Cousinship
Somewhere around Chapter 27-28 of Bleak House, we develop a profound affection for Dickens’ wit, compassion, and humanity. An inheritance saga turned murder mystery, Bleak House brings together in sharp focus and in the most personal of ways the intertwined lives of England’s aristocracy and London’s Tom-all-Alone’s.
Unlike characters in 21st-century fiction who slip in and out of focus and who are never reliably whole, here they are fully constituted and have definite boundaries. The uncomplaining and obliging Esther Summerson tending to emotional comforts and domestic order provides the only first-person narration. Inspector Bucket’s lightness and calm and haste we cannot forget.