Bleak House 1-3

I am 'doing' Bleak House, with Zilla. I chose that phrase very carefully.

Today I had an hour to give over and managed to get to the end of chapter three, doubling the amount I had read since taking this on.

So far

Ch1:
London is a hell-hole. He doesn't mention the cholera outbreaks nor the numbers that used to die of the fogs, but he paints the atmosphere so well.

Lawyers are out to bleed you dry whilst using very long words and treating you like children. Don't tell me its an old joke, I don't suppose it was that old when this was written.
Merciless, scathing observations; pure joy.

Ch2:
A very bored, very proper fashionista who allows the Victorian version of the paparazzi to follow her every movement, is married to an old bloke with loads of money who can't get it up and can't be accused of conceit simply because he has such a total blind faith in his own rights and opinions that he's never stopped to anything as tawdry as comparing himself to others, who simply don't factor except as general populace needing his guiding hand and unimpeachable logic.
The lady wife may or may not be up the duff (in the family way), with her first ever fainting spell occuring just after her time at their country place, where she was very bored, watching virile employees. She left there after a particular virile employee looked happy to see his wife and child.

Even after laughing at the pomposity and fallibility of these two, now I am on tenterhooks and know now why this succeeded so well in its original format as 19 episodes for a London periodical.

Ch3: We meet Esther. She is, at least in her early days, a simpering twit, and I would like to slap her. However I forgive Dickens, because her unbelievable saccharrin piety (which reminded me of the act put on by Puss In Boots in the Shrek movies) was absolutely the best foil for his descriptions of the two women who dragged her up - both complete cows.

I wonder if he likes to cameo himself in his own books - I wonder if he was the man hidden by the outsized fur coat, being kind and observant yet 'floored' by his own creation. I wonder how long it took to get a pork pie shipped in from France, and what their shelf life was.

School was a narrative to explain her change from foil for the comedy of the old cows to Saint and frail heroine with shades of a backbone, and the bit in court is a filler to get her introduced to the cast and off to Bleak House.

I know some people like Jellyby, one of them was a local Magistrate. British eccentricity even hits the women, sometimes. Very intelligent and as batty as, well, a batty thing full of bats. (To quote Blackadder, I suspect.)


I am thus far and no further.

Zilla, am I doing this right, kind of?

Gratitude

So there I was this morning, finally mopping the kitchen floor, something I've avoided since signing the permission form for my cat's extermination. "Euthanasia permission form", it was called. I am a moggy murderer. He pulled his front leg away as hard as he could as he saw the needle approach, but was too frail to do more.

I feel like such a cow. It doesn't seem to matter, from this perspective, that as his system shut down the poisons building up would get further into his little brain and cause him fits and all sorts of yucky side effects. There is no palliative care, for cats.

Anyway, the sight of his muddy paw prints from the cat flap to his bowl, then the discovery of cat biscuits that he'd scattered under the fridge, all caused me a moment of self pity and tearfulness, for which I was grateful. Although my youngest daughter has cried every night, since his loss (she used to take him to bed with her for half an hour or so), I haven't managed a wet eye of my own since that day.

I took the opportunity, then, when the floodgates creaked open this morning, to have a proper wallow.

And then DOH got in touch.

He's trying to postpone a 7-week training course he has to take, half way up the country - this morning he was sent notice that one of his best friends at work (DOH is on secondment right now) is losing a battle with cancer and has only weeks to live. The funeral and the currently scheduled training course will clash.

Damn, but how to take the wind out of your sails, your lungs - how to take the blood from your arms and the bones from your legs.

I am so, so grateful. Things, creatures, people are so fleeting, so transitory, and yet, if we're lucky, as we hurtle through, we get to be touched by them, we get to have fond thoughts of them and to know the world is good, because of them. And even when it hurts like hell, sacrificing that connection is just not worth thinking about.

And now, for posting this, I am late for work. But who cares - some things make others pale into insignificance, and that's what life's all about.

Bleak House

I appear to be in an online book network with Zilla, who has invited me to read Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

I really don't know what else I'm supposed to do apart from contract to read from start to end, but I ordered a paperback copy from Amazon for the princely sum of £1.99.

It arrived today. It looks MUCH larger than £1.99's worth of paper and print.

Zilla, can I start today? Please? Are we supposed to set a time limit, or agree to start on the same day, or anything like that?

See what I know?.... absolutely nothing.

To my shame (I like Dickens, as a rule) I've never read the book. From the first few paragraphs, available as a 'peek inside' on the Amazon product page, the wonderful, evocative description of polluted Victorian London in all it's choleraic putrescence, makes me wonder how the house of the title could be any more bleak than that.

The print I bought is from the series of Wordsworth Classics, which I now find are written for the student, with a full, heavily biographical introduction followed by ten pages of small print about the historical context and setting. I am dutifully ignoring both, in order to enjoy the story, first.

In other news, my cat is ill. He is almost eighteen years old and has taken poorly with a stomach ache this evening. I am not on the poverty line so do not qualify to call out the PDSA or other charitable body. On the other hand I do not drive, nor do I have at my disposal the £26 initial consultation fee, the £50 'out of hours' surcharge and the minimum £50 taxi fare for a round trip to the nearest town with an all night vet. That's £125 ($176) before we even get to the cost of any meds or other treatment.

I am probably up tonight, fretting if not also nursing him until the morning, when the local vet will open for business. I feel so guilty and useless. He's settled, if lethargic and off his food, until he tries to move, and then he sounds so plaintive that my bones mourn. I love him to bits.

So I could do with a book.

Bleak house, indeed.

Twilight

This week I read the whole Twilight series - all four books. I've not bothered with the movie.

YD (who had spent the entire half term week in her room, achieving the same) had begged me to read the story, and had been far, far too bouncy and excitable about it, almost squealy, as if there were dramatic emotions rushing through her little heart that she could not voice except to someone who had 'been there'.

It turns out she skipped through the touchy-feely bits (although they were very discrete, very tactfully worded), as she was not quite ready to accept a detour from the rest of the book, the 'real' action and adventure, as she saw it. Well that's a relief, then.

No, she was all wrapped up in the martyrdom, terror, loving self-sacrifice, uncontrolled fury, heroes and rescues and constant, constant drama. She was totally identifying with the swooning teenage heroine who gets it all, bigger and better than she'd ever imagined, but not before volunteering to go without, to save the day and face nearly certain death again, usually whilst running headlong into an entirely unrelated rescue at the same time.

The "I am not worthy and if I say it loud enough others will rush to correct me and give me everything" masochist Cinderella theme was worryingly predominant, even though the action ran close to Romeo and Juliet. Bella was teary eyed, determined to be the bait on the hook and spent all of the action scenes declaring her willing sacrifice and general lowliness. Predictably she came out best at everything in the whole 'saving the world against all odds' arena and had to blushingly accept effusive hero worship. And awe, can't forget reverential awe.

There was lots of fainting. Lots. And fashion.


Now, where'd I leave that bucket?...