Bleak House
Jun. 18th, 2009 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marydellI'm watching the sort-of-recent version of Bleak House on Netflix. So far I quite like it, particularly because it allows me to become familiar with more of Dickens' work without having to actually read it. Great Expectations put me right off Dickens back in college. Now that I'm an older wiser reader tv-watcher I can see how his relentless downer stuff is actually pretty compelling on a larger level, and has notes of redemption throughout. Unlike, say, Thomas Hardy, who is so entirely depressing and hopeless I can't even watch movies of his books.
Anyway, I note with amusement that, as in other 19th century tales, people die suddenly of no apparent cause; succumbing, I assume, to a lethal case of narrative convenience. [highlight to read spoiler: a crying baby actually expires at the exact moment that a character says "do you want us to get a doctor for the baby?" This is not the only example] No-one has fallen down insensible on a moor in a storm yet, but I'm only one episode in, and characters have been shown gazing out of windows, so I assume that's coming up shortly.
Anyway, I note with amusement that, as in other 19th century tales, people die suddenly of no apparent cause; succumbing, I assume, to a lethal case of narrative convenience. [highlight to read spoiler: a crying baby actually expires at the exact moment that a character says "do you want us to get a doctor for the baby?" This is not the only example] No-one has fallen down insensible on a moor in a storm yet, but I'm only one episode in, and characters have been shown gazing out of windows, so I assume that's coming up shortly.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 02:22 am (UTC)hee hee....I love how you blog.
"characters have been shown gazing out of windows, so I assume that's coming up shortly"...I squirted water out of my nose...it hurt, but it was worth it.
I think. :P
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Date: 2009-06-20 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 09:27 am (UTC)Haven't seen the televisation - does it get rid of Esther's supremely annoying narrative voice?
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Date: 2009-06-20 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 03:48 pm (UTC)Dickens is more readable than you think. He just can't plot worth a damn. What he can do is build character. He is, however, a racist, anti-Semitic SOB.
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Date: 2009-06-19 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 06:41 pm (UTC)I never could figure out what Tiny Tom suffered from.
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Date: 2009-06-20 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-20 03:39 am (UTC)