I finished this book last night. It had been ages since I last read a Dickens novel for some reason. I think this is my first since I got married back in '09. It was good as expected because, as the writer of the Intro says of Dickens, "He can do many things with words." True statement.
I must say, I was a little surprised to learn that this is considered by many to be Dickens' best. I liked it for sure, and it has mostly good characters with random idiosyncrasies as usual with Dickens, but this one was a bit tough at times. I think it took me a while to get used to the separate narrators with Esther telling part of the story and the third-person narrator telling other parts. I felt like the book definitely picks up momentum and gets better as the story moves forward as some secrets are unearthed. There was the weird spontaneous combustion part that seemed out of place with such a realistic depiction of England and its people and circumstances they face. I did feel like most of the characters in this one were slightly more realistic than many Dickens characters in other novels.
All in all, it was a good book. I don't think it is possible for me to dislike a Dickens book, he's just too good.
I've decided I want to rank the six Dickens books I've read:
1. David Copperfield
2. A Tale of Two Cities
3. Great Expectations
4. Oliver Twist
5. Bleak House
6. A Christmas Carol
And here are two quotes:
This one is David O. McKay-esque: "[I]t is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them."
And here is a funny one of a character with a different take about Bees: "There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about Bees. He had no objection about honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of Bees. He didn't at all see why the busy Bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it - nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the Bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world, banging against everything that came in his way, and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place."
