On the Road Read-A-Long: Week Three

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

• Sal seems to be in love with everything, which makes it really hard to determine his character. As Jacqueline mentioned, he admits to faults or poor decisions and I believe he is honest about his experiences; however, he seems to use other people just as much as anyone else in the group. Sometimes he’s a wide-eyed young boy in love with life and at other times he seems older, wiser, and more cynical (for lack of a better word). While I find it difficult to get to know him, this makes me like him even more (and Kerouac’s writing, for that matter). What real person doesn’t have these complexities?

•  This passage stood out to me because it shows just how in love he is with not only the West, but with the way of life that he encounters when he is with Terry: “Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple disk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries” (p. 80). I agree with the idea that he is “playing” at these different lifestyles, but he puts his heart into it.

•  I couldn’t help but laugh at the description of the cafeteria they ate at, which was decorated like a grotto. Maybe its immaturity, but I found the idea of “metal tits spurting everywhere and great impersonal stone buttockses belonging to deities and soapy Neptune” hilarious in that setting (p. 88).

•  I am a bit confused as to what “beat” means, as he uses in it the story. For example: “Terry and I were finally reduced to trying to get jobs on South Main Street among the beat countermen and dishgirls who made no bones about their beatness, and even there it was a no go” (p. 88). What is beatness? Is this just a counterculture? Or a quality? Here, it almost seems as though it’s a visible part of them.

•  I adore this quote about Dean and Marylou’s relationship: “She understood Dean; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad” (p. 113). And again with the semi-colons! Love it!

•  This is another great quote that characterizes Dean a bit more: “Fury spat out of his eyes when he told of things he hated; great glows of joy replaced this when he suddenly got happy; every muscle twitched to live and go” (p. 113).

 

 

On the Road Read-A-Long: Week Two

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

• I found this week’s reading as exciting as last week’s. Although he isn’t moving physically, from one place to another, his mind is constantly jumping. Even when at work he’s thinking and doing so many things.

• I find Kerouac’s writing to be full of almost unexpected gems. He’s going on about a car ride or a night at work and then all of a sudden he hits you with a passage that is profound and beautiful. For example, on page 42, after Talking about Dean’s potential: “Marx said ‘Hmm’ in his soul and thought about this.” Kerouac seems to have people converse with their souls, or speak through their souls, often (well, maybe this is the second time). I’d be interested to know what he thinks about the soul–is this a clever turn of phrase or does he believe in the soul? In the idea that someone can know themselves well enough to converse with themselves? I think that, if any group of people knows themselves well enough, it is this group.

• I was SO sad by the response of Rita Bettencourt when Sal asked her what she wanted to do with her life. “‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just wait on tables and try to get along.’ She yawned” (p. 57). I can’t imagine not having personal goals, career aspirations, etc. to work toward. Is this how women were expected to act, what they were expected to want out of life, in this time period, or is Rita just an incredibly boring person? I like that Sal seems to find her boring–he even tells her not to yawn. This means that at least he expects more out of a woman, even if society doesn’t (but doesn’t that seem to be at odds with some of the other attitudes toward women?). I think some research into the pervasive culture of the time might do me some good here.

• I also thought it was interesting that, after he takes Rita home, he says that “sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk.” This makes me feel as though many of these people are just pretending to fit in with this crowd.

• As far as the sentence structure goes, I LOVE that Kerouac uses my favorite punctuation mark, the semi-colon, so often. I first thought his writing style was a lot like Hemingway’s, and there are similarities, but there are some nuances here that Hemingway’s style doesn’t have. “I didn’t know what to say; he was right; but all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was going all over the country” (p. 67). The verbiage is similar, I can almost hear Hemingway saying this, but the way it is delivered is so different.

• While on the Hemingway note, does anyone know what story they are referencing on page 78? When Major calls Sal Sam and Sam calls Major Jake? Jake’s in The Sun Also Rises, but I don’t think there’s a Sam… I could be wrong, it’s been a good two years since I’ve read it and a quick check on SparkNotes didn’t help.

• Last note and then I’ll wrap up this novel I’m writing here. I love that Sal expresses some sort of uncertainty/regret at picking up and leaving. On page 75 he says: “Gad, what was I doing three thousand miles from home? Why had I come here?” This makes him more human to me. I have had that moment, where I’m somewhere and just want to be home. This makes his story a bit more real to me.

