Bleak House

Finally, after months, I have finished Charles Dickens' Bleak House. At almost 900 pages of true Dickens-style wordiness and extreme detail, it's a beast, a behemoth, of a book. I felt like I had been reading it forever (though schoolwork didn't exactly help my reading progress) and almost gave up at one point, which is pretty much unheard of for me, but decided that since I had started to tackle this monster, I had better finish it and go for the touchdown. (Forgive the random football reference, but I am watching the Vikings/Eagles game at the moment.) Therefore, I did finish it, and really did enjoy it. I decided to read it after hearing about a BBC movie version, and thought I should know the story beforehand. While Dickens' language can be overwhelming at times, I continue to find myself drawn to his books, and mostly the darker ones, where the dirty fog of 19th century London seems to actually emanate from the pages of the book and swirl around your head. The difficulties faced by his characters become so real that I just have to keep reading to see if they win or lose. I remember reading Hard Times in college (amazing as well!) and the whole class just felt for this one character (I think his name is Stephen Blackwell, or something like that, but I can't remember exactly at the moment...) because he just couldn't get ahead. Then we'd remind each other that "...well, the title of the book is Hard Times..." Anyway. I loved Bleak House as well, but even so, might have to lay off the 19th century Brit lit for a while. : )