A classic for certain, and only my second Dickens to date. The most surprising thing I found? Dicken's amazing humor! This is especially true in the first third, or so, in the story of Pip. But it may be the themes of this book that I remember most, and the growth of Pip. What does it take to make one happy? Is it wealth, or is it love and friendship? Those are the few things I thought about most often here.

Yeah, the writing is vintage. But, I found it mostly relatable, even a nice change of pace for me (all truth be told – some parts were confounding. I back-tracked often, sometimes I simply moved on). At story's end I was left these feelings: A little bit of joy, a little bit of heart-break, quite a bit of contentedness. Glad I finally read this one.

Había escuchado cosas maravillosas sobre el autor y sobre todo sobre esta novela "Grandes esperanzas", pero por alguna razón, quitando su famosa novela corta "Canción de Navidad", nunca me animaba a leer nada del autor hasta ahora. Una vez terminada esta obra y teniendo tan dentro de mí tanto su historia como sus personajes solo me queda agradecer el maravilloso momento en el que decidí embarcarme en este viaje.

En el libro se narran las aventuras y desventuras de Pip, un niño huérfano al que el destino pone en bandeja una gran oportunidad de salir del mundo sórdido y pobre en el que se encuentra, de tener "grandes esperanzas" y buscarse un futuro como caballero en Londres por medio de un peculiar benefactor anónimo. Un libro absorbente como pocos, con descripciones y personajes soberbios y una peculiar historia de amor.

En definitiva, se trata de una obra evocadora, bellamente escrita, además de atemporal. Cubre casi todas las emociones conocidas, venganza, envidia, desesperación, júbilo, amor, odio. Me habían dicho que con cualquier novela de Dickens la lectura no es una empresa pequeña, pero que vale la pena el esfuerzo. Y vaya si lo vale, tanto que hace que "Grandes esperanzas" sea una de mis novelas favoritas de todos los tiempos.

n  n    “There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”n  n

I first read Great Expectations when I was thirteen years old. It was the first of Dickens' works that I'd read of my own volition, the only other being Oliver Twist, which we'd studied parts of in school. You know, I missed out on a lot when I was thirteen. By this, I mean that I didn't always understand the deeper meaning lying beneath the surface of my favourite classics. I favoured fast-paced and gritty stories and didn't understand the love for Austen (later cured). But there was something about Great Expectations that hit me hard on all levels and there was a deeper understanding I took from it even back then.

I should say first of all, this book makes me feel sad. Not a Lifetime movie emotionally overwrought pass-me-the-kleenex kind of sad. I have read it several times and have never once cried while reading it. But the book never fails to leave me with this hollow feeling that things could have been so different. When I was a kid, I often wished I could jump inside the TV and warn the good guys not to do something; stop something horrible from happening. This is that kind of book for me. All the not-knowing and mistaken assumptions that float between the characters in this novel is torture.

Some readers don't like Dickens. He's been called "lacking in style", as well as a bunch of other things. Well, I think he's like the Stephen King of the Victorian era. He loves his drama, his characters are well-drawn but sometimes edging towards caricatures, he has a wonderful talent for painting a vivid picture of a scene in your mind but a bunch of his books are a hundred pages too long. Whatever. I love his stories. And I love his characters.

In Great Expectations, you have the orphaned Philip "Pip" Pirrip who has spent his short life being poor and being bullied by his sister who is also his guardian. You have Joe Gargery, a kind man who also allows himself to be bullied by Pip's sister (his wife). Then you have the infamous Miss Havisham who was abandoned at the altar and now spends her days wandering around her mansion in her old wedding dress, hating men and raising the young Estella to be just like her.

n  n    “You are in every line I have ever read.”n  n

At its heart, this is a book about someone who is given an opportunity to have all their dreams come true, to be better than they ever thought they could be, to be loved by someone who they never thought would look at them. We all yearn for something badly at times. Imagine having the chance to get exactly what you always wanted. Imagine becoming better and higher than you knew was possible. Imagine having all of that and then realizing that perhaps the most important thing you ever had got left behind.

