Finished Bleak House, yay! I'm glad you said it was a soap opera before I started, Jesse, that put me in the right frame of mind. I was way more worried about that whole Jarndyce-Woodcourt-Summerson situation than the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit, but that also worked out better so all to the good. For some reason I keep wanting to call Esther Summerson "Ethel Summersby" which makes searching the text pretty frustrating, but after a rocky start when I wasn't sure I'd make it through the parts she narrates I did grow pretty fond of her. Bucket will be an excellent addition to my informal database of early detectives, quite a departure from the Dupin mold! I started watching the 2005 PBS miniseries (with Gillian Anderson) and it might be a little too This is Serious Art for me, Dickens's little winks and nods to the reader are my favorite parts, but I'm not giving up on it yet. I was hoping that the performance would clarify why everyone seems to enjoy Skimpole's company so much but they seem to have opted for less universal fondness instead. Ah well. I might give the Diana Rigg version a try also, or I might decided I've had enough of Bleak House, we'll see.
Mystery of Edwin Drood up next, although I will be taking a bit of a break to enjoy While We Were Dating and maybe some other books that have come my way...
I saw the Diana Rigg version and enjoyed it quite a bit. There's a PBS show called "Dickensian" (I think) that mixes up Dickens characters from a number of his books; I enjoyed that as well. It does give you Miss Havisham's back story, which I found interesting.
I've only ever read A Christmas Carol (which I love), Great Expectations (which was ok I guess), and now Bleak House (which I liked) so I feel like I would have to do a lot of homework for Dickensian
Well, I don't think I've read much more, but I got enough of the references to know who people were (Little Dorrit, for example).
Yeah, other than knowing that is probably a character from Dickens I don't know who that is
I started reading A Deadly education last night snd I found the first chapter to be whiny and boring. Should I push through? Does it get better?
Yes, I'd say so. I wasn't wild about it to start with but was entirely enthusiastic by the end.
I loved that book, but can definitely understand why El's narrative voice comes across as whiny to some. To me it made sense given what we know/learn about her and her world, but I wouldn't say it changes a whole lot over the course of the book.
I'm usually not a person that needs a character to be likable, but I was thinking "Please shut up" by the time I finished the first chapter. Is there more action later in the book or is it all talky?
