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.
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2 comments:
I'm still sad over your cat. It's never easy when their time comes, is it? Did hubby make it home, at least to offer a much needed hug and a cup of soothing tea?
Oh, dear Kitty. May your memory be for a blessing.
As for Bleak House, let's go! My copy provides several pages of analysis and commentary by Vladimir Nabokov, if you can believe that. I've decided to skip it as well. 900 plus pages of teeny-tiny type will have me in new spectacles by the time we're half finished.
I picked this book up in an airport bookstore. A pilot smirked at me, "You really think you'll finish it?"
"Assigned reading from my mother, a retired English teacher."
She swears it's the funniest book, ever.
I'll surely have some questions.
What's a comfortable pace for you?
It is essential to report each and every word that requires the use of a dictionary. How's that for a rule?
Funny you should be about to start "Bleak House" right after reading The-Books-That-I-Refuse-To-Name, because the heroine of "Bleak House" has one small thing in common with the "heroine" of those badly written fanzines--she continually goes on about how unworthy she is!
Other than that she is a lot more readable. Charles Dickens took care with things like characterization and plot and writing style. Little details that the Mormon Barbara Cartland seems to have forgotten...
I read "Bleak House" in college as part of a Dickens, Austen and Eliot course I took. Funnily enough, later on I took a trip to England, went on a "Dickens Walk" in London and was the only one on the tour who knew what the guide was talking about in terms of the Inns of Chancery and such!
If you and Zilla can get through the first chapter, which is about the FOG, you will probably get through this in style. It's got some of Dicken's most wonderful supporting characters. I don't know about FUNNY though...
The hard thing about cats is that we love them and know that their time and ours are not in sync. I lost my first girl 10 years ago and I still miss her!
Glad to see you posting. I was afraid you were leaving us again :}
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