tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post2955672731763029458..comments2024-03-17T05:07:13.710-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Prose, prose, prosing about Bleak HouseAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-17095052559681926132014-12-17T10:19:40.246-06:002014-12-17T10:19:40.246-06:00There's one of the benefits of re-reading - yo...There's one of the benefits of re-reading - you can just skip to the good parts. Just jump to the Gordon Riots in <i>BR</i>. Ignore the pointless romance and the botched mystery.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-86306607437706214102014-12-17T10:14:40.535-06:002014-12-17T10:14:40.535-06:00I have read all the Dickens novels now ... not in ...I have read all the Dickens novels now ... not in the last ten years, but in the last forty. I really should read them again, but, while I'd be keen to read again Bleak House or Little Dorrit, i don't know that i'd be so keen to plough through, say, Barnaby Rudge or Martin Chuzzlewit, although both have some fine passages in them. There are some things one has to rad because one is a completist, and, once read, one need not return to...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-28416642786928256382014-12-11T08:14:19.670-06:002014-12-11T08:14:19.670-06:00Bleak House is superb, so there's that argumen...<i>Bleak House</i> is superb, so there's that argument. But I am already getting the itch to go back to <i>Pickwick</i>, rough and messy but in places - characters, scenes, and that fine last plot - many places - well, it will look <i>very</i> different than it did long ago. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-43400215240367183412014-12-11T02:51:09.943-06:002014-12-11T02:51:09.943-06:00I can never decide which Dicken's novel to rer...I can never decide which Dicken's novel to reread and so have gone a long, long time since reading him, the last one being Bleak House which I didn't read properly as I was in college and rushing to finish it for a tutorial that never happened. That is a lot more than ten, or even twenty years ago. Maybe I should take a pointer from your post and just start reading them again in chronological order. He was my absolute favourite writer for a few of my teenage years.Séamus Dugganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-66945529842140005312014-12-10T15:46:51.700-06:002014-12-10T15:46:51.700-06:00Dickens has a progression in his early novels that...Dickens has a progression in his early novels that moves from accidentally writing a novel (<i>Pickwick</i>) to writing novels with no plan at all (<i>Old Curiosity Shop</i>) to meaning to have a plan but either never finishing or ignoring it to, finally, making a plan (<i>Bleak House</i>). But Dickens knew himself well enough by this point to leave areas inside the big structure for improvisation, again like in a jazz score.<br /><br />These 20 part serials must have been murderously tricky to write.<br /><br />RT, get well soon.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-18719235212389693862014-12-10T14:22:41.187-06:002014-12-10T14:22:41.187-06:00If what I just said seems a bit foggy, write up to...If what I just said seems a bit foggy, write up to drip, drip, drip -- and my fondness for Bleak House.R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-2416757376105859772014-12-10T14:17:35.789-06:002014-12-10T14:17:35.789-06:00As I lounge in the hospital room, enjoying the pos...As I lounge in the hospital room, enjoying the post-op dripping Rx and the glamour-girl nurses (2 so far), I look forward to being sprung soon and returning to Bleak House -- not my house but the novel . . . R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60704440292316031082014-12-10T11:09:56.415-06:002014-12-10T11:09:56.415-06:00Oh wait: I was gonna say that I'm excitedly lo...Oh wait: I was gonna say that I'm excitedly looking forward to your posts about this novel. Go, Tom, go!scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-63727198305272779872014-12-10T11:08:40.705-06:002014-12-10T11:08:40.705-06:00The omniscient narrator in Bleak House is one of D...The omniscient narrator in <i>Bleak House</i> is one of Dickens' greatest inventions, a really magnificent thing. I would go so far as to say breathtaking.<br /><br />My copy of the novel comes with an appendix showing Dickens' fairly detailed (and long) outline of the story, including rejected ideas and a list of possible titles. Which in no way diminishes his genius as an improvisor (just as Coltrane's knowing the chord changes to the tunes in no way diminishes the genius of his solos).scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13452009592106303612014-12-10T10:54:18.274-06:002014-12-10T10:54:18.274-06:00I could just quote and quote, all of these amazing...I could just quote and quote, all of these amazing blocks of imagery that are in almost every omniscient chapter. One of the problems Dickens solves with the first person narrator is that it gives him a break from this kind of invention, or allows a different kind of invention - more dialogue in Esther's chapters, more social comedy, and fewer of the big cinematic effects, the camera swooping through the trees or focusing in on Krook's greasy cinders.