Pip was always my favourite Dickens protagonist because he wants so much and I sympathise with him. I can understand why he does what he does and why he wants what he wants. But the saddest thing is that ambition can make you lose sight of other important things and Pip has a lot of hard lessons to learn along the way. It's a book that was extremely relevant to the times when social class was of utmost importance in Britain. Essentially, the book deconstructs what it means to be a "gentlemen" and makes a not-so-subtle criticism of a class-based society.

Who are the real gentlemen? The top hat wearing men of London with all their fine china and ceremony? Pip, who gets a chance to become one of them? Or Joe Gargery, the rough-talking blacksmith who even years later tells Pip: "you and me was ever friends"?

There is a powerful lesson in here and I love it. Even after all these years.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

welcome to...GREAT EXPECTA(JUNE)S.

that was so bad. i need to write fast - i'm expecting a SWAT team to enter my cute apartment via my lovely floor-to-ceiling windows and put me out of my misery at any moment. you can't murder the art of punning like that and expect to escape with your life.

in the meantime. welcome back to the series in which me and elle read a long classic over the course of the month, because we are otherwise too cowardly!

this book in particular has been haunting me. maybe if my expectations were so great i'd have actually read it, instead of having it on my tbr for over 5 years!! ha ha...ha...ha.

oh lord.

we're also reading this for our book club -
join the discussion here
follow on instagram here

let's get into it.

DAY 1: CHAPTERS 1 & 2
no wonder this lil orphan's existence is so miserable. his name is philip pirrip. that's a recipe for disaster if i've ever heard one.

i have been putting this book off for approx 10 years (my mom bought me a copy, for some reason, in my youth), but it is immediately more readable than i thought.

not exactly surprising. this is coming from the girl who bought little house on the prairie at the age of 8 at the scholastic book fair, took one look at the old timey prose, and chucked it in the (literal) back of my closet with a post-it note saying DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'RE 10.


DAY 2: CHAPTERS 3 & 4
charles dickens is funnier than 90% of netflix's most recent standup releases. and i like standup.

IT'S THE ROMAN NOSES PASSAGE THAT THE DAD READS TO DOMHNALL GLEESON IN ABOUT TIME!!!!!!!!! suddenly this whole thing is a mental bill nighy audiobook for me. what a treat.


DAY 3: CHAPTERS 5 & 6
incredibly small section today. it's like charles dickens knew that centuries in the future, a very hungover girl would be attempting the fifth and sixth chapters, and took mercy.


DAY 4: CHAPTERS 7 & 8
miss havisham AND estella!! even i have heard of these heavy hitters. this is a star-studded book.
"Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it." damn good line.


DAY 5: CHAPTERS 9 & 10
i just realized that roughly 70% of the preconceived notions i had about this book are actually about oliver twist. oops.


DAY 6: CHAPTERS 11 & 12
"I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community." this reads like a viral tweet.

so many wasted years not reading this book because i thought the language would be intimidating, when actually it's 99% memes.


DAY 7: CHAPTERS 13 & 14
estella is my favorite character, easy. i am so obsessed with mean girls. i've told this story before, but i have an ex-boyfriend who was once in a fight with one of his roommates, who was very rude, and i was talking him up and on his side every moment up to and including when i met her, and then forever after i wanted her to like me more than anything.

i would forsake pip, joe, the neighborly gang, the sister, and the convicts for estella in a heartbeat. not havisham, though. i love that creepy ghoul too.


DAY 8: CHAPTERS 15 & 16
there is nothing a classic author likes more than the idea of Being Hit Hard On The Head Changing Your Personality. it seems like a huge indulgence to them specifically that there's any scientific backing to that at all.


DAY 9: CHAPTERS 17 & 18
title mention title mention title mention!!!
how fun. go pip.


DAY 10: CHAPTERS 19 & 20
as long as there have been books there's been this annoying Kid Starts Out With Nothing Then Gets Something And Immediately Sucks character arc.


DAY 11: CHAPTERS 21 & 22
return of the pale young gentleman!!! love a surprise reappearance from a fan favorite.

i typically HATE cannot STAND and generally ABHOR flashbacks and backstories of any kind, but dickens is so funny and i like these characters so much that i'm having a damn blast. what is going on!!


DAY 12: CHAPTERS 23 & 24
really feeling like those who read austen for the humor would really like this book.........


DAY 13: CHAPTERS 25 & 26
one of those I Am Not Into This Right Now But Maybe It's Not You It's Me Or Something days.


