What makes most of them memorable, it is said, is that they are cartoons, individuated with one or two outlandish characteristics that Dickens highlights whenever they come on stage. It's been complained the characters of Bleak House, like the denizens of any Dickens novel, are one dimensional. You're constantly flipping back through pages-when a Boythorn or a Bagnet or a Jellyby or a Jobling re-appears-trying to recall: was that the maid of the gentleman who's a friend of the lawyer for Jarndyce's nephew.? So many that taken altogether in one novel, they're hard to keep straight. On the other hand, about those memorable characters. Plus some of the most innovative passages seen in Dickens's work so far. The author's strengths are here in spades: memorable characters, a clever twisting plot, heart-wrenching drama, pointed social commentary. Bleak House has its ardent admirers who declare it among Charles Dickens's masterpieces, as well as its detractors who call it one of his most grotesque potboilers.
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