On the Road Read-A-Long: Week One

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

We have finally started the On the Road read-a-long! For the next few weeks I will be posting my thoughts on our reading and any interesting facts that I learn along the way. I look forward to everyone else’s thoughts about this one! It’s my first venture into Beat literature and, so far, I am loving it.

• The writing style is conversational and a bit reminiscent of Hemingway in its simplicity. While it does have some darker descriptions, it doesn’t have that dark undercurrent that Hemingway’s work has. I love the buoyancy of the story, and of Sal’s character.

• What a contrast the first couple of sentences are to the rest of the book! “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead.” To go from this to an exceptionally vibrant story, so quickly, is fantastic.

• I love the scene on page 4 where they are talking about writing. Always interesting to see that famous, successful writers also have “literary inhibitions and grammatical fears.”

• The passage on page 15, where he wakes up and isn’t sure who or where he is, is wonderful. He really is changing his life, but this constant change seems to be a natural part of him.

• “It was the spirit of the West sitting right next to me. I wished I knew his whole raw life and what the hell he’d been doing all these years besides laughing and yelling like that. Whooee, I told my soul, and the cowboy came back and off we went to Grand Island” (p.19). I love this image of him talking to his soul, as if he and his soul share a moment of appreciation for the West. The idea itself, though, is interesting. This scene reads almost as if he and his soul are in on some joke. It reminds me of the relationship between people and their daemons in Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. And of Descartes, although the parallel there isn’t quite as clear cut.

• The above passage reveals the boyish obsession, really, that Sal has with the West. What is it about the West that is so appealing? Is it the wide open spaces? The unknown? Or was it a cultural thing (of course, Manifest Destiny occurred some time prior…)? Is this a fascination of Sal’s, or one that his generation shares? It’s hard to tell, since he and his group are so outside of the pervasive culture.

• I can’t get over the idea of just picking up and leaving. It’s such a foreign concept to me. As someone who plans EVERYTHING, it’s so interesting to see a group of people who just leave their lives behind. Honestly, it gave me a bit of anxiety. As I was reading, my mind was screaming “What about work? Food? Money?” A part of me wishes I had no attachments and were free to just leave.

• I love the image of him riding in the back of the truck with the rest of the hitchhikers, drunk, listening to Mississippi Gene sing. The stars overhead and the vibrancy and happiness he feels are almost overpowering.

• Last thing: his love poem to the waitress is adorable. The way he describes it is fantastic: “It was a little poem about how I wanted her to come and see the night with me” (p. 32). The idea of experiencing the night as something of interest is fascinating. I’m a bit sad that people don’t sit and just BE more often, as this seems to imply (although I’m sure he had far more… athletic interests in mind).

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Final Post

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

We did it! Three months and 822 pages later, we finished our reading of Bleak House.

In the last few chapters, Chuck ties up all the loose ends that he created over the hundreds of pages. With so many characters, there are numerous story lines to attend to before closing the novel. For this reason, I’m not going to do my regular run down of notes because I don’t want to give it all away (I’m looking at you, kids, who find my blog through searches for book plots. Do your homework!).

What I will say is that Chuck is a masterful writer who, although a bit verbose at times, knew how to weave one hell of a tale. The back stories that he provides for all the characters, even the most seemingly insignificant of them, allow him to create a rich narrative while developing his characters almost effortlessly.

Esther, in particular, won me over in the end. She annoyed me throughout most of the novel, but she is one of the characters who grew the most. The Esther in the end of the book was a completely different woman than the little girl who started her narrative in one of the first few chapters. Not only did she grow, but her development seemed organic.

I will say that I am happy with the end of the novel. The plot points that needed to be hit were fulfilled and Chuck had me guessing what was going to happen up until the last two or three pages. In fact, “Esther, you’re killing me!” is one of the last notes I have written in the margins before Chuck starts to wrap things up.

The only thing that has left me a bit confused is why Guppy renewed his proposal and whether or not he was serious. This detail doesn’t affect the storyline at all, so it’s not really a spoiler, but it is something that bothered me. If anyone has an explanation, do tell!

