Supposing Bleak House (Paperback)

Jordan guides us through the haunted chambers of "Bleak House, " from the psyche and syntax of its narrators to the book's mythological underpinnings to Dickens's construction of himself and the serial. Jordan is the most readable of readers. He never cuts a work down to size, but rather leaves it a more magically rich habitation for us to enjoy. This is now the gold standard of criticism for Dickens.--Robert L. Patten, Rice University, author of "Charles Dickens and His Publishers"

John Jordan's empathic study presents Esther Summerson as a psychoanalytic subject whose ontological pain emerges from the most poetic, uncanny passages in her retrospective narrative. "Supposing "Bleak House"" unfolds in effortless lucidity, gradually opening new critical and theoretical perspectives until Esther's story resonates delicately with Dickens's own, and with the novel's historical vision. Jordan's startlingly original readings of style and syntax remind us that Dickens's psychological intelligence is always deeper than we might have thought.--Rosemarie Bodenheimer, Boston College, author of "Knowing Dickens"

Jordan guides us through the haunted chambers of Bleak House, from the psyche and syntax of its narrators to the book's mythological underpinnings to Dickens's construction of himself and the serial. Jordan is the most readable of readers. He never cuts a work down to size, but rather leaves it a more magically rich habitation for us to enjoy. This is now the gold standard of criticism for Dickens.

John Jordan's empathic study presents Esther Summerson as a psychoanalytic subject whose ontological pain emerges from the most poetic, uncanny passages in her retrospective narrative. Supposing "Bleak House" unfolds in effortless lucidity, gradually opening new critical and theoretical perspectives until Esther's story resonates delicately with Dickens's own, and with the novel's historical vision. Jordan's startlingly original readings of style and syntax remind us that Dickens's psychological intelligence is always deeper than we might have thought.

Supposing Bleak House resists synthesizing its insight into a unified argument, instead allowing claims to resonate and multiply across psychoanalytic, narratological, and biographical perspectives.

Supposing Bleak House is a rewarding study by one of Dickens's most perceptive and respected scholars.

Despite or because of his critical suppositions, Jordan makes some fine interventions into criticism of Bleak House . For all these wonderful suppositions this reader is grateful.