Bleak House is said to be Dickens' greatest work and by "is said," I mean a bunch of guys at Harvard made a list and made it number one. So, because I do what the white guys tell me to, I read it.

Now let me tell you a little something about Dickens and me. We don't usually get along. I love his characters and his stories but they are so lost in his ponderous shenanigans that I tend to throw the book across the room several times before finishing it and Bleak House is the most ponderous of them all. But if you can wade through the page long descriptions of a fireplace then you will find a breathtaking array of characters, a true Dickensian treasure. But like running a marathon, it's only useful for bragging rights and professional athletes and it is the one book I would recommend "training" for.

Therefore, I have always been of the opinion that Dickens books translate to film more so than most Victorian writers and Bleak House is no exception. This is not because I'm lazy, or a child of the TV generation, who wants nothing more than to kick back and be entertained but rather because the process of translating Dickens to film is like refining a diamond. You take off the ugly rock of paid-by-the-word ruminations and what emerges is a beautiful gem. Though the movie jumps from character to character with reckless abandon, each is played so memorably that you never forget a face. And each face is so emotionally charged that the complexity of the book is spelled out through the innocently determined face of Charley Neckett to the pathetic obsession of Mr. Guppy. Even Mademoiselle Hortense is instantly revealed by the look of parched desperation she gives to the mirror reflection of her mistress, Lady Deadlock. I read a criticism that the actors played their parts too intensely. Yet, I would argue that anything less would render the movie prey to the book's worst of follies, boredom.

The show is riveting, which is amazing considering that the show's writers tackled this project with the intention of cutting out as little as possible. "What I wanted to do is get down and dirty with it, make it as real as possible," Justin Chadwick, the director, told The New York Times. And real is exactly what the show becomes. Music and cinematography give Bleak House a modern edge and a contemporary snap, without sacrificing the essential Victorian. Chadwick and the show's writer, Andrew Davies, also imbue the show with something else often lacking from modern television and cinema, that all characters are created equal. Some of Dicken's most memorable and accessible character's are not the protagonists, who are often tediously moral (I'm looking at you, Pip!), rather they are the smaller characters who pop in and out of the story such as Nancy and Fagin in Oliver Twist. Davies and Chadwick hold true to this Dickensonian democracy and it breathes life and complexity into a fascinating book

Though the book is a Gordian knot, the television show is completely accessible and enjoyable. I'm completely willing to give up Family Guy for the next two months of Sundays, and I'm one book snob who loves her Family Guy.

Bleak House airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. central on PBS.