Although it was long and difficult to get through at times, I am very glad to say that I have read Bleak House. I learned a lot about Chuck, about the Victorian era, and about what makes great writing so, well, great. I hope to see everyone at the next read-a-long! Wallace is hosting On the Road during June and July and I’m looking forward to the change of pace. From the Victorians to the Beats, should be fun!

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Week Twelve

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

• I had hoped that Sir Leicester would forgive Lady D and I was SO happy when he did that I cheered out loud then fought back tears. He doesn’t hesitate to give her “full forgiveness” and is so bent on finding her that his own image, if you will, is put aside for the first time during the novel.

• I also really appreciate Bucket’s way of handling things. He is efficient, clever, and tries to make it easiest for everyone involved. I love that he thought to bring Esther, and that during the trip he was able to focus on both her comfort (or what little he could provide for her) and the hunt for Lady D. Although the last reading’s depiction of him was somewhat contrived, as everything fell into place too easily, this week’s reading shows what he is capable of.

• This quote not only foreshadowed Lady D’s death, but is elegantly written: “As all partings foreshadow the great final one,–so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be” (p. 737).

• I also loved this passage: “Upon the wintry night it is so still, that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, and all is heavier than before” (p. 743).

• The scene where Esther finds Lady D is full of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it was sad and I knew that Esther didn’t get it, which caused a bit of anxiety. I kept worrying about how she would react when she finally realized who it was. But the way that Mr. Woodcourt tries to protect her is so sweet: “I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me, even with tears, before I went up to the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said [...] I saw, but did not comprehend, the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt’s face. I saw, but did not comprehend, his touching the other on the breast to keep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a reverence for something” (p. 756). I don’t believe that, up to this point, we have seen a man cry in this story. This seems somewhat significant and certainly caught my attention. The fact that he is “uncovered in the bitter air” shows that he has put himself, willingly, into a vulnerable position for Esther’s sake. I just want to shake Esther and scream “HE LOVES YOU!!”

• Chapter 60, the chapter immediately following Esther’s discovery of her mother’s death, starts with more emotion than we have seen from Esther to date. Well, more REAL emotion, not the self-pity that we’ve gotten used to from her. Interestingly, we see this emotion in what she doesn’t tell us: “I proceed to other passages of my narrative.” She repeats this twice in two paragraphs. This tells me that Esther’s pain is real, it’s something that even she, who loves to call attention to herself, cannot put into words. I love that Chuck included this. Esther is not my favorite, but this shows that she has learned, emotionally, from her experiences. Can you imagine the Esther of the first couple hundred pages reacting this way? Not at all!

• I also love that Chuck brought Miss Flite’s birds back and sort of cemented the foreshadowing that I thought they held in the beginning of the story: “‘Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.’ ‘Really, Miss Flite?’ said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her confidence received with an appearance of interest. She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. ‘Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!’” (p. 763). This passage makes me worry for both Ada and Richard. Ada foreshadows Richard’s death, but this passage makes me a bit anxious about her own place in the story.

• On page 767, Ada confesses her worries to Esther at the piano. As she talks, she plays the piano without actually striking the keys, so the song is silent. I love this image, as it reflects the silence of Ada’s own hopes. Like the silent keys, her hopes and concerns are empty. There is absolutely nothing that Ada can do to save Richard or change the consequences of the decisions she has made. Like the song she plays, Ada is ineffective and hollow.

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Week Eleven

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post may contain spoilers.

• I’m still holding out for Esther and Woodcourt to get together. There’s a little trouble in paradise on page 656, where Esther admits she isn’t quite happy with how she’s been treated as a fiancée: “I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had meant to be, since the letter and the answer.” Of course, in true irritating Esther fashion (sorry, she grates my nerves), she does the self-pity thing and seems to blame herself.

• Bucket. In my notes in the margin I have written “Bravo, Bucket!” and I think that about covers it. He is clever, he is funny, and he has gotten to the bottom of the murder. I love his repartee with Smallweed–and the fact that he can shut him up. I just don’t like how he ties everything up so perfectly. I didn’t see it coming–although in hindsight Hortense is a good suspect. There just weren’t enough clues leading up to it and it felt too maneuvered on Chuck’s behalf.