<br /><br />I think we got Copperfield at his peak as a writer. That he is not as good as Dickens is not exactly shameful. For people who do not know what I am talking about, David Copperfield is by profession a novelist, but he writes three-volume novels, not serials like Dickens. And people say <i>David Copperfield</i> is autobiographical!<br /><br />As for reading them all, Dickens is a grope-your-way-forward kind of writer, the greatest improviser in fiction, so the benefit from knowing a number of his novels, and knowing the chronology, is substantial. He uses his current novel to work on problems from his previous novels. His creative or artistic biography is fascinating.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29811803882010558252014-12-10T10:16:29.277-06:002014-12-10T10:16:29.277-06:00Congrats on reading all of Dickens' novels! Th...Congrats on reading all of Dickens' novels! That's a real accomplishment. Love Bleak House and love the passage about the fog. Your comment about Esther and David Copperfield made me laugh. Perhaps if David wasn't so distracted by his silly first wife he would have developed into a better writer.Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-23711203794732969092014-12-10T09:09:45.536-06:002014-12-10T09:09:45.536-06:00This is my favourite Dickens novel, and the quotes...This is my favourite Dickens novel, and the quotes just bring all that back. I just finished re-reading Anna Karenina, and it's amazing what sticks the second (or third) time around. Guy Savagehttp://www.swiftlytiltingplanet.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-34146047331896600412014-12-10T08:32:23.184-06:002014-12-10T08:32:23.184-06:00The Irish crime novel just needs an omniscient nar...The Irish crime novel just needs an omniscient narrator to step in and sort things out once in a while.<br /><br />I fear many readers of Hemingway find him wordy as well. He writes with <i>style</i>. I think "wordy" means something like "get on with it." A way to make my impatience with style the fault of the author. If like me you think of wordiness as the use of words, as rhetorical effects and imagery, then it is the point. If you think it means <i>too many</i> words for some specific effect, then it is like complaining that John Coltrane played too many notes. Why didn't he just play the melody?<br /><br />As much as I love Dickens, I would not be shocked if it turns out to be ten years before I read him again. Ten years is not that long, is it? No. Lots of my favorites that I haven't touched for ten years.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16800952042459306622014-12-10T08:15:28.261-06:002014-12-10T08:15:28.261-06:00Looking forward to this week. Wordiness is part of...Looking forward to this week. Wordiness is part of the point of Bleak House, anyway, isn't it? Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00251983804060081813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-69469691445665376612014-12-10T04:07:15.378-06:002014-12-10T04:07:15.378-06:00My recent reading of Dickens has been the opposite...My recent reading of Dickens has been the opposite to yours: I haven't read a single Dickens novel in the last 10 years. This was after reading Little Dorrit and David Copperfield back to back. I have recently bought Bleak House though, and will get around to it soon enough (by which I probably mean, some time in the next 5 years).obookihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885121629202810216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-3105647211788767872014-12-10T03:04:33.760-06:002014-12-10T03:04:33.760-06:00The weather, for many a day and night, has been so...<br /><br /><br />The weather, for many a day and night, has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman’s axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave quagmires, where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud toward the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the falling rain. (Ch. 2)<br /><br />I fear this is what some readers are criticizing when they call Dickens “wordy,”<br /><br /><br />An interesting exercise- try to imagine what Hemingway or the other "less is more" writers would have done with the opening of Bleak House. Equally, if Dickens had worked on Hemingway- the plot of The Killers had to be expanded for the film- just think how Dickens would have filled it out!Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-44057268271772384942014-12-10T01:13:45.140-06:002014-12-10T01:13:45.140-06:00I'm currently reading an Irish crime novel (A ...I'm currently reading an Irish crime novel (A genre that Dickens would probably enjoy). It's a contemporary novel, so like so many contemporary crime novels, it shifts point of view every couple of pages to tell the story of a large cast of characters. But this shifting every few pages drives me nuts. I keep thinking, why don't people read Dickens!!!! He shifts point of view just as much but he keeps his focus on one character long enough to really get to know the character. He's just so much easier to follow. <br /><br />I look forward to your posts on Bleak House. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com