Bleak House: Chapters 4 -13

The story has begun to unfold and gather some steam. It seems to concern the burgeoning romantic relationship between Richard and Ada (the wards in the interminable lawsuit known as  Jarndyce).  There is another narrative thread that appears to centre on the aristocratic and comedically pompous Dedlock clan.

As with all of Dickens’ novels that I’ve previously read, there are layers of mystery and a certain suspense throughout, but I would hazard a guess that one of the more central mysteries of the book has begun to unfold in this latter thread.  Chapters X and XI, “The Law Writer” and “Our Dear Brother” had to do with the demise of an anonymous (or nearly so, as he is known as “Nemo”, Latin for “no one”) copyist or “law-writer” whose corpse is discovered inside his paltry lodgings by the Dedlock family lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn.  It is evident that Nemo was an opium user and  Dickens takes time to recount at some detail the proceedings of the Coroner’s inquest that decides, upon the barest of evidence, that Nemo’s squalid end was precipitated by an accidental overdose.   Here, it seems to me that Dickens engages in a little literary sleight of hand;  he focusses the reader’s attention on the mindless buffoonery of the inquest and the melodramatic sadness of Nemo’s lonely passing, but I would hazard a guess that these are intended to distract the reader from those questions more central to the unfolding narrative, such as the nature of Tulkinghorn’s mysterious interest in the copyist and of his purpose for seeking out Nemo’s lodgings in the first place.  In chapter XI, there are numerous references to both Tulkinghorn and Krook (Nemo’s eccentric packrat of a landlord) skulking around the deceased man’s “portmanteau” (which I am given to understand is a large travelling case of some kind).  These odd circumstances, coupled with a later curious exchange beween Tulkinghorn and Lady Dedlock concerning the circumstances of the copyist’s death, augmented by Dickens’ constant reminder that Tulkinghorn is a walking repository of secrets, are surefire signs that there is more than meets the eye going on here.

It goes without saying that there are many things that make Dickens’ work immediately identifiable:  his gentle, but fondly rendered satire of those inhabiting a low station in life (such as, so far, Esther’s unwelcome suitor Mr. Guppy);  his far less fondly rendered satire of the self-important and tediously wrong-minded rich (such as Lord Dedlock);  and the masterful ease with which he summons an element of pathos (usually in reference to children, such as the rejected witness at the inquest, Nemo’s only known friend “Jo”).  One more characteristic of Dickens’ writing that is very much in evidence in this portion of the novel is the author’s ability to irreparably savage, in the space of a sentence or two, the entire character of those he intends to depict as mean-spirited and selfish, and to do so in a light-hearted comic tone that cloaks, but does not diminish, the devastating effect of his judgements upon the reputation of those so off-handedly attacked.  Consider the passage about Mrs.  Snagsby, the law-stationers wife – moments after introducing her, for the first time and noting in passing her nose to be sharp and frosty at the tip, Dickens tell us:

Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the neighbours’ thinking, one voice too.  That voice, appearing to proceed from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook’s Court very often.  Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard.

Little more than a pargraph later, Dickens mentions that:

Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the business to Mrs. Snagsby.  She manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, licenses Mr. Snagsby’s entertainments, and acknowledges no responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the wives’) position and Mrs. Snagsby’s, and their (the husbands’) behaviour and Mr. Snagsby’s.  Rumour, always flying bat-like about Cook’s Court and skimming in and out at everybody’s windows, does say that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the spirit of a mouse he wouldn’t stand it.

In the space of little more than three or four paragraphs, then, Dickens has established, without a shadow of a doubt, that Mrs. Snagsby is one miserable piece of work.  He does so without really ever seeming to be uncharitable towards her – making reference, somewhat comically,  to the opinions of neighbours and “rumour” rather than resorting to an outright and direct disparagement of her character.  The effect is both enduring – no reader would ever thereafter react warmly, sympathetically or favourably to Mrs. Snagsby – and endearing – as though we, the readers, share with the amiable author a secret wisdom, flowing only from mean gossip engaged in by others, about the laughable foibles of the caricatured Mrs. Snagsby.

I’ve said it before, but this is Dickens at his best;  no doubt the story is intended to have relevance as a social and political commentary, but the timeless quality of Dickens is firmly rooted in these deft depicitions of humanity; in all its pomposity, its absurdity and venality.  Mike has called these exercises “character lessons“, and the term is apt.  The essential truth of them, I would suggest, is underscored by the fact that Dickens’ villains are recognizably human, even to a modern observer, and he holds them up to sometimes viscious ridicule in much the same way as, for example, a television show like The Office satirizes the everyday “villains” among us:  even as the characters are lampooned as asinine, wrong-headed and verging on malevolent, they are still essentially human, more to be pitied than hated, and comically endearing.

As far as Dickens’ commentary on bureaucracy, I took note of the following quote from Chapter V::

My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either.

-Richard Carstone wonders about the machinations in court.