A review by chaosetc
Bleak House by Charles Dickens

3.0

People who enjoy Dickens are, I suppose, accustomed to how his characters tend to be caricatures. I've accepted that as his chosen style, but it was particularly heavy handed in this book. The constant repetition of set personality traits made me wish this book was shorter. I followed along quite eagerly, wanting to know what would happen, or how it would happen given the foreshadowing, but by the end it wasn't quite satisfying. That might have something to do with the ick factor surrounding a certain marriage proposal. Or perhaps because the main character had no resistance at all to other people manipulating and planning out her life. I wonder if the woman we met was really just Dickens's fantasy wife - placid, problem free, and ever at your service. Whatever the case, it did not make for a memorable story. The potentially interesting stuff, such as the unbelievably real corruption within the chancery, was mere plot device.