DAY 14: CHAPTERS 27 & 28
if you told me before today that a paragraph mainly about being a blacksmith would be enough to bring a tear to my eye i would have laughed in your damn face. but i am a joe loyalist to the core.

unless he's ever pitted against estella.


DAY 15: CHAPTERS 29 & 30
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.”

i just love her more and more every time we encounter her.


DAY 16: CHAPTERS 31 & 32
single most entertaining-sounding production of hamlet of all time appears to be depicted in these pages.
but then, i'm no hamlet stan. too much whining.


DAY 17: CHAPTERS 33 & 34
when charles dickens said “You speak of yourself as if you were some one else.” and sally rooney said “Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
never doubt my ability to tie absolutely everything in to sally.


DAY 18: CHAPTERS 35 & 36
“(breathing sherry and crumbs)” has gotta be one of the great parenthetical insertions.


DAY 19: CHAPTERS 37 & 38
this is boring today. and the chapters are long. i'm whiny about it.
oof, AND i have to deal with “Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham’s revenge on men, and that she was not to be given to me until she had gratified it”??? GIVEN???
not our finest day.
it was fun to see estella yelling at havisham, though.


DAY 20: CHAPTERS 39 & 40
you have to love this book for its dedication to hosting the Return of a Fan Favorite. basically the entire thing is about introducing a character, sending him away, cracking jokes for 80 pages, and bringing him on back.
AND WHAT A RETURN IT IS! holy moley.
my first thought, of COURSE, is how this impacts estella. and the answer: to me, rad.
and on to part 3!


DAY 21: CHAPTERS 41 & 42
i guess the phrase "beggars can't be choosers" had not yet originated when this was published. in 100 bce or whatever.


DAY 22: CHAPTERS 43 & 44
i am so thoroughly Team Pip Does Not Automatically Deserve Estella Just Because He Thought He Was Entitled, And Also No One Does that i keep forgetting about the no one does part and just getting mad at pip.
he did make a good ass speech to her, though. that i can admit.


DAY 23: CHAPTERS 45 & 46
today in another book i'm reading i learned that charles dickens once took a 7 hour walk through london overnight because he got in a fight with his wife, in an instance i am forced to call "the first ever hot girl walk."
i can't help thinking i would have picked this up ages ago had i only known that dickens was a drama queen.


DAY 24: CHAPTERS 47 & 48
the world is just goddamn awful today so i guess my "escapist reading" will be about when everyone was a weird little gutter rat in england.
i'm going to be honest. i have almost no clue what's going on here.
as jpuzzle in the book club said, WHY DOES EVERYONE KNOW EACH OTHER.


DAY 25: CHAPTERS 49 & 50
finding ms havisham super relatable. i too find the only way to respond to seeing the consequences of my own actions is by setting myself on fire.
THIS BOOK IS SO CRAZY!!!


DAY 26: CHAPTERS 51 & 52
took a day off right at crunch time and baby, i will not be catching up today!! pray for short chapters for me, my brethren.
and so it shall be!!!


DAY 27: CHAPTERS 53 & 54
also will not be catching up today. i have forgotten how to read. (it went away with my bodily autonomy and human rights! buh dum ch.)
did charles dickens have a ration on how many characters he could use? everyone is pulling triple duty at this point.
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” i have that quote framed!
anyway, our short-chapter-day luck has run out, my friends.


DAY 28: CHAPTERS 55 & 56
ok. have to catch up today. running out of time.
the drama of it all!!


DAY 29: CHAPTERS 57, 58, & 59
honestly rude for chapters to be long on a catch-up day. but i am strong and full of life and i will finish!!!
ok...this is everything. the real love stories here are pip and joe and pip and herbert. brings a tear to mine eye. last chapter time!
bye, estella!! all my love!


OVERALL
this whole thing was suuuuch a pleasant surprise: more readable, more amusing, and more interesting than i thought. i got bogged down in the middle (and i preferred the alternate / sadder / more realistic ending, when i sought it out) but in the end, cool fun yay!
rating: somewhere between 3.5 and 4

There is a reason that some books and authors are called “classics” and this book is a prime example of it.

The characters come vividly to life with all their flaws and their better sides, their desires and motives are depicted convincingly together with a whole society of ages past .

