The 100 Things Challenge - Person 05
My fifth person of interest is John Jarndyce of Dickens' Bleak House. (Beware spoilers for the novel!)
John Jarndyce is a gentle, deeply caring, melancholic man who is rather reluctantly involved in the lengthy Chancery case, Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. He is the owner of the eponymous Bleak House, and the guardian of Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, two of the Wards of Court in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. He is also responsible for educating Esther Summerson (the illegitimate daughter of aristocracy), whom he makes the companion of Ada and the housekeeper of Bleak House. Vladimir Nabokov, in his Lectures on Literature describes him as "the best and kindest man ever to appear in a novel". Jarndyce is a wealthy man, who helps many people financially from a mix of disinterested goodness and guilt at the mischief and human misery that's been caused by Jarndyce and Jarndyce (which he refers to as "the family curse"). He falls in love with Esther and wishes to marry her, but gives her up when he realises that she is in love with Dr Woodcourt.
He has a room in Bleak House that he calls 'the Growlery', where he goes to growl whenever anything disappoints or deceives him.
In the 1998 BBC Radio 4 production of Bleak House Jarndyce is played by Michael Kitchen (pictured below with co-star Honeysuckle Weeks, who played Ada Clare):
John Jarndyce is a gentle, deeply caring, melancholic man who is rather reluctantly involved in the lengthy Chancery case, Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. He is the owner of the eponymous Bleak House, and the guardian of Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, two of the Wards of Court in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. He is also responsible for educating Esther Summerson (the illegitimate daughter of aristocracy), whom he makes the companion of Ada and the housekeeper of Bleak House. Vladimir Nabokov, in his Lectures on Literature describes him as "the best and kindest man ever to appear in a novel". Jarndyce is a wealthy man, who helps many people financially from a mix of disinterested goodness and guilt at the mischief and human misery that's been caused by Jarndyce and Jarndyce (which he refers to as "the family curse"). He falls in love with Esther and wishes to marry her, but gives her up when he realises that she is in love with Dr Woodcourt.
He has a room in Bleak House that he calls 'the Growlery', where he goes to growl whenever anything disappoints or deceives him.
In the 1998 BBC Radio 4 production of Bleak House Jarndyce is played by Michael Kitchen (pictured below with co-star Honeysuckle Weeks, who played Ada Clare):
