Finally finished the second book in the Nabokov MFA program, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.

It was definitely a challenging book in every way possible, and my oftentimes dread of reading it resulted in me reading a lot more nonfiction in the past few months while Bleak House sat idle. I do think that was detrimental to a book with such a broad tapestry of characters who were vague upon first reading, let alone when I didn’t get around to reading it regularly.

I think my biggest problem with the book, and a problem I have with many artistic outputs is whether they fall into what I call "window" or "mirror" paradigms. "Window" works of art basically show you a world, culture, experience outside of yourself. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My problem with them is when it doesn’t circle around and teach me something about myself.

This is the definition of art to me. I read to learn about myself. I write to learn about myself. So, if there is a movie shot in Brazil about a drug gang in a small village, it somehow needs to teach me something about me. If not, the experience isn’t as rich or as meaningful. Many independent films, especially the foreign ones, lose me on this front. I’ve never just been a big fan of learning something new for the sake of learning something new. I’m not saying this is proper, or required. Just that it is how I view things at present.

By contrast, you’ve probably figured out the "mirror" part of the equation. I look into a work of art and see myself, or something relatable to myself. It doesn’t have to be about some middle-aged white homo or anything, it just has to make something resonate within me.

While I was not a total fan of Mansfield Park, the first book in my Nabokov MFA series, I found it far more delightful and enjoyable than Bleak House. It just seemed to move so fluidly and enjoyably.

That said, there was a decided mastery to Bleak House. It was clear why Dickens is considered a master, and most of the beauty of the metaphors and the wordplay and the language all found me. It just never connected with me on a deeper level. Even the section fo the book narrated by Esther in the first person didn’t really invite you deeper into the narrative. The whole time, it just seemed like my role was to stand outside the window and look in, which is a pretty passive role for a 880 page book.

Whenever I would mention that I was reading Dickens, which I’ve been forced to mention for some time now, people would immediately bring up that he was paid by the word. This seems to be his legacy. And while his command of the language was admirable, and it did paint indelible pictures, I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that after the third page of him yammering on about a character being a well-respected man merely as set-up, and taking his time to explain who the character even is, why we should care, and what they have to do with the story…. well, this book was read aloud just to ensure I wasn’t daydreaming quite often.

I actually finished this book in one ten-hour sitting, mainly to just make it end already. But, that said, it was also the most enjoyable reading I’d had of the book. I’m not sure if that was due to the growing intensity of the mystery of the book, it getting easier to juggle all the characters as more of them died off, or that not reading it small clips let the characters more easily find their voice in the text.

Nabokov once again went all clinical with the book, drawing maps to sort out where the action was happening, charting character arcs, and all of his usual stuff. Reading Nabokov’s take on things again immediately makes you wonder if this is the proper way to read a novel and, if so, doubting whether you would ever have the capacity to write one that would live up to his scrutiny. Hell, it’s taking me long enough to write one up to my own level of scrutiny, which is exponentially lower (although I have enough ego to think it higher than the current standard).

The book mainly consists of an ongoing lawsuit that has gone on for a ridiculous length of time, to the point where noone engaged in the suit even understand what the suit is even about anymore, and then there is a mystery around a death that affects a lot of the players directly and indirectly. Nabokov cited an additional theme of miserable children and their relationships to their parents and guardians.

But, as I said, the problem with all of this is that, by not relating to, empathizing with, caring about, or being interested by a single character in the book, it just never takes off for me. I just feel I would be far less critical of a book with which I related if it were a little sloppy in its execution, rather than a book that is written by an obvious master than connects with neither my heart nor mind.

I also don’t think it is a matter of when the book was written, in that I find many books from the 1800s perfectly readable and accessible. If anything, I did learn how language can really set an atmosphere above and beyond the words used. Dickens can take three pages to describe a fog to the point where you feel you are enveloped, surrounded, and suffocated by it just as much as the characters are. Compared to my own terse, minimalist writing, it was jarring at first. But there are clearly lessons to be gained there.

Even Nabokov pokes at holes in the story, a few too many coincidences, and says:

"A writer might be a good storyteller or a good moralist, but unless he be an enchanter, an artist, he is not a great writer. Dickens is a good moralist, a good storyteller, and a superb enchanter, but as a storyteller he lags somewhat behind his other virtues."

Nabokov seems to delight in the small choices Dickens made that make his writing come alive, whether it be how a single word in a sentence gives it a perfect gravity, or how an incidental character, upon receiving a twopence, tosses it into the air and catches it overhand, brings the character to life in the mind of the reader.

Next up, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. After, of course, some modern palate cleansers that won’t be discussed here.

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