Monday, January 21, 2013

(Not So) Bleak House


You already know that I think Charles Dickens rocks... I would have loved to go people watching with him, so we could laugh at all the bizarre, unique characteristics of human kind that he was able to capture on paper so well. He is able to poke fun at our idiosyncrasies in a way that makes us laugh, and cry, and shudder (some of his people are kind of creepy).

I went through an obsession with Dickens the summer I was nineteen and read almost all of his well known and lesser known works. I tried reading Bleak House, but even I admit, Dickens wordiness bogged me down and I simply couldn't get the story line. I have learned, however, that most often, the books that are the hardest to read in the beginning are often the best of books by the end. So, I forced myself to read on. I'm glad I did, because it was just as entertaining as his other works, and even had the beautiful ending that one could hope for. 

Two years ago, when Mom had the flu, we were trying to keep her in bed, so we watched a lot of movies on my laptop. We had watched Little Dorrit when Julie had mono, and enjoyed that very much, so when we found the Bleak House series online we decided to give it a shot, too. It's 15 episodes long, so don't expect to watch it in one sitting (although you will find yourself wanting to). We thoroughly enjoyed it, and this year I bought Mom the DVD copy of it for her birthday. It was Dad's first time to watch it, and he was so engrossed, asking us for details (which we would not reveal), and groaning out "Yes! Finally!" when the wicked protagonist meets his end.

Feel intrigued? Someone has been most kind to combine and post the episodes on YouTube, so here are the links:

Episodes 1-5
Episodes 6-10
Episodes 11-15

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