Day Twenty-Three

4/23

The Book: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

ISBN: 978-1-59308-311-3

Suggested By: Rebecca Mitchell

Where: Home

When: 6-6:45p

Music: None

Company: Alone

Pages: 362 - 418 (56)

The Lead In: Trying to maintain a more open mind is helping. Today’s reading was much better. I was discussing this book at work with a gentleman and we discussed how conventions used in really old books shouldn’t be looked down upon simply because everyone else ripped them off. In their time, they were significant. And, considered in their natural habitat, should be considered good regardless.

The 411 on the 55: Mr Smallweed and Dedlock try to get Mr. George to turn over some information he has about Nemo, who turns out, was actually Captain Hawdon. And, through a couple of twists, though Smallweed and Dedlock do not know the whole story, I believe, we find out that Lady Dedlock is Esther’s mother with Captain Hawdon. (I came dangerously close to typing Hardon there. Now that’s uncomfortable.)

Caddy and Prince get married but a pretty much ignored by her mother. Her fathers advice to her is not to find a “Mission” (like her mother’s Africa). Apparently Prince’s father is going to live with them. Esther and her maid, Charley, find Jo, he’s sick and they decide to nurse him back to health.

Pretty good flow today, interesting and not too ridiculous. I find if you skim just a little, glaze the eyes a dash, the words begin to flow easier and the book is less tedious.

Line of the Day: “Oh my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my cruel sister told me; but sternly nurtured by her, after she had renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!” pg 395

The Fact on the Fiction: The most life-threatening hazard facing city-dwelling Victorians is cholera, closely followed by typhoid fever and typhus. Four epidemics of cholera – in 1831/32, 1848/49, 1853/54 and 1866 – kill about 140,000 people, with more than 60,000 perishing in the second epidemic alone. The main problem is ignorance. The medical establishment believes that diseases are spread by 'miasma' (bad air) rather than by infected water. Time Traveler’s Guide to Victorian England  (Really a great site. Interesting and well-put together.)