The name is deceptive. I held off reading this book for the longest time because I thought it would be...well, bleak. But I have to say, it was one of the liveliest Dickens books I have read. Third only to Pickwick and Christmas Carol, and those two are ahead by virtue of long association and affection.
I loved the character of Esther Summerson. At the beginning, I was afraid she would be just another of Dickens's delicate heroines, gentle, weeping, fainting all the time, but she wasn't. She was robust. And how!
The thing I liked best about her is that she didn't wait around, weeping over the afflicted, but that she did some practical good wherever she went. No wonder she was beloved.
Richard Carstone, well, I didn't like him very much and although Dickens did his best to soften his flaws, telling these through the eyes of affection rather than judgement, I couldn't help but feel he was really spoiled and selfish. If it was his own life to trifle with, then by all means, waste it. But when he took Ada's heart into his keeping and continued on this deathly road, well then, his selfishness, more than anything else, shone through.
It was an interesting twist that the heroine of the piece was no longer beautiful, that her beauty had been ravaged by a pox, and that she still continued beloved by all who knew her. Except for that stupid clerk who firstly, had the audacity to propose to her, secondly, the audacity to pull back his proposal and thirdly, the audacity to get highly offended when he re-offered his hand and it was summarily rejected. I don't even know what to make of his mother.
Some of the characters (like the virtual child who let everyone else pay his pay through life, Harold Skimpole). I couldn't regard him as a "child" but as a selfish, spoiled, evil man. Expecting everyone to take care of him as a matter of course, and then ungrateful when the flow stopped. He should have been left to starve early on in his life. But he wasn't. How is it that people like survive?
Although he did die, five years after John Jarndyce withdrew his support, which I guess, is something.
John Jarndyce was a lovely character. I really liked him. I liked that in this novel at least, Dickens didn't drag on any misery. Although Esther was not miserable at the thought of having to marry Jarndyce as she loved him dearly as her guardian and the man who had saved her.
The woman who brought her up was a little hard to fathom. She was cold, heartless, and what she did to that little girl! But yet, Esther not only survived her treatment and insinuations, but went on to thrive.
The whole Lady Dedlock affair...the way she was chased into a corner, and her husband's reaction to it - how he loved his wife above any scandal, above his name, above everything else. That was heart warming.
And the ne'er do well son, George, who came back to a prodigal's welcome. Actually although this book had a lot of evil characters and drama...(and I think Dickens went out of his way to caricature the evil ones - they were always hideously ugly) it abounded with "the good in men's hearts". Or rather, "the good in women's hearts". I couldn't quite reconcile myself to the fact that he did not bother to save the brick-makers wives from their sorry fate (black eyes, every other day) but other than that, things seem to have been taken care of admirably.
The book held my attention throughout...the only parts I found it dragging was when that stupid clerk, Guppy was speaking. I found it hard to endure his prose...there was something so lifeless and affected about everything he said.
Tulkinghorn was an interesting character. Evil, I think, and even in death, he caused considerable trouble. I am not quite sure how Inspector Bucket went from being a villain to a hero (how he treated that young forlorn boy Jo was unforgivable, in my book) but somehow, there seems to have been a flip at the end.
I wish I had written this straight after reading the book, when I was still so full of it. Now time has softened the impressions and having to churn out so many stories in a short space of time has absorbed my energy and my memory. Maybe someday I'll re-read the book and then I'll come back here and add to my impressions of it.
For now, I'll be moving on to Oliver Twist, just as soon as I can.
I'm aware that I haven't said much about Chancery. Maybe that's because in the distance of time, it was the human drama rather than the lawsuit, this ogre in the background eating up their lives, that stuck with me. Dickens was accused of being unfair to lawyers and to the court system...and he takes issue with that straight off, in his usual funny, mocking way.
I lost the tortoise, Toto. Hopefully when I next update this blog I will be able to bring you cheerier tidings. Like, I found the tortoise. And put him back in his tank.
Ah me.
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