I finished reading another Terry Pratchett, and a Nursery Crime novel by Jasper Fforde so now I'm back to academia. I'm working my way through Bleak House.
The introduction of this Oxford paperback edition mentions that unlike most Dickens novels, the bad guys do not get the satisfying beating that we see in Nicholas Nickelby, for instance, or even the righteous hanging in Oliver Twist. The end is a sort of fading.
I believe that this reflects Dickens attitude toward an enemy he could not defeat. Individual villains are easily vanquished, but Dickens' own experiences with Chancery would have taught him more abject humility in the face of such overwhelming futility.
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