Bleak House Readalong - Week Nine

Let's just get straight to it this week. I'm pretty sure Dickens was trying to make me mad (by either definition) with the chapters we read this week. It was either love it or hate it.

What I Liked This Week: Things finally are coming to a head with the relationships between Tulkinghorn and Lady Dedlock and Mr. Jarndyce and Esther and the feelings between the two pairs could not be any more different! It's going to be fun watching what happens with both love and hate as we move forward.

What I Didn't Like This Week: For a good part of two of this week's chapters, I was bored senseless. I get it, Charles, you really, really dislike government and the legal system. Enough already.

Still, Dickens is a master at expressing his opinions on the subjects of government and the legal system so, I suppose, he can be forgiven in taking pleasure in writing about it:

"He [Mr. Vholes, an attorney] never misses a chance in his practice; which is mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure; which is another mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly respectable. And is his making hay of the grass, which is flesh, for his three daughters."