• I loved the scene where George and his mother reconnect and Mrs. Bagnet pokes him with the umbrella instead of interrupting them. I love George, but he really doesn’t get the world at all. Idealism is all well and good when he’s alone at his shooting gallery, but he seems to have no clue how bad things are. Worse, he doesn’t seem to care that by not fighting for himself he is letting down people who love him. Selflessness does have its limits before it becomes selfish. That’s something that Chuck has shown us with Mrs. Jellyby, but I didn’t expect it from George.

• I feel really bad for Lady Dedlock, but when all is said and done I think I will be glad for her. She can finally let her emotions out, which must have been extremely difficult to hide for all those years. I hope that Sir Leicester will try to understand. I think he is capable of it, because he loves her so much. But I don’t know… I don’t like to speculate and then get my hopes up :)

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Week Ten

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post may contain spoilers.

Things are starting to come together! Here are my reactions to the reading and the conversation over at Unputdownables.

• I agree that Esther has to be very insecure. I’m a little confused as to how she is/was supposed to look. At first, I thought that she was supposed to be plain. Maybe this was in comparison to Ada’s beauty? But as the book has gone on she seems to have gotten more attractive, to the point that her scars have detracted from a real beauty. Is it just the connection with Lady Dedlock, who is supposed to be gorgeous, that is making it seem this way? I do, however, feel sorry for Esther’s loss of her looks. She is finally admitting more that she is upset by them, but she still hasn’t reacted enough to be believable. I do love this line though: “And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten” (p. 588).

• The above makes me wonder, though, if Mr. Woodcourt really is sorry for her. If he did love her, or was interested in her, of course he is sorry that she went through her illness. Perhaps he feels sorry for her in general, that she had to undergo so much, and that’s why he seems to act this way. Or, perhaps he is sorry to have lost any chance with her. She seems to make it pretty clear that she isn’t interested. I just don’t buy Mr. Woodcourt as being that superficial.

• One of the reasons that I don’t buy it is the way that he cared for Jo. Jo was no one to him–he was just one of the many homeless, hungry kids that surely populated the city. But Mr. Woodcourt went out of his way to find him shelter and nurse him, even though he knew he was going to die. But more than that–Mr. Woodcourt was visibly shaken by Jo’s death, which Mrs. Bagnet comments on when he comes for her birthday.

• Jo’s Will is an extremely sad chapter, and I feel like Dickens is reaching out of the book and showing people what is wrong with society: “He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle;s Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby’s lambs; being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; navtive ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee” (p. 602).

• Again, after Jo is dead, Dickens reaches out and shakes the collars of his contemporaries: “Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day” (p. 610).

• The other death in this reading was, as others have said, quite welcome. I was practically cheering when Mr. Tulkinghorn was killed. But isn’t it interesting how Dickens doesn’t actually show the death? Also, in death, he completely dehumanizes him, saying that the people who took his body carried “a weight” rather than a body or person.

• On a lighter note, I cannot get enough of Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet. They are so wonderful, and their relationship is refreshing. I love that he has everything planned for her birthday, everything ready to go, and that even though he botches it each and every time she accepts him as he is and appreciates his less than perfect show of love. One quote that had me laughing about this occasion: “It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious” (p. 627).

• I’m still wondering where Ada fits into all this. She is, by far, THE most underdeveloped and boring character of them all. Even Hortense, the hardly seen maid, has more personality than Ada!

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Weeks Six Through Nine

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post may contain spoilers.

Although I’ve been keeping up with the reading and the conversation at Unputdownables, my posts here have gotten a bit behind. So, here are my thoughts on chapters 30 through 45.

