Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Spoilers for Bleak House.

When I was 13, I read Great Expectations. It left me with lukewarm feelings regarding Charles Dickens. I found the book mildly enjoyable, like every other school book I read and then forgot about. It certainly didn't inspire me to hunt down any other works by Dickens. So five or so years later I was surprised to read a review of the beginning of Bleak House and finding it intriguing. I was even more surprised to find myself buying the book on an impulse

The biggest suprise of all, though, was that I ended up loving it.

There were so many memorable things about the book:

• I loved that all the places and characters had names that suited them (Miss Flite is a crazy old bird lady, Mr Krook is a bad guy, etc.) except for...wait for it...Bleak House, a happy safe haven!
• Krook spontaneously combusted!! Someone spontaneously combusted in a Charles Dickens novel. I can't even wrap my brain around how awesome that is.
• The minor characters were amusing rather than annoying. I especially liked Mr Jellyby with his head perpetually against a wall, Mr and Mrs Bagnet who have the most solid marriage in all of literature, and on and on.

I even liked Esther, who seems to garner a lukewarm reaction from other readers. She was a little more perfect than necessary, but I quite liked her. I also really liked John Jarndyce, even if his proposal to Esther skeeved me out a little bit. Richard was amusing at first, and then just annoying. Of course you would die, you idiot. *rolls eyes*

One cool extra feature of my edition (Penguin Classics) is a timeline of sorts written out by Dickens as he was plotting the book. He wrote just one or two words to tell him what he plot points he needed to bring up, when he needed to bring them up, and which characters would be featured Here's an example:

Jo? Yes. Mr Snagsby? Yes. Mrs Snagsby? Yes. Slightly.

This is my favorite note:

Jo? Yes. Kill him.

I highly recommend this book. It's a chunkster, to be sure, but a book that you can really take your time with and savor.