On Hist Fic Saturday
Let's go back to Victorian London
A cloth bound classic Penguin Classic 2011 |
Over summer I have listened to
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Just listening to a snippet here and there it’s taken me a while to
get through it. However, it's my favourite Dickens novel and so well worth taking my time over. Whilst I have read it and
watched the excellent BBC TV adaptation I have never listened to the story before, luckily,
thanks to Librivox, I was fortunate to find a recording of Bleak House,
narrated by the excellent, Mil Nicholson, who reads the story with fine
attention to detail, and such skill with character definition that it brings a whole new dimension to the story.
I am sure that everyone knows what Bleak House is all about, but in a nutshell, it's complicated story about a legal dispute involving Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has been
prominent in the London court of Chancery for many years. Along with the story
of Ada Clare and Richard Carson, who are the latest wards in Jarndyce, it is also the
story of Esther Summerson and of her connection to the enigmatic, Lady Honoria Deadlock. All these characters are
bound together in such a perverse and complicated way that it takes Dickens
well over a thousand pages to untangle the plot.
That the plot is eventually
untangled is tantamount to Dickens unique ability to weave together the most
ambitious of story lines.The great and the good of Victorian London are laid bare; none escape Dickens vitriolic observation or his sardonic wit, and as always, he combines good and evil, happy and sad,
and mingles all together with a good old dollop of wonderful storytelling.
The dark and seedy world of London society comes gloriously to life with all the finely drawn characteristics which are so reminiscent of this author's very special way with words.
Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Biography source : Goodreads
You can find out more about Charles Dickens by clicking here
Find out more about Librivox by clicking here
“There were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House
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