• I’m still not happy with how little Charley is characterized. Sure, she’s excited to be Esther’s maid and she is certainly better off than she was before, but I can’t help but feel as though she is being relegated to the same “Dame Durden” role as Esther. Here’s a line that really caught my eye in this regard: “The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her readiness” (pp. 410-411). Am I just not getting this? Is old supposed to be equated with cute or, by a stretch, innocent? I don’t like this wasted youth!
• “In the north and north-west, where the sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up, like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving” (p. 411). Sometimes Chuck catches me off guard with his way with words.
• Normally, Dickens picks names that reflect the personalities of his characters. Jobling also being called Mr. Weevle confused me, as Jobling seems so innocent and Weevle so conniving.
• The chapter where Krook spontaneously combusts is both disgusting and ingenious. As I was reading, I could almost feel the greasy air. And they kept smelling pork chops–how funny!
• “I had never known before how short life really was, and into how small a space the mind could put it” (p. 465). This is one of Esther’s thoughts when she was sick with, I believe, the smallpox. Despite the fact that Esther is not my favorite, I do really like this quote.
• Esther, at this point, is kind of annoying. She’s too good, too perfect, and too self-deprecating. Her face is scarred pretty badly by the illness, but she calls it a mere “little loss” on page 480. She does mention it when she says that she doesn’t want Ada or other people to see her after she recovers, but she doesn’t seem to be affected by it herself. This is a huge issue to me–she’s not a believable character. No person, I don’t care how ugly, beautiful, conceited, or whatnot they are, responds this mildly their entire face being scarred. Yes, they overcome it eventually I’m sure, but to just brush it off as she does isn’t natural. Yet another reason that Esther is an unreliable narrator.
•  I also have an issue with how Esther reacts to Lady Dedlock telling her that she is her mother. She says that her first thought, after finding out, is that she is glad she is scarred so that she doesn’t look like Lady Dedlock anymore, so she can’t bring shame to her. Really?! After pondering for over 20 years about who in the world your mother might be?! Unbelievable.
• The scene where Lady Dedlock admits that she is Esther’s mother gives a lot of depth to Lady Dedlock. I’m glad that she finally gets the chance to be more than a proud aristocrat. In fact, she has become one of my absolute favorite characters.
• FINALLY someone admits that Skimpole isn’t just an innocent “child.” This is one of the redeeming qualities of Esther in my mind. “I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time, when he most required some right principle and purpose, he should have this captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I could understand how such a nature as my guardian’s, experienced in the world, and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr. Skimpole’s avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour; but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed; or that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole’s idle turn quite as well as any other part, and with less trouble” (p. 496).
• “It required some attention to hear him, on account of his inward speaking and his lifeless manner” (p. 506). I love this description of Mr. Vholes.
• I also like this description of Vholes: “Make man-eating un-lawful, and you starve the Vholeses!” (p. 519).
• I was interested to learn that the phrase “beat the Devil’s tattoo” means to tap impatiently. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, one of my favorite bands, has a song that has this phrase in it and I thought they were just being creative. Apparently they are well-versed in Victorian sayings?
• “Through some of the fiery windows, beautiful from without, and set, at this sunset hour, not in dull grey stone but in a glorious house of gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in, rich, lavish, overflowing like the summer plenty of the land. Then do the frozen Dedlocks thaw” (p. 534). Love this!
• “To say of a man so severely and strictly self-repressed that he is triumphant, would be to do him as great an injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment, or any romantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied” (p. 543). This description of Tulkinghorn creeps me out! It describes him–and his detached, menacing personality–perfectly.
• I really don’t like Skimpole’s relationship with his daughters. He sees them as objects, not people. “I have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all” (p. 561). This attitude is both surprising and to be expected. On the one hand, I can’t imagine Skimpole having a real emotional connection to anything or anyone other than himself. On the other hand, he claims not to care at all for material things.
• Esther’s reaction to Mr. Jarndyce’s proposal broke my heart. She seems… confused: “Still I cried very much; not only in the fulness of my heart after reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect–for it was strange though I had expected the contents–but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful; but I cried very much” (pp. 575-576).

 

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Week Five

This read-a-long is hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

This week’s reading was hard to get through. We are still being introduced to new characters and are over 300 pages into the novel! Despite this, the characterization of some already established players is going smoothly. Here are the highlights:

• I love the illustrations. They are more like caricatures, in a way, and really reflect not only the descriptions of the characters but their names, as well.

• On page 276, Mr. Jobling is described as a man again after eating a meal. Of course, this could just mean that he was animated again, but it made me think of how dehumanized the poor are. Jo is an excellent example of this, as he is treated like an object by everyone except the dearly departed Nemo.

• I really liked this quote from page 277: “That very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their being beaten round, or worked round, but in their ‘coming’ round! As though a lunatic should trust in the world’s ‘coming’ triangular!” This is interesting because it is an exclamation made by the third-person narrator, not one of the characters. This seems to criticize the lackadaisical attitude that some characters (Richard) have.

• I was intrigued by the saying on page 279: “Hem! Shakespeare!” This was translated as “Sh! Be quiet!” I tried a quick Google search and didn’t find the origin of this expression (if anyone knows where it came from let me know!) but I find it rather odd, as Shakespeare was rather verbose.

