When, in a fit of excitement for the PBS’s 2006 mini-series, I purchased a copy of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, the size of the book gave me only a momentary pause. After all, if ever there is a book that can be held up as a selling point for e-readers, Bleak House and its 1000+ pages is it. Still, I wasn’t daunted; the satisfaction of seeing that book in the “Hell, yeah I read this” section of my bookshelf would be my reward. Obviously, not reward enough. Bleak House languished on my bookshelf for weeks, maybe months, until I finally pulled it down to tackle it. In the end, the length of the book didn’t keep me from reading it. The first page did. I sold the book back to Half Priced Books, at a significant loss, to banish the evidence of my failure (it wasn’t a very fetching book spine, anyway) and enjoyed every second of the mini-series, deluding myself that it was as good as the book.

I could give you many excuses as to why I didn’t soldier on and read Bleak House, all of which would be valid but would also not eradicate the essential truth that I was too lazy to give the effort required to allow Dickens engage my attention. Make no mistake, reading Dickens requires great effort on my part, especially in the early going. My difficulty is akin to the difficulty I have reading sci-fi and fantasy, as if there is a secret language, a crib sheet of information, that I am not privy to but that, if obtained, would unlock each and every one of the frustrating allusions, metaphors or obscure references that populate Dickens’ work. It takes a great effort for me to type that comma laden sentence and admit that, in short, I don’t feel smart enough to understand what Dickens is saying roughly half of the time. There was also trepidation that this admission would somehow undermine my authority on Dickens. Authority! Ha! I somehow expected myself to become an overnight expert on Dickens (along with all of my real life responsibilities, to boot) and be able to talk intelligently about every aspect of the great author’s work by reading the first volume of one book over four days. Which is patently ridiculous, I know. I believe I took the idea of great expectations too much to heart.

I love how Dickens’ can gently skewer human nature and our foibles, getting us to laugh at ourselves while never seeing ourselves in the picture he so adroitly paints. He does this by creating caricatures instead of characters. Miss Havisham is the jilted old maid, but in the extreme. Mrs. Joe the abusive mother figure. Pumblechook the pompous patron. Mr. Wopsle the absurd theatrical. We can safely laugh at these people because we aren’t like them at all, though we know someone who is. I haven’t read enough Dickens to know if these extreme characters are hallmark of his style, though if my experience with the mini-series adaptations of Dickens’ work is true, it is. His comic characters are completely ridiculous, with just enough reality to keep them grounded. His sympathetic characters, while not all good, have noble and easily overlooked faults. In volume one, Pip has the most shading and depth, primarily because the novel is told from his point of view. The characters around him are sketched based on Pip’s opinion of them. Pip isn’t an unreliable narrator but he is ignorant, immature and a less than stellar judge of character, though he can be perceptive. I’m curious to see how frustrated, if at all, I get with him throughout the book.

Now, the table is set. Characters have been put into place. Plot points and motivations have been buried beneath the caricatures. Pip has been given a fortune by an anonymous benefactor and he leaving the marshes for London. How big of a fool will he make of himself before he realizes his great expectations? That, my friends, is the question.

Other Thoughts:

• The most interesting character in Volume One is Miss Havisham, the jilted bride that has not seen the light of day since twenty past nine o’clock in the morning, many years ago. She lives in a state of suspended reality, never-changing out of the bridal dress she wore when the fateful letter of her lover’s rejection was delivered. We learn much more about Miss Havisham and her backstory in Volume Two.
• One quibble with Volume One is there isn’t a great indication of the passage of time. Pip could be anywhere from 5-10 at the beginning of the book and by the end of volume one, I have no idea how old he is. Late teens? I could find out, easily, with a bit of googling but I haven’t researched or read analysis of the book, choosing instead to write these reviews based solely on my perceptions, no matter how wrong-headed they may be.
• Much is made in volume one about Pip being “raised by hand” by Mrs. Joe. My 21st century sensibilities told me that meant that Mrs. Joe believed in the “spare the rod spoil the child” school of child rearing. Thanks to my annotated text, however, I discovered that “raising by hand” meant bottle feeding a baby.
• It’s always fun to discover where phrases that you’ve heard referenced come from. Notably, “Ever the best of friends.”  I don’t know what that is so familiar to me, but it is.

What did everyone else think of Volume One? Did it take you a while to get into the novel? Do you think my confusion might be due to the difference between American and British readers, i.e. many of these allusions Dickens makes would be easier for Brits to grasp? Is the novel interesting enough for you to read on? Dickens experts, feel free to set me right or expand on volume one in the comments.