Great Expectations in Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)

Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: personal-mythology, classic

I guess my favourite book as a kid would have to be Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I didn't read many children's books. I went through a handful of Seuss, I remember reading Go Dog. Go a few times, and there was a book that retold Disney Tales with minimal pictures that I must have read quite a bit because I remember my copy showing signs of much wear when I was older, but I didn't spend much time on elementary reading.

I jumped quickly to Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys and Roald Dahl's I guess my favourite book as a kid would have to be Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I didn't read many children's books. I went through a handful of Seuss, I remember reading Go Dog. Go a few times, and there was a book that retold Disney Tales with minimal pictures that I must have read quite a bit because I remember my copy showing signs of much wear when I was older, but I didn't spend much time on elementary reading.

I jumped quickly to Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys and Roald Dahl's books. But none of these really captured my heart. So I guess that leaves Great Expectations -- my first classic. It's the first book my Mom gave me to read in a long line of classics she thought I'd love (and it was one of the least controversial), sod I spent the fall of my ninth year devouring every word.

Then I read it again. And I read it again. And then I waited a decade and read it again. Then I stopped and haven't read it since (more on this later). But when I think of Great Expectations, when anything conjures the thought of the book in my head, I am instantly transported back to that first time I read it, back to the portables in my elementary school. I am sitting on the brownish red carpet, feeling its rough texture under my bum as I sit waiting to go into a classroom. I am in Mrs. Dalkie's room, and I see the sun coming in through the south-facing window. I see my desk in the back near hers, a place where she can keep me quiet or out of the way during lessons that bore me. A place where my reading and not paying attention won't interrupt others. Anything connected to Great Expectations can take me back there.

There's a guy named Pip on The Voice, a show I watch with my kids, and every time I hear them say his name I am transported back to that classroom. I saw a couple of seconds of a Masterpiece Classic with Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham the other night -- before putting the kids to bed -- and it happened. The rare time I hear the name Estella or see an actress who has played her (Jane Wyman, Gwyneth Paltrow, et al.) the same thing occurs all over again. And if I hear the sound of chains, any clanking of metal really, I think of Magwitch and wonder what I would bring him to eat in the fog.

Yet, for all that, I am not a fan of Dickens today. I hated A Tale of Two Cities. I struggled with Hard Times. I read Oliver Twist long ago and remember very little. I am currently struggling through David Copperfield, and were I not reading it as a serial I'd have given up by now. Apart from A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations is the only story of Dickens I like let alone love.

I often think of reading it again. I thought about coming down to watch the movie with Gillian Anderson the other night too. But I am afraid that Great Expectations will fall at this hurdle, that I am too far removed from being a me who could love the story, so I avoid reading it, I avoid watching it because I don't want to destroy the love I have.

I think the only way I will enjoy it again is listening to one of my kids talk about Great Expectations when they pick it off my shelf. Listening to them retell what they're reading should keep the wonder alive. Maybe it will even help me overcome my fears and give it another try. It shouldn't be too long now. ...more

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Nov 06, 2008 Maggie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, fiction, british, coming-of-age, boxall-1001, guardian-1000, classics, gothic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is a story of Pip, who begins life as an orphan living with his heavy-handed adult sister and her kind husband Joe, a blacksmith. Miss Havisham, a wealthy, isolated spinster, calls Pip to her house to be a companion, and there he meets the cold, beautiful Estella, through whom he comes to realise his low social standing. When Pip gains an inheritance from an unknown benefactor, whom he assumes to be Miss Havisham, he moves to London to be a gentleman, with Mr Jaggers, an aggressive and prom This is a story of Pip, who begins life as an orphan living with his heavy-handed adult sister and her kind husband Joe, a blacksmith. Miss Havisham, a wealthy, isolated spinster, calls Pip to her house to be a companion, and