Fashion and whiskers have been my weakness

Well readers, true to my word, I finally finished reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens, since the poll deemed it so. I am not an avid fan of Dickens and frankly expected this book to be dry, boring and bleak.

Bleak House chronicles the court case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce and all those who are connected with it in some way or another. The court system is portrayed very harshly as a massive, time-consuming and expensive endeavor that never seems to get anything done.

"Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here."

Ester Summerson is our main narrator (for the most part) and she is under the care of one of the Mr. Jarndyce and friends with his young cousins, Rick and Ada, the other Jarndyces in the aforementioned law suit.

Dickens covers the whole scope here, from the high and mighty family of the Deadlocks down to poor little Jo, a boy who lives covered in filth in the heart of London and is as poor as can be.

"Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state and rarely bored. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man, to have so inexhaustible a subject."

Ester falls somewhere in between - there is a mystery about her birth (which is no real mystery, at least not to me) and she gets a lot of marriage proposals for a girl who gets smallpox and has her face altered for the worse. I found her to be most frustrating and annoying because she always is chipper and trying to work hard and do her best to make everyone around her happy that she seems to have no emotional range. Which might be why she got all those proposals, who knows?

"I often thought of the resolution I had made on my birthday, to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love if I could; and indeed, indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and to have so much."

Late in the game, 700 pages or so late to be clear, there is a murder and a great hunt to discover the true killer. Again, although it seems like Dickens wants to throw us off my suspecting a few different characters, I could tell how things were going to go down.

I think that I get too distracted by the social commentary aspect of Dickens writing to actually enjoy the story. I did laugh and chuckle at some of his phrasing and I think that he may be the best at naming secondary characters, but I really did not care about the characters. And that for me is a big deal. But I have to give credit, Mr. Turverydrop, Mrs. Pardiggle, Mr. Jellby, Mr. Smallweed and Mr. Bucket are all pretty great names.

"Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly."

Next up is the Idiot, since that got just as many votes as Bleak House. I know my man Dostoevsky will not let me down and am really excited to read this one.

Yeah, that's pepper spray.

How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley is still pretty new, but as I am still trying to save every penny, I got this from the library. I read I Was Told There'd Be Cake last year and loved it, so I had some pretty high hopes for this one.

"After that first day, I awoke to the vague but identifiable smell of cheese. The kind of cheese where if you didn't know it was cheese, you'd think someone took a crap on the metro and set it on fire. And then put it out with milk."

Crosley writes about her life as a late twenty-something, referring back to her past to tell stories of her childhood pets, jumping forward to tell of getting kicked out of Paris and enduring a shady relationship. And on that particular smell that lives in taxi cabs:

"This is a scent that does not waft in real time so much as it seeps into your memory to replace every pleasant aroma you have ever smelled with its pungency."

She has a way with words that sits so well with me, but this book lacked the humour that her first one did.The stories were a little long and seemed to drag in places, but still left me with a smile, if not the belly-laughs that her first one gave me.


I am working my way through Bleak House and have my copy of the Idiot on hand. Dickens is surprisingly not what I expected and I am enjoying the book a lot. I have a few "lighter" reads to break up my time so I will still be updating while working through this massive Dickens book. My past experience with Dickens is mainly A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. Any thoughts on favorite Dickens books?

The ghost of a tree

Sorry for the absence! I have been in Ohio visiting the boyfriend on a little vacation and had a wonderful time. And I somehow managed to get a ton of reading done, so be ready for some updates this week!

Having loved The Time Traveller's Wife, I knew sooner or later I would get around to this one. The story focuses on twin girls, Julia and Valentia as the inherit the London flat from their mother's estranged twin (Elspeth). We get chapters from so many perspectives, Roberts (Elspeth's lover and downstairs neighbor), Martin (the OCD neighbor upstairs), and Elspeth herself, a ghost trapped in the apartment with the twins.

"I think perhaps if that sort of thing does happen - ghosts - it must be more beautiful, more surprising than all those tales would have us believe."

Valentina and Julia are so wrapped up in each other that at the beginning neither can do anything without the other, though one may want to. They explore London and the graveyard next door to their flat where Robert works and which houses Elspeth's tomb. And then Elspeth finds a way to communicate with the twins and things get very complicated. Valentina starts a romantic relationship with Robert while Julia starts taking daily tea with Martin and Elspeth's ghost continues to scheme, trapped in the apartment.

"Everything in the room seemed to have been drained of colour. Julia wondered is the colour had all collected somewhere else, perhaps it was in some closet, and when they opened that door it would all flood back into the objects it had deserted."

I really enjoyed this book and had to stay up super late finishing it, however, the ending left me a little underwhelmed. The twists and turns were gripping, but I just cannot help but feel a little let down. The characters were wonderful though, and maybe I just missed something since I was reading so late.

In other news, the poll has closed and I am left with a tie! Bleak House and The Idiot both had the most votes so I will just have to read them both. Luckily Geoff had a copy of Bleak House on hand and I'm already working my way through it. I was alarmed to look at my bookcases and not find the copy of The Idiot I wanted on my Russian shelves so I may have to dig through the boxes to find it. Or I might just have to read the paperback version I found at a garage sale. I am still working my way through Dead Souls by Gogol, so The Idiot will just have to wait a little longer.

Coming up this week: a book of short stories, another graphic novel, a book that just may be in my top ten faves, and thoughts on finishing my first audio-book ever.