Bleak House by Charles Dickens

I’m reading Bleak House by Dickens, finally. Partially inspired by the BBC TV show Dickensian, I am about two-thirds of the way through the book, and I thought I’d capture some thoughts here before they escape into the ether.

Bleak House is an odd book. One of the oddities occurs in almost the exact middle of the 740 page novel, when one of the ensemble of characters dies in a particularly weird and spectacular way: he spontaneously combusts. Spontaneous human combustion, or SHC, is a rare and controversial phenomenon in which a person catches fire and burns to death without an “apparent external source of ignition.” I thought maybe it was a Victorian superstition, but when I looked on Wikipedia there were recent reported cases cited of SHC from 2010 and 2017.I guess it’s a thing, although the explanations for the phenomenon vary.

Then, there are the characters who don’t catch on fire and turn into a pile of fat and ashes. They are odd, too. Dickens tends to use his characters to show the extremes of human personality. I’m also reading Karen Swallow Prior’s new book, On Reading Well, and she points out in her first chapter on prudence that “prudence, like all virtues is the moderation between the excess and deficiency of that virtue.” So, in Bleak House, Dickens has one character, Skimpole, who cares too little about his life, his livelihood, and his responsibilities. SKimpole is depicted as a childlike, carefree (or care-less) man who languishes about, happy and imperturbable, sponging off his friends, while sometimes being upbraided or even jailed by creditors. None of this bothers Skimpole who is content to live without any visible means of support and without caring from where the invisible means of his support, his friends, derives.

Enter Mr. Boythorn, another friend of the family at Bleak House, who has the opposite problem from Skimpole: Boythorn cares too much. He makes bombastic, exaggerated speeches throughout the book about how he would like to deal with anyone who inconveniences him. He “would have the necks of every one of them wrung, and their skulls arranged in Surgeons’ Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession.” Or he breathes “such ferocious vows as were never breathed on paper before” as to his intentions in this or that. Both men, Skimpole and Boythorn, are afflicted with a vice, an excess or deficiency of passion, but neither is very effectual in the world at taking care of his own affairs. Skimpole does nothing to take care of himself or anyone else, and Boythorn makes fantastic, exaggerated claims, threats, and promises that can’t possibly be carried out in real life while calmly feeding his bird and again, doing nothing effectual.

Neither man has the prudence that Ms. Prior defines in her book: “Prudence is the love that chooses with sagacity between that which hinders it and that which helps,” or “the perfected ability to make decisions in accordance with reality.” Mr. Skimpole lives in a fantasy world where money, and possessions, and responsibilities are inconsequential and beneath his notice, while Mr. Boythorn cares deeply about anything and everything but lives in another kind of fantasy where words and threats make reality change and get better, the louder and more violent the threat the better. I have certainly been guilty, and seen others enjoy, both kinds of fantasy, to our joint detriment, although I think the passionate speechmaker is something closer to real prudence than the sponging dilettante. At least Mr. Boythorn has a house and pays his own bills.

More on Bleak House tomorrow.

5 thoughts on “Bleak House by Charles Dickens

  1. I’d forgotten about the spontaneous combustion episode! I read Bleak House years ago & I want to read it again, soon. I thought the BBC Version of the book was excellent. I also just bought a copy of On Reading Well – haven’t started it yet but looking forward to doing so.

  2. I have On Reading Well on tap for this year – sooner rather than later. I read Bleak House for the first time a few years ago. I remember Skimpole but not Boythorn. Nice contrast between the two! I’ll have to look up that BBC show.

  3. I found it really hard to get into Bleak House – so many characters – so put it to one side before I got to the combustion episode. Watching the BBC adaptation helped to put the who’s who into some semblance of order so now I can go back to reading the actual book

  4. I love Bleak House so much that I’ve read it twice. Of course, Dickens flourishes in the contrasts between outrageous characters who rarely if ever show prudence. He leaves that for Esther (or Little Dorrit or Florence … depending on the book you are reading). One of the best parts in the book comes toward the end when someone has the audacity to point out just what Skimpole is. Wonderfully satisfying!

  5. I meant to say also — my favorite bit is the reactions of the two young men having to move out of the rooms upstairs from the spontaneous combustion. Their expressions as they wipe everything down … just priceless.

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