#73
Title: Dickens’ Bleak House (Cliffs Notes)
Author: Robert Beum
Genre: Non-Fiction 823.8
Rating: B
Published:
1991
Dates: 10/18/16 – 11/14/16
Pages: 89
This
companion to Bleak House helped fill in the gaps that I missed as I was
listening to my latest Dickens “read”.
In
addition to the cast of endless characters were summaries and commentaries of
each chapter. Under his critical essays,
Beum discussed characterization which he likened to Shakespeare; theme, or in
the case of Bleak House, themes that include legal codes and Chancery Court;
technique and style which may turn off today’s generation due to details and
vocabulary and as Beum mentions, "today’s readers are no longer well-practiced
readers due to television and film being a preferred pastime"; plot and
sub-plots, the latter of which isn’t always related to the main plot but enjoy
them since, in my estimation, there’s nothing worse than a plotless story;
setting where most of the action takes place around London, Lincolnshire, St.
Albans, and lastly Yorkshire where new Bleak House is located and some rural
scenes; the fog which in Bleak House symbolizes “muddles and miseries” and
symbolism that includes foreshadowing, helpful in dealing with things to come such
as Richard Carstone’s inability to “see” in the mental and spiritual fog
generated by the High Court of Chancery.
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