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Violet wells's Reviews > Bleak House
Bleak House
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Violet wells's review
bookshelves: faves, classics
Feb 18, 2014
bookshelves: faves, classics
Read 2 times. Last read January 4, 2022 to April 27, 2022.
One of the fascinating things about Dickens is that his characters, no matter how old we're told they are, are essentially children. As a rule, only those who represent institutions are convincing as adults and the adult world is a hostile world of institutions and clockwork industry. Dickens characters don't really grow up in the course of his novels; rather, they find other children to play with. You might say this is both the attraction and the flaw of his novels. It's most apparent as a flaw in his favourite character - the angelic child woman. It's interesting that his most successful (though probably not his most entertaining) novel in my opinion, Great Expectations, has a cast of pretty unlikeable women. What it does have is a character who develops, who becomes an adult, a rarity in Dickens whose characters tend to begin good or bad and end the same. Esther in Bleak House suffers a life-changing experience but it doesn't change her in the slightest. His characters tend to repeat themselves like programmed automatons as if they wake up to the same day every morning.
It was also interesting to start Tolstoy after finishing Bleak House (for the third time: one reading too many!) It immediately became clear to me that Tolstoy is the better novelist. And yet Dickens had all the gifts to rival Tolstoy. Both nurtured distorting ideas about women. Tolstoy's of a puritanical and misogynist nature. What he does in his novels though is oppose and so transcend these ideas. Dickens most irritating trait is his sentimentality towards girls. He doesn't oppose this in his novels. It's possible his decision to serialise his novels was responsible. As if he felt he had to keep reminding the reader of his primary character's qualities. Both Anna and Levin are much more complete human beings than any character Dickens created. That said, it's always a joy to be swept up into the high winds of vitality, comedy and memorable characters Dickens so brilliantly provides.
It was also interesting to start Tolstoy after finishing Bleak House (for the third time: one reading too many!) It immediately became clear to me that Tolstoy is the better novelist. And yet Dickens had all the gifts to rival Tolstoy. Both nurtured distorting ideas about women. Tolstoy's of a puritanical and misogynist nature. What he does in his novels though is oppose and so transcend these ideas. Dickens most irritating trait is his sentimentality towards girls. He doesn't oppose this in his novels. It's possible his decision to serialise his novels was responsible. As if he felt he had to keep reminding the reader of his primary character's qualities. Both Anna and Levin are much more complete human beings than any character Dickens created. That said, it's always a joy to be swept up into the high winds of vitality, comedy and memorable characters Dickens so brilliantly provides.
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Loved this deep and heartfelt review.
I wonder if you've ever feasted on as many huge classic novels back-to-back before as you are now.