In the Bible, in Ecclesiastes, it says that "there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). I’m fairly sure the writer had bigger things in mind than literature, but in Bleak House it’s becoming almost uncomfortably true.

Everything I thought I knew about characterization or plot structure, everything in fiction I thought was modern or innovative, is in Dickens. In this novel, he did it first and he did it better, especially when it comes to his characters. As a writer, it makes the novel technically fascinating. As a reader, it’s a web of personalities in which I’m willingly tangled.

It’s been nearly 400 pages since I last stopped to reflect on the book in Part One, and I’m no nearer to understanding the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Despite the claims on the back of the book, however, I have come to realize that the story is not about the case; it’s about the people in the case. This novel is one of the truest versions of a character-driven narrative I have ever read. To reduce a summary of Bleak House to Jarndyce and Jarndyce is to short change the book and totally miss the point. The case is only mentioned in a passing way, but the characters are constant. In fact, the characters are so vivid and so complexly woven that it is easy to forget about the case altogether.

While the main characters are interesting in their own right, they often seem to be reader-surrogates in the story, watching the events around them more than truly being involved.  The secondary characters, however, make things really interesting.  They bring out some of Dickens' best creativity and, I think, his sharpest criticisms as well.

Take, for example, Mrs. Jellyby, a woman on a mission. She’s out to establish a settlement in Africa called Borrioboola, somewhere in Nigeria, and save the natives. She’s so wrapped up in her good work that the house, children, husband and all have gone completely to pot. The house is in such a filthy state of disarray, I couldn’t help but think about the Duchess from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Mrs. Jellyby tranquilly resides over the chaos around her, not stopping to notice the madness because it has nothing to do with her mission. Her work, and the resulting negligence of the rest of her life, has driven her husband to bankruptcy and turned her children into animals. The satire of charity workers didn’t surprise me half as much much as the fact that such people existed in Dickens’ day.

Don’t get me wrong - the well off have a definite responsibility to help the less fortunate. At the same time, it smacks of hypocrisy to spend all your energy helping someone or being somewhere else at the expense of paying attention to your own home (or town, or country, for that matter). How much help can you really be to the far reaches of Africa if you can’t even help your own family? (I also think it’s interesting that the West has been trying to ‘help’ Africa for so long, and it is still so big a mess.)