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Carl

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Carl’s Bookshelves

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Carl is Currently Reading

Carl is currently reading

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

by Terry Pratchett

bookshelves: currently-reading, british-irish, fantasy-or-sci-fi

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progress:

(page 113 of 491)
— Jun 29, 2026 08:01PM

Jun 29, 2026 08:01PM

Carl is currently reading

Bleak House

by Charles Dickens

bookshelves: british-irish, literature, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2022

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Carl said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" At times it might seem to us, upon our having spent several weeks embedded in a Dickens novel like Bleak House, with its 881 pages, that it is too much. But when we earn our way to the end of a Dickens novel like Bleak House, we realize that what we At times it might seem to us, upon our having spent several weeks embedded in a Dickens novel like Bleak House, with its 881 pages, that it is too much. But when we earn our way to the end of a Dickens novel like Bleak House, we realize that what we have is “quite enough” (880). It is hard to imagine a writer who offers a more thorough mix of frustrating complexity and deep satisfaction. When it comes to the final accounting, however, it is satisfaction that prevails.

Key to the satisfaction is the richness of characterization that the author provides. It is not merely the inner ring of characters—Esther, John Jarndyce, Richard, Ada, and the Dedlocks—who provide such richness. Perhaps even more engaging, and certainly more quintessentially Dickensian, is the next ring of slightly more peripheral personages, who range colorfully from the Caddys, Georges, and Allan Woodcourts at one pole of the moral continuum to the Tulkinghorns, Mrs. Jellybys, Skimpoles, and Vholeses at the opposite pole. More Dickensian yet is the next outer orbit of characters: Krook, Miss Flite, Charley, Boythorn, the Bagnets, Chadband, the Snagsbys, and what seems like 200 others, each of whom has not only a role to play but a memorable characteristic to mark him/her/them.

The other element that marks Dickens for me is his supernatural patience. He trusts us, and we (eventually—not without some struggle) trust him, to partner in the delivery of answers and connections more than 800 pages after the questions have been hinted at. The novel emerges from the fog that marks its opening scene into Resolution upon resolution—sometimes drawn by needle through a fabric of unbelievable coincidence, I admit—but once we consent ourselves into Dickens’ world, the whole pattern always rewards us with beauty. We think about law, chance, religion, birds, weather, and money in ways that few things enliven as robustly as great literature does.

It does sadden me, as a reader and teacher, that so much stamina is required here that it seems less and less likely that Dickens will retain the hold on our canon as he once did. That is a shame. I only hope that those who are willing to submit themselves to a voyage through to Dickens’ world will continue to proselytize and keep him in circulation and conversation. In many ways, this book seems the opposite of the vampiric court that is perhaps the novel’s most insidious villain: Bleak House rewards, with interest, and in interest, over and over. ...more "

progress:

(page 120 of 896)
— Apr 29, 2026 07:21AM

Aug 06, 2022 09:54AM · see review

Carl is currently reading

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

bookshelves: literature, female-author, american, bipoc-american-author, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 1988

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Carl said: " I remember loving the language and the emotion of it but finding the disorientation appropriate (as opposed to feeling that it was contrived in some of her other novels). This is absolutely my favorite Morrison. "

progress:

(page 105 of 325)
— Mar 26, 2026 04:02AM

Jun 14, 2020 04:17PM · see review

See all 44 books that Carl is reading…

Carl’s Quotes

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

tags: human-nature, man, mankind, philosophy

10842 likes

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
― C.S. Lewis

tags: education

2117 likes

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

tags: cosmology, delusion, knowledge, religion, science, truth, understanding

1831 likes

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

9156 likes

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Elizabeth Appell

7928 likes

More of Carl’s quotes…