This book has completely changes my opinion of Dickens. Like so many I studied Great Expectations at school and it was a dreary job. Imagine my delight to find in Bleak House a wonderfully compelling story where your expectations of characters are overturned and the story has wonderful plot twists. It's a really engaging read, or in this case listen.

Miriam Morgolyes does an exquisite job of narration, giving each character their own distinct voice; I really have no idea how she does it.

The books winds together many seemingly disparate stories into one: Ester and her mysterious birth, the grand family of the Dedlocks, the famous case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, the apparently childlike Mr Skimpole, the lawyers and their clerks, the wonderfully genteelly batty Miss Flite and the trooper and his friends.

I found Ester, one of the principal narrators, quite amusing, since she is the pattern of a demure useful moral victorian lady. It leaves me wondering if this was Dickens' ideal of feminine virtue. However, I think she was set up as such to be a contrast to the mystery of her birth; the sins of the parents not being visited upon that of the child in this case. I can see however that she could be, for some at least, a rather annoying prissy little woman.

There are some truly touching scenes which Dickens deals with sensitivity and tenderness, particularly in relation to the very poor Joe. This is in marked contrast to his treatment of the lawyers, for whom one can presume Dickens lost no love. He is scathing in his condemnation of the waste of time and money, their cynical manipulation of people and circumstances for their own ends. It is clear that he feels that the Court of Chancery was the last place an honest person should go for justice, the case of Mr Gridley is clearly an example of how it ruined ordinary people.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and had to race through the final third of the book, desperate to find out what happened next. Highly recommended, even if you think you don't like Dickens. ( )

Really jumped in the deep end with this being my first Dickens; big ol’ satire that takes its time to get going but then becomes a fun little detective foil. I want a bad b like Mrs Bagnet in my life, but then again discipline must be maintained.

Also gotta add that mentally I kept misreading Mr Tulkinghorn as Mr Turkington, which all Greggheads and cinema buffs will get a huge kick out of. ( )

Dickens' 17th important work, his 9th novel, his 1st utter masterpiece. Bleak House is gorgeous, powerful, and diffuse in a way that signals we're on to the author's third act, in which the vibrant characters and internal examination he had been trialling begin to come together. Apparently, as he got to the end of this novel, Dickens was finding his life and its burdensome pile of commitments to be a little much, but perhaps it was because he was giving more than ever to his work. Lady Dedlock and Esther both provide dimensional (well, at least bordering on two-dimensions, which is something for this guy) portraits into this maudlin world. The social satire of the Jarndyce case is barbed in a different way to Dickens' anger on the treatment of the poor: it is a more tongue-in-cheek satire about the inanities of humankind. Richard and Ada aren't exactly fountains of great depth, but their actions still contribute their detail to the many facets that make up this unified whole. While I think that Dorrit and Great Expectations are also masterpieces (and I haven't yet read Our Mutual Friend), Bleak House is absolutely the most Dickensian of CD's achievements. ( )

“Bleak House” by Charles Dickens may be a long, complex and even convoluted novel, yet its central message seems simple enough. Love and family mean everything. Everything else, not so much.

The entire story circles around, but rarely dips into, a civil suit over a will that has been sitting — rarely moving at all —in court for years, even decades. Most of the novel's many characters are involved in the suit in one way or another. The happiest ones manage to ignore it and just get on with their lives.

Dickens gives us two narrators. One is a young woman named Esther Summerson, raised by a woman not her mother who treated her like sin itself. Upon this woman's death, Esther comes under the guardianship of John Jarndyce, one of the principals in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Her life and sense of worth improve significantly and don't even change much after a serious illness destroys her physical beauty. Everyone, it seems, loves Esther, as does the reader. Three men want to marry her.

The second narrator is omniscient, who in present tense tells us everything going on that Esther is not a witness to. The characters and subplots are too numerous to mention. Two characters that should be mentioned, however, are Sir Leicester Dedlock and Lady Dedlock, members of the aristocracy who return to the story again and again. Lady Dedlock, whose extreme haughtiness turns out to be a pretense to hide her guilt, has a secret she shares only with Esther.

The novel first appeared in serial form in 1852, so it is worth noting that Dickens gives us one of the earliest detectives in fiction, Mr. Bucket, who investigates both a murder and a disappearance in these pages.

When this is not an exciting detective story, it most often becomes a love story. Couples marry. A son returns to his family, where he is welcomed like the Prodigal. Old couples remember what drew them together in the first place.

Bleak House itself is one of two stately residences described in these pages, and despite what its name may suggest, this turns out to be the happy home, the one where Esther goes to live. It is the other house, where the Dedlocks live, that seems haunted.

I would not rate “Bleak House” as Dickens's best novel, as many people do — I prefer “Little Dorrit” and “Our Mutual Friend” — yet there is no denying its sweeping power and vibrancy. ( )

That was one long book. ( )