Status Updates From Bleak House

Some of these omniscient narrator passages call for reading aloud in the most stentorian ack-tor voice possible. We overuse the word epic a lot now which leaves us unprepared for the real thing. And I feel that the 1st person narrations from Esther "Dame Durden", in all their self-abnegation, are very much part of the big picture that Dickens was trying to assemble.

Dickens is an absolute master at writing rich, sympathetic, lifelike characters. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it as well as he does. I keep finishing kind of mundane passages of dialogue, or first-person narrative, and having tears well up in my eyes because it’s just so… alive.