Have
you ever read a book that you were determined to get through no matter what but
weren’t really enjoying? Yeah, that’s happens to me frequently. Mostly because I’m
stubborn and refuse to give up on a book unless it’s inherently disturbing or I’ve
gone blind and can no longer read.
My most
recent case of book determination was while reading Bleak House by Charles
Dickens. I know it’s a literary classic and everything, but honestly, I didn’t
really enjoy it. To be fair, I kind of went into it with that mindset. What
else are you supposed to think when you pick up an 800-page book called Bleak
House? But alas, I stuck with it until the end and conquered the beast! It took
a few extra cups of coffee to get through it, but I felt super accomplished
when I finally turned that last page.
I think part of the problem for me
is that Dickens writes the way that I tend to talk and it’s really annoying.
Sometimes, when I try to describe something – it could be anything, from
raindrops on roses to whiskers on kittens (speaking of that song, can anyone
tell me why it’s considered a Christmas song? It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe
it sounds like a Christmas wish list, but who wishes for raindrops?), but I get
distracted by remembering something else and then start talking about that
before finishing my original thought.
See what I did there? If you think
that last paragraph was confusing, you should try reading Dickens! He
interrupts himself like that all the time! Yikes! I find myself having to go
back to the beginning of the sentence and skip the middle section so that I can
see how it connects to the end of the sentence. It gets really old after
awhile.
Keeping all that in mind, there
were a few good things I enjoyed about the book. For example, at the very
beginning when he spends about three pages doing nothing but describe the fog
in London, there’s a really beautiful description that he uses.
“Smoke lowering down from
chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle with flakes of soot in it as big as
full-grown snowflakes – gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of
the sun.”
That line literally gave me chills
when I first read it. What must the world have looked like in Dickens’ mind to
think of a description like that? It makes our ordinary, dreary world sound
like some kind of somber fairytale. I didn’t run across any other sentences
that stuck out to me like that one, but it is descriptions like that that
separate good writers from great, awe-inspiring, genius-freak writers. I can’t
believe I’m fangirling about a sentence right now. I’ll stop.
My second favorite part actually
surprised me, and not just because it was a twist that I didn’t see coming. It
has to do with where the main character ends up calling her home and who she
ends up with. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know what I’m talking about, but
I found myself getting teary-eyed with delight when she found out what her
guardian meant when he said that she was going to be the new mistress of Bleak
House. At the beginning of the book, I associated the title ‘Bleak House’ with
a gray and dismal feeling, but at the end I found myself overjoyed to see the
name ‘Bleak House appear outside Esther’s cozy little cottage.
“This is Bleak House. This day I
give this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in
all my life!”
Even though I wasn’t crazy about
the book as a whole (hence the two Star Lord rating), Dickens reminded me that the power in a name lies in the
meaning behind it. I started reading the book feeling depressed by the name ‘Bleak
House’, but once I got to know the characters and stated rooting for Esther’s
happiness, ‘Bleak House’ no longer represented misery and sadness for me.
Instead, Bleak House felt like home. (Hopefully, I can keep this lesson in mind
when I start to read Les Miserables.)