There are enough plot twists and surprises to satisfy even the modern reader while the language of the book although sounding peculiar today is itself worth noting.

The morals of the era are quite different from ours but in essence the author builds the story on the fundamentals of human nature, love, hope, hate, friendship and the fine moments and shortcomings of humans. And in this sense the book, as many other books and plays, is both old and modern.

Sometimes the book will appear slow paced to the modern reader but this is only to be expected considering how many years ago it was written.

It’s never late to read it!

"I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me."

n  n

تعرّفت على روايات تشارلز ديكنز في سن مبكّر نسبياً، فهي أولى الأعمال التي أدخلتني إلى كلاسيكيات الأدب الإنجليزي خاصةً والعالمي عامةً. كنت أستعير رواياته من مكتبة المدرسة وأضعها في مكتبتي الصغيرة في المنزل، وأبقى أنظر إليها لحين انتهاء فترة الامتحانات لألتهمها في عطلة الشتاء. كانت أجواء الشتاء ترتبط بذهني بأوليفر تويست وديفيد كوبرفليد وپيب بيريب وشوارع لندن الضيّقة ومجتمعها المُخملي. وهذا ما دفعني لإعادة قراءة هذه الرواية للمرة الرابعة.

كعادة أبطال ديكنز في رواياته، ينشئ پيب طفلاً يتيماً فقيراً في كنف أخته وزوجها الطيّب. يحلم پيب بالثروة والمجد، ولم يقبل بأن يصبح صبيّاً لحداد في قرية بعيدة. وهنا تتوالى الأحداث وتتقاطع الأقدار ويضرب الحظ ضربته. وتبدأ مرحلة جديدة غير متوّقعة في حياة پيب، فيصبح غنيّاً مُتعلّماً، يتعرّف على الطبقة الغنيّة، ويحلم بأكثر مما حلم به. ويحلم بالزواج من ايستيلا الجميلة المغرورة التي أحبها منذ الصغر، وفي خضم رحلة المجد والثراء والبحث عن الحُب، ينسى پيب صحبه القدماء وينسى من أحسن إليه وتعهّده برعايته صغيراً. ثم تنقلب الأحداث رأساً على عقب في مصادفات غريبة وصادمة، ليعود پيب كمان كان فقيراً، فقد تحطّمت أحلامه وباءت جميع توقّعاته بالفشل..فالرعب كل الرعب يكمن في أن تنسى نفسك خلال رحلة تحقيق حلمك! رواية الحُب، المجد، الأحلام، الانتقام، والصداقة.

ممتعة، مُدهشة، تُنسيني نفسي في تفاصيلها..
n  n
...

5 stars to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. So many good choices in the world of Charles Dickens, but ultimately, even though I love me some ghosts of Scrooge, Great Expectations wins out.

Most of us probably were "forced" to read this book in junior high or high school. I am one of those people; however, I was an English major in college and read it again for one of my courses. It's one of those books that gets better as you get older and stronger each time you read it. If you only read it once, or you barely recall the story, I implore you to give it another chance.

This is the story of America. This is the story within all of us. It challenges culture and race. It challenges rich and poor. It challenges men and women. It challenges children and adults. It challenges marriage and being single. It challenges everything.

There are multiple plots and stories within this book. The characters are classic icons. The themes are intrinsic and speak to everything that America is built on.

At first, I admit it could feel overdone. The plot is varied and complex at times, but within each story, the lessons you learn without even realizing it are the little surprises you encounter when you least expect it.

Who can't imagine the wedding dress? Who hasn't contemplated what it would be like to steal something (even a pencil or a photocopy at work)? Who hasn't contemplated what love means?

You can't escape the realism and the drama all wrapped up in this book.

It's what helps you formulate so many ideas of life.

Go back and read it again if you haven't read it in years and didn't have an open mind. Eh, then watch the movie if you still have questions.

How Great Expectations changed my own expectations



Great Expectations changed my life.

Up until Grade 11, I was simply an okay student. I had skipped a grade a few years earlier, and I was doing fine, but I didn’t stand out. And no wonder. I barely remember doing any homework. I didn’t feel particularly challenged by anything; like most adolescents, I was probably more interested in watching TV or appearing cool and trying to fit in than I was with marks or learning.

