Supposing Bleak House

by John O. Jordan

Supposing "Bleak House" is an extended meditation on what many consider to be Dickens’s and nineteenth-century England’s greatest work of narrative fiction. Focusing on the novel’s retrospective narrator, whom he identifies as Esther Woodcourt in order to distinguish her from her younger, unmarried self, John Jordan offers provocative new readings of the novel’s narrative structure, its illustrations, its multiple and indeterminate endings, the role of its famous detective, Inspector Bucket, its many ghosts, and its relation to key events in Dickens’s life during the years 1850 to 1853. Jordan draws on insights from narratology and psychoanalysis in order to explore multiple dimensions of Esther’s complex subjectivity and fractured narrative voice. His conclusion considers Bleak House as a national allegory, situating it in the context of the troubled decade of the 1840s and in relation to Dickens’s seldom-studied A Child’s History of England (written during the same years as his great novel) and to Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx. Supposing "Bleak House" claims Dickens as a powerful investigator of the unconscious mind and as a "popular" novelist deeply committed to social justice and a politics of inclusiveness. Victorian Literature and Culture Series

Genres: Literary Criticism

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. The chapter on the psychoanalysis of Esther is profound.

[Janean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not get enough of Bleak House so read this right after finishing it. For the Dickens lover, this book is like a second course which leaves one wanting to reread the entree.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had the pleasure to read ‘Bleak House’ many times before, and each time found something new, exciting, puzzling, intriguing. John O. Jordan is one of the preeminent Dickens scholars but, for some reason, I had never read this text. What a mistake on my part!

Jordan’s approach and analysis of ‘Bleak House’ was unique, challenging, and immensely clarifying. His writing style is, at the same time, erudite and relaxed, insightful and questioning, informative and engaging.

His take on Esther Summerson, who he prefers to call Esther Woodcourt, and Lady Dedlock is both subtle and remarkable. Such a fine reading and interpretation.

On a more personal level, my interest in Dickens's illustrators was also a reason I found this book so informative. Professor Jordan devotes an entire chapter to the relationship between Dickens and his illustrator Hablot Browne. His interpretation of how the letterpress and the illustrations function in the novel was very insightful.

A most informative book and well worth reading.