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“I have been bent and broken, but–I hope–into a better shape.”
Dickens, like Shakespeare, lives in a genre all of his own. We have the term Shakespearian just as we have the term Dickensian, because they aren’t simply writers. They mastered the creative form of storytelling, and shaped history by doing so. Knowing this, I have always fought this feeling of trepidation about starting my Dickensian journey. What if I don’t like his writing? What if the length of his books makes the experience draining? What if…?
Well, I can finally tell you from my own “Great” experience, that Charles Dickens is worth more than the praise he has already received. Praise that has outlasted time itself, and the countless number of books that have been published since. My “great expectations” for this book, and for Dickens as a writer, not only met those expectations, but surpassed them.
This book was a thrill to read. The humor paired so well with the more dark aspects of the story. “Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs, because the admission that he or she did know it would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug.” I laughed at that line for about 5 whole minutes.
His descriptions made it feel like I could reach out and touch the yellowed fabrics of Miss Havisham’s rooms. “But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.”
The characters were unique and felt like they belonged outside of just your everyday fictional character. “‘Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,’ said Wemmick, ‘and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!’’... “‘If you’re not tired Mr. Pip–though I know it’s tiring to strangers–would you tip him one more? You can’t think how it pleases him.’”
The way Dickens uses similes and metaphors to make the ordinary extraordinary, was a literary device that I fawned over from the beginning. “I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
I wish I could share every quote that I fell in love with, but I might as well just transcribe the whole thing. Here are two more quotes that I fell in love with, “Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
Something else that took me by surprise, besides watching all of the mysterious events unravel, was how eerie and ominous the book became the more it progressed.
Reaching the last few pages of this book, there was a textual note at the bottom which read, “ *Here begins Dickens’s new ending, as rewritten just before initial publication.” This “new ending” was so gratifying to read and made the whole story come together so perfectly. I wondered how Dickens could have written it any other way. Then the original ending had an editor's note which read, “At the urging of his friend, the novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton, Dicken changed the original unhappy ending of Great Expectations to a “more acceptable” one…” Then, after reading the original ending scene I became utterly speechless. I had no words, because Dickens holds them all.
I find it miraculous that people can write these funny looking lines called letters, form groups of them into what is known as sentences, and be able to saturate them with human emotion. This book made me feel, and feel deeply. This is the start of a very passionate love affair, between me and the works of Charles Dickens.
Dickens, like Shakespeare, lives in a genre all of his own. We have the term Shakespearian just as we have the term Dickensian, because they aren’t simply writers. They mastered the creative form of storytelling, and shaped history by doing so. Knowing this, I have always fought this feeling of trepidation about starting my Dickensian journey. What if I don’t like his writing? What if the length of his books makes the experience draining? What if…?
Well, I can finally tell you from my own “Great” experience, that Charles Dickens is worth more than the praise he has already received. Praise that has outlasted time itself, and the countless number of books that have been published since. My “great expectations” for this book, and for Dickens as a writer, not only met those expectations, but surpassed them.
This book was a thrill to read. The humor paired so well with the more dark aspects of the story. “Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs, because the admission that he or she did know it would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug.” I laughed at that line for about 5 whole minutes.
His descriptions made it feel like I could reach out and touch the yellowed fabrics of Miss Havisham’s rooms. “But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.”
The characters were unique and felt like they belonged outside of just your everyday fictional character. “‘Here’s Mr. Pip, aged parent,’ said Wemmick, ‘and I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that’s what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!’’... “‘If you’re not tired Mr. Pip–though I know it’s tiring to strangers–would you tip him one more? You can’t think how it pleases him.’”
The way Dickens uses similes and metaphors to make the ordinary extraordinary, was a literary device that I fawned over from the beginning. “I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
I wish I could share every quote that I fell in love with, but I might as well just transcribe the whole thing. Here are two more quotes that I fell in love with, “Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
Something else that took me by surprise, besides watching all of the mysterious events unravel, was how eerie and ominous the book became the more it progressed.
Reaching the last few pages of this book, there was a textual note at the bottom which read, “ *Here begins Dickens’s new ending, as rewritten just before initial publication.” This “new ending” was so gratifying to read and made the whole story come together so perfectly. I wondered how Dickens could have written it any other way. Then the original ending had an editor's note which read, “At the urging of his friend, the novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton, Dicken changed the original unhappy ending of Great Expectations to a “more acceptable” one…” Then, after reading the original ending scene I became utterly speechless. I had no words, because Dickens holds them all.
I find it miraculous that people can write these funny looking lines called letters, form groups of them into what is known as sentences, and be able to saturate them with human emotion. This book made me feel, and feel deeply. This is the start of a very passionate love affair, between me and the works of Charles Dickens.
