I have just been reading this for the fourth or fifth time not having read it for over ten years, (touch of flu leaving me time to press on with it) and it strikes me as absolutely wonderful



We never hear of Dickens here.  Surely he is the English answer to Verdi?

I'd have finished Northanger Abbey in a day, albeit it is one of my favourites (if you have read it there is no need to read Mrs Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, which Jane Austen sends up so mercilessly - Miss Jane obviously thought Udolpho was complete and utter tosh and loved every page.)  Glad you read it.

But why am I so gripped by Bleak House, when all the characters are utter grotesques, apart from the juvenile leads who are so uninteresting as persons (although their circumstances are not)?  The plot is a farrago of melodrama and coincidence, and is not set out with any clarity.

Well this is page 2:

You two are really making me go and pull out my Dickens books again. I haven't read Little Dorrit and have heard from varied sources that it is the favourite of theirs... I MUST go for it!!!

Thanks ... both of you. 

A

Not wishing to spoil things for you, A, but Little Dorrit has the most complicated plot of any novel I have ever read: in the Penguin edition, which I have, the editor gives a precis of the plot as part of his introduction.  Christine Edzard's 1980s film version made a game attempt to render the book with most of its complexities intact, but still had to omit one major character and plotline.

A, Little Dorrit is bleaker than Bleak House, as it were, and is dominated by the debtor's prison in the way Bleak House is dominated by the court of Chancery.

Mrs Clennam is like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, a wonderfully tragic figure.  And Amy Dorrit herself, although presented as saccharine, is a far tougher character than many Dickens heroines.  It does not teem with the wonderful, grotesque characters as Bleak House, but is still worthwhile.

Given Dickens was so sentimental about his young heroines (while being foul to his wife) the character of Flora Finching, based on an early love of Dickens, met when she was middle aged, is very refreshing.  And ultimately rather touching.

(PS just seen SK - I don't think the plot of LD is more complicated than BH.)

I totally agree that late Dickens is to be preferred to early.

The one that I have never read since my degree is Hard Times, and that is probably because it was the only one F R Leavis said was worthwhile.

I wonder if this is a case of loving the actual language that the writer.. Dickens or Trollope for example.. and not really worrying too much about the story. I mean, not a lot happens in a Trollope novel really but, wow- the way it is written !!!!

A

I have never read Barnaby Rudge - any thoughts on it?

Also I confess I have not read Dickens for years, but my favourite was Great Expectations - I think I used to emphasise with Estella - now I think I am more like Miss Havisham 

I thought the recent BBC adaptation of Bleak House was very good.  I've just checked my bookshelf and Hard Times, which I never finished, is no longer there so I suspect it went down the charity shop.  I think it is the larger than life characters that are so compelling with Dickens - and their names of course!

No, he was a Cambridge Liberal.  I must say I am surprised at your fondness for Dickens, SK.  I would have thought he was a hopeless leftie in your books.

Regards Sapphic tendencies in Dickens.  Miss Wade in LD is a baddie and a lezzie, but with a sympathetic history.  But Esther Summerson in BH keeps on about how lovely Ada is, how sweet Charley (Charlotte) is, how sweet Caddy Jellaby is, and so on.  I suspect that this sort of female attraction would not be expressed nowadays.

I can't think of a single male character in Dickens who could be regarded as remotely gay.