But something happened in Grade 11, and I think it had to do with Great Expectations. The book was assigned for English class, and we were supposed to start reading it over the Christmas break. I procrastinated. It seemed like such a chore; there was so much description in the book; I couldn’t relate to the idea of a “gentleman”; and what the hell were “victuals”? But soon enough, I was entranced by Dickens’s storytelling skills.

When we finally came to study the book in the new year, I’m sure I ended up skimming some passages. But I remember, thanks to my excellent teacher, being fully swept up in Dickens’s tale of a simple country boy’s sudden change in fortune. Suddenly, I got excited about the past. Suddenly, I got excited about school. My grades improved. The next year, I got into the “Scholarship,” or “Enriched,” English class, which offered a much heavier course load that included (!) Oliver Twist.

After that, I began reading Dickens on my own. I read Bleak House one summer. Ditto David Copperfield. I don’t know why I stopped. University, perhaps? My loss. But my lifelong love of reading probably began around this time.

Rereading this book over the past week has brought back that rush of excitement and discovery. To be clear, this wasn’t my second encounter with the material. I’ve seen many film, TV and stage adaptations of the story, and one Christmas, Santa (i.e., my book-loving mom) had left an abridged audiotape recording of the book in my stocking. Even in this format, I was enchanted again.

But there’s really nothing like experiencing the journey of Pip, Joe, Mrs. Joe, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Estella, et al. from the start. I’ve always considered it one of my favourite novels of all time, and this rereading has reaffirmed my love for it.

So I proudly add this to my Rereading series, the rest of which can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...


What do I remember from my first reading?
• The great opening scene in the churchyard cemetery between Pip and the convict (see illustration above). It’s truly one of the most memorable inciting events in all of literature.
• The petrified life of Miss Havisham. The idea of this woman who stopped her life from continuing at the exact time she was jilted was truly inspired. For Dickens to make her a symbol of someone literally stuck in the past was sheer genius. All the details are there: the faded wedding gown; the stopped clocks; the spoiled reception table. (I think my original edition had pictures of the mice and insects crawling in and around the wedding cake.) Of course, this isn’t realism. But it’s so effective as a metaphor.
• Pip’s changing relationship with Joe and Biddy. Is there a more humble and modest portrait of working class life than Joe Gargery, the blacksmith? I think not. Dickens illustrates Pip’s changing attitude towards his background with real skill. I’m not sure an author from the upper classes could have created the small town characters with as much insight and affection.
• The idea of having one’s fortunes completely changed overnight.
• All the coincidences. Which: yeah, this is Dickens.

What don’t I remember from that reading?
• I must admit I forgot about some minor characters like the clerk Mr. Wopsle, who has his own “great expectations” arc as an aspiring Shakespearean actor!
• I probably skimmed the passages with (the lawyer) Jaggers’s clerk, Wemmick, who keeps his professional life separate from his personal one. (He lives with his “Aged.”)
• Some of the cloak and danger intrigue would have been intriguing, I’m sure, for someone who had never seen a Mission: Impossible film. The big climactic attempted escape by boat was okay, but a little old-fashioned. It was also hard for me to picture. I think the mysterious mood of dread and foreboding Dickens created was more important than the actual action.
• I had mostly forgotten Magwitch’s long story about his life, both before and after he had met Pip. Now I’m curious to read Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs, which I think is loosely inspired by his tale.

What do I appreciate now?
• The first-person narration is absolutely essential to our enjoyment of the book. Getting deep inside Pip’s mind, from a child to a teen to a young man to a humbled person at the end, is fascinating. What happens midway through the novel, as Pip avoids Joe and the forge once his expectations have risen, is telling. We know he’s avoiding them, but Pip never admits it in his narrative. We don’t even need Dickens to tell us that he’s avoiding them. We know it. We feel it. And we know Pip will eventually have to deal with that avoidance.
• The sense of humour (mostly) holds up. And the dialogue is rich and dramatic.
• Each character’s language is distinct, from Uncle Pumblechook’s preening, pretentious spewings to the very different rough diction by Joe and Magwitch. Jaggers (perfect name!), even in his sentence constructions and rhetoric, speaks just as a lawyer would speak.
• Miss Havisham’s remorse when she realizes how her selfishness has affected everyone – Pip, Estella – is quite moving.
• I hadn’t realized before that Magwitch, like Havisham, also wanted to shape a life to rectify something that had happened to him.
• Bentley Drummle doesn’t get much time on the page, but he’s memorable. And his beatings of Estella, and the fitting way he dies (we’re told he mistreated a horse and the horse fought back), are quietly horrible.
• The lesson that people, regardless of their status or wealth or reputation, are only as good as how they treat you, is invaluable. A few years after reading this, when I headed to college and suddenly met people from vastly differently socio-economic groups, I’m sure this stayed with me.

