Scoop of the e-e-evening: Bleak House

(An Eloise-inspired review.)

Oh my lord I love love love Dickens. I spent rawther a lot of time with my ipod this month for instance every day I had to go to the laundry room and fold laundry for a few hours even when I’d already folded it all. And here’s the thing of it: Mrs. Bagnet is such the best.

I had to put the book on pause every time I vacuumed, so you can see it was an extremely lot of extra work to read Bleak House. But worth it.

Mr. Vholes takes off his gloves as if he were skinning his hands.

Here’s what I like:

[The rooms] were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was fastened up with a fork.

He was very good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I had given him before we went to church) and would dip him head first into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth.

“My friends,” says Mr. Chadband, “what is this which we now behold as being spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?” Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, “No wings.”

“Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is.”
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Some people think Dickens is boring boring boring. But I say I’ll have The Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop and Nicholas Nickleby merci and charge it please.

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