Michael Finocchiaro's Reviews > Bleak House

I absolutely loved this book, I mean, how could you not love a book that reduces politics to Boodle vs Noodle and kills off a minor character via spontaneous combustion? Besides that, there is a scalding satire of the legal profession, several badly kept secrets bubbling into murderous tension, and a panoply of lovable and despicable minor characters, each with their own manner of speaking and acting. Dickens would have been a fabulous filmmaker as his camera’s eye is always peeking behind doors or over walls giving the reader a truly immersive experience, or so I felt. I loved the writing, the action, the everything in this marvelous book.

One of the better passages about politics is where Lord Boodle complains to Sir Leicester Dedlock that the new government "would lie between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle—supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the Leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Foreign Office to Moodle, what are you to do with Noodle? You can’t offer him the Presidency of the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can’t put him in the Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces”. Brilliant!

The art with which Dickens weaves the stories together and again the incredible portraits and names of the myriad of characters just made this pure entertainment end-to-end. Here is a fantastic article I found about the book: https://literariness.org/2021/01/23/a...