Final thoughts
• This is a mature masterpiece. There’s comic relief, but a darkness suffuses the book. Whichever of the endings you accept, there’s still a feeling that there’s no real happy ending to Pip and Estella’s lives.
• As is usual with Dickens, characters’ names tell you so much about them. Herbert Pocket. Wemmick. Mr. Pumblechook. Orlick. Abel Magwitch.
• As I suggested above, this isn’t realism. But there’s something Dickens does to get us to know these characters. He gives them specific traits, tics, sayings, obsessions. All of this is less insistently comical than it was in a book like David Copperfield, though; there’s no “Barkis is willin.’”
• There’s a reason why this novel has endured, and why it’s been adapted so often. Its themes of attempting to rise above one’s class, of accepting where one came from, of vengeance, of redemption, of forgiveness, are absolutely timeless.
• Thank you, Dickens, and to my Grade 11 teacher, for altering the course of my life.

Great Expectations…were formed...were met…and were thoroughly exceeded!n  n

The votes have been tallied, all doubts have been answered and it is official and in the books ...I am a full-fledged, foaming fanboy of Sir Dickens and sporting a massive man-crush for literature’s master story-teller*.

*Quick Aside: My good friend Richard who despises “Chuckles the Dick” is no doubt having a conniption as he reads this…deep breaths, Richard, deep breaths.

After love, love, loving A Tale of Two Cities, I went into this one with, you guessed it [insert novel title] and was nervous and wary of a serious let down in my sophomore experience with Dickens. Silly me, there was zero reason for fear and this was even more enjoyable than I had hoped. Not quite as standing ovation-inducing as A Tale of Two Cities, but that was more a function of the subject matter of A Tale of Two Cities being more attractive to me.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Here Dickens tells the story of the growth and development of young Philip Pirrip (“Pip”) who begins his life as an orphan, neglected and abused, by his sister (Mrs. “Joe” Gargery). "I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends." Through a series of chance encounters, Pip rises above his disadvantaged beginnings to become a gentleman in every sense of the word. Pip’s journey is not a straight line and his strength of character and inner goodness are not unwavering, but, in the end, they shine through and he the better for it.

THOUGHTS & GUSHINGS:

Dickens prose is the essence of engaging and his humor is both sharp and subtle and sends warm blasts of happy right into my cockles.

n My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

In addition to his ability to twist a phrase and infuse it with clever, dry wit, Dickens is able to brings similar skill across the entire emotional range. When he tugs on the heart-strings, he does so as a maestro plucks the violin and you will feel played and thankful for the experience.

n   For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.
…
We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one. n

Dickens never bashes over the head with the emotional power of his prose. In fact, it is the quiet, subtle method of his delivery of the darker emotions that make them so powerful.

Okay…okay…I’ll stop on the prose. I think I’ve made my point that I love his writing.

Combine his polished, breezy verse with his seemingly endless supply of memorable characters that is his trademark and you have the makings of a true classic...which this happens to be. There are so many unique, well drawn characters in this story alone that it is constantly amazing to me that he was able to so regularly populate his novels with such a numerous supply. To name just a few, Great Expectations gives us:

- the wealthy and bitter Miss Havisham,
- the good-hearted but often weak social climbing main character Pip,
- the good-hearted criminal Magwitch,
n  n
- the truly evil and despicable Orlick and Drummle,
n  n
- the virtuous, pillar of goodness "Joe" Gargery
- the abusive, mean-spirited, never-to-be-pleased Mrs. Joe Gargery,
- the cold and unemotional Estella,
- the officious, money-grubbing Mr. Pumblechook, and
- the iconic Victorian businessman Mr. Jaggers.

It’s a veritable panoply of distinct personalities, each with their own voice and their own part to play in this wonderful depiction of life in 19th Century London.

The only criticism I have for the book is that I tend to agree with some critics that the original "sadder" ending to the story was better and more in keeping with the rest of the narrative. However, as someone who doesn't mind a happy ending, especially with characters I have come to truly care for, that is a relatively minor gripe.

4.5 to 5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATIONS!!!

P.S. A few bonus quotes that I thought were too good not to share:

Pip: “In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”

Joe to Pip: "If you can't get to be uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked."

A rags to riches story - for more than one character. Like Dickens’ other novels, it was originally published in chapters in periodicals, so it’s broken up into manageable chunks, with most chapters ending at a turning point, so you want to read on.

Pip is an orphan being raised by his strict sister and henpecked husband Joe, a blacksmith. A wealthy woman (who was left standing at the altar and has lived in her bridal gown ever since) invites him to play with her ward, Estella, each week. She is a little older than Pip, and mocks him and toys with his affections.

**** SPOILERS FOLLOW ****

When a few years later, Pip receives an unexpected inheritance, he goes to London to become a gentleman, and hopes his new found position will enable him to woo Estella. However, he becomes arrogant and feckless and is embarrassed by Joe – who is the kindest character in the novel.

It transpires the inheritance was actually from a convict Pip gave food to when he was a child, and who was transported to Australia where he eventually became a respectable wealthy man. Pip struggles to accept this unsavoury fact, though in the end he risks much to help his benefactor one last time.

It’s a good yarn, but part of the interest is that whilst Pip is ostensibly the hero, he’s not a very likeable character, which gives it an interesting edge.

Oh, the beauty and the agony tears at me as I think about this stunning story.

The characters are vivid and the settings so well written that I was transported to the graveyard alongside young Pip and his convict, fear streaking through me as it was for that small boy torn by a near-impossible decision. And I’m there with Pip and kind-hearted Joe in the forge. I can feel the fire on my skin and taste hot metal on the back of my tongue. In my mind, I hear the crackling of the decades-old crinoline of Miss Havisham’s skirts rustling against the marble floors of the mausoleum she calls home. Amid the stopping of Miss Havisham’s clock, the cool radiance that is Estella vibrates from the pages, bringing her to life.

If you haven’t read Great Expectations, I encourage you to do so. Yes, it was first published in 1861, and the syntax is more eloquent than that we’ve become accustomed to, but once this tale grabs hold, you will forget the language and year it was written and be all in with these new friends. The love, the heartbreak and the lessons still hold true today. Some choices, once made, can leave long-reaching scars on the hearts of those we never knew we touched. A good deed can ripple through time to places never imagined. The consequences of our actions must be accounted for, and there will always be outcomes we could never have anticipated.

Great Expectations is the real deal! The deliciously-satisfying prose is the whipped cream on the proverbial sundae that is Dickens. The plot and subplots (and sub-subplots) are astounding! The way he can weave this tangled web yet keep the interest of the reader while giving nothing away until the perfect moment … and BAM! He has you, and you sigh with the perfection of it all.

You’ve missed a gorgeous piece of literature if you don’t dive into this book!

Charles Dickens falls far down my list of preferred Victorian authors. I think he is overrated. His characters are one-dimensional, being either all bad or all good. His writing style requires too much effort to read. His stories are sensationalistic. All that said, this novel, with its suspense as well as twists and turns, is enjoyable, which is good, because I bought several fancy editions before reading it. (I have a book-buying problem.)

"In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see."

Early in the novel, young Pip, a poor orphan whose parents and many brothers are dead, has two turning points in his life, which structure everything that follows. First, he meets an escaped convict in a cemetery. Second, a weird, vengeful, wealthy woman sends for him, very oddly, out of nowhere to entertain her and her adopted daughter at their house.

"Break their hearts, my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!"

"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read..."

As a consequence of these turning points, everything in Pip's life changes. His ambitions and life goals (or expectations) change, his living arrangements change, he gets new romantic interests, he meets new people and friends. And a key question is how all this affects his behavior and his relationships to those humble people who truly care about him and who have long been his supporters.

"Ever the best of friends."

"But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall every day?"

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home."

"She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love—despair—revenge—dire death—it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse."

"Better ... to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken."

"The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death."