Bleak House View and Read discussion

EPISODE 1

Esther Summerson is alone in the world after the death of her aunt. John Jarndyce, a man whom she has never met, offers her a home at Bleak House. Esther will be joined by Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, two orphans who have both been made wards of Chancery, since their interests are tied up in the infamous suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which brings nothing but ruin and despair to all it touches.

The original publication's first installment included only Chapters 1-4; I've added Chapter 5 to even out the reading since BBC's Episode 1 is one hour long and actually covers events from Chapters 1-10 and that seems to me too much for our first read. Not all the plot threads are going to be a perfect match between book and film, but I think it will be fairly close. With the second BBC episode, the producers switched to a thirty minute format that generally covers about five chapters from the book.

Bleak House Chapters

Chapter 1. In Chancery
Chapter 2. In Fashion
Chapter 3. A Progress
Chapter 4. Telescopic Philanthropy
Chapter 5. A Morning Adventure

Epsode 1, Scenes 1&2; Chapter 1. In Chancery

Bleak House BBC Producer Nigel Stafford-Clark and directors Justin Chadwick and Susanna White plunge us into the world of Bleak House using two cameras, hand-held - the way Steven Soderbergh shot Traffic. It suited both the fast-moving, multi-story screenplay that Andrew Davis was writing, and the need to shoot far more quickly than on any previous period adaptation.

Dickens opens his novel with fog: "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits [small islands] and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city....at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery."

The BBC film opens with torrential rain instead of fog; the first scene is of young Esther Summerson bundling into a coach and four, the horses cantering through the rain with great urgency. Then the scene shifts to the Chancery and the High Chancellor and it is indeed very foggy inside! Little seems urgent here, but it seems that 'Something stirs in Jarndyce & Jarndyce'.

The film introduces us very quickly to a host of characters, some of whom won't become important until later in the book. I loved the brief encounters with street sweeper Jo, the mysterious Nemo and the batty bird lady, aptly named Miss Flyte. Still it's a lot to keep track of so the character lists and photos on the PBS site are really useful. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/b...

Do you have a favorite character so far? My vote goes to the sinister Mr. Tulkinghorn. Runner-up, the hapless Mr. Guppy.

Chapter 1: I love the dialog between the Chancellor and Mr. Tangle (and what a great name!). 'Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have read anything else since he left school.'

Chapter 1 "In the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog sits the Lord High Chancellor...."

Chapter 2: "It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion....the evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds...it is a deadened world and its growth is somewhat unhealthy for want of air."

Chapter 2, p. 11: "My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight...and seeing...a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a...man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been 'bored to death.'"



p. 13: "She supposes herself to be an inscrutable Being--seeing herself in the glass, where indeed she looks so. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices..."

Mrs. Jellaby: Telescopic Philanthropy



p. 39: 'The African project at present employs my whole time....I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.'

p. 45 'I wish Africa was dead!



p. 46: 'It's disgraceful,' she said. 'You know it is. The whole house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'm disgraceful. Pa's miserable, and no wonder!....I wish I was dead...I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us.'

Love all the pictures Hana! :) I loved the opening of the novel. The atmosphere created is depressing and miserable, yet it piqued my curiosity early on because of the feeling of secrecy and mystery hanging on the town and the Court. My favourite character so far would be Esther Summerson, and I like the way she tells her side of the events.
Mrs. Jellyby was very...special. So devoted to her mission in Africa, yet her children were in a very pitiful and neglected state, and she didn't seem to care about them at all!

Yes! Mrs Jellaby was something else--she's turned poor Caddy into a total drudge. That bit where she stands in Esther's room dipping her fingers in vinegar to get some of the ink off. Pitiful!

I'm so glad you liked Esther. I took a while to warm up to her. I'm really enjoying her evolution as the book goes on.

I've been enjoying the way Dickens uses his savage and very sharp wit to puncture all sorts of pretentious people:

Mrs. Jellaby seems to be one of those do-gooder types who gets her kicks from corresponding with all sort of important people about important causes, but can't see her own family's needs.

And how about Mr. Tangle, the pompous lawyer and his learned friends, who all bob about 'each armed with eighteen hundred sheets...make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity.'

And then there is Sir Leicester Dedlock, who is 'only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has the general opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks.'

But Dickens also seems to have a little (a very little) bit of compassion for these punctured pretentious characters. I sort of think it seems sweet and sad that Sir Leicester married Lady Dedlock for love.

Hana wrote: "Chapter 2: "It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion....the evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger wo..."
I often think that Hollywood is like this. All these beautiful people all buffed, polished and rearranged by plastic surgeons--and completely insulated (at least while they are at the 'top') from anything like real life.