• I loved, loved, LOVED Chuck’s characterization of Judy Smallweed on page 287: “Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at any game. She once or twice fell into children’s company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn’t get on with Judy, and Judy couldn’t get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done, that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way; modelling that action of her face, she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is Judy.” What a great picture of Judy without one description of her image! So clever to use her mannerisms and history to characterize her instead of simply describing what she looks like!

• I also liked this description about Mr. Tulkinghorn, who up to this point has been characterized as a rather stuffy, official figure: “Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best [...] Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer” (pp. 301-302).

• Mr. Bucket is more than the first detective in a novel–he’s also the first Jedi: “‘You see, Mr. Snagsby,’ says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door, and shaking hands with him over and over again, ‘what I like in you is, that you’re a man it’s of no use pumping; that’s what you are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it’s done with and gone, and there’s an end of it. That’s what you do” (p. 312).

• Although Richard is grating my nerves, I do like that he finally opened up to Esther on page 316. He admits (whether we can believe him to be sincere or not is debatable) that the instability of their futures is what leaves him so unsettled. It makes sense, and I can sympathize with his situation; however, this is no excuse for not acting at all. He is contributing to the indecision that he cites as the cause for his inability to pick a career by not picking his career. Oy vey.

• Charley telling Esther that she is a gift from Mr. Jarndyce made my skin crawl. I understand the sentiment behind it, that he knew that taking the children in would make Esther happy. I know that Charley will learn from her and (fingers crossed, you never know with Chuck) be all the better for coming to Bleak House. However, giving a child as a gift? It’s the dehumanization of the poor all over again.

Bleak House Read-A-Long: Week Four

This read-a-long is hosted at Unputdownables.

This post contains spoilers.

I’m finally caught up on reading/commenting/posting! Well, these posts are often the same as my comments, but it feels good to be caught up!

This week’s reading got the plot going, as some of the bazillion characters that have been introduced are finally connecting. Still, the highlight of the story, for me, is the humor.

• First of all, Chapter 16 should be renamed “Segues,” as I felt as though I was reading a cleverly crafted news story. Chuck floats from one story to the next, pushing the chapter forward. I finally felt like the narrative was going somewhere.

• On page 219, the description of Sir Leicester’s gout had me cracking up: “Other men’s fathers may have died of the rheumatism, or may have taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive, even to the levelling process of dying, by dying of their own family gout. It has come down, through the illustrious line, like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. Sir Leicester is, perhaps, not wholly without an impression, though he has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, ‘My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to you another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout.’”

• I know that Esther is supposed to be a sympathetic character, but she’s not my favorite. In fact, I find certain things about her a bit… annoying. Maybe it’s the 21st century, independent woman in me, but Esther frustrates me. This quote, on page 233, is particularly troublesome: “What was the use of my trying to look wise, when she was so pretty, and so engaging, and so fond of him!” Really, Esther? I feel like she’s watching the final seconds before an accident and, though she might be able to stop it, isn’t acting. This is highlighted by how Mr. Jarndyce looks at Ada on page 236: “his glance was changed, and even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once more, was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally been.”

• Despite my immense dislike for Mr. Skimpole, I adore the image that Chuck creates of him on page 253: “a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long.”

• In past weeks, we have considered what Chuck wanted us to think about Mr. Skimpole. Is he supposed to be funny? Are we supposed to feel sorry for him? Is he a villain? Finally, I think I can feel justified (in terms of the author’s expectations) in my borderline hatred of the man. In Chapter 18, on page 253, Mr. Skimpole says: “Take the case of the Slaves on American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say they don’t altogether like it, I dare say theirs is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I shouldn’t wonder if it were!” Aside from the fact that this is a disturbingly selfish comment (among other things), endnote five for this chapter (which is located at the end of the first quoted sentence) reveals that Dickens was an abolitionist who abhorred slavery. Obviously he felt strongly about this cause, and giving Mr. Skimpole this line reflects that he, himself, sees him in a negative light (to put it mildly).

• I also love this line on page 267: “…and makes the echoes of Cook’s Court perform slow music for him as he walks away on the shady side…” Sometimes the story gets a bit boring and then Chuck throws in a gem of a description like this one.