and calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes…”

Lastly, the second death in the novel occurs and now I’m under the impression that these deaths are actually murders…

“Call the death by any name Your Highness will, attribute it to who you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally - inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humors of the vicious body itself…”

Again, it’s difficult to go into much more detail than this because I’m not trying to give away too much of the plot. I’m still surprised by how readable Bleak House is - it’s just a massive book and I think this makes it seem more intimidating as it is. Don’t get me wrong, this novel still suffers from the classic “way too many subplots” that is quintessential to a Dickens novel, but even these subplots are more manageable than I thought they’d be, and I know Dickens will cleverly tie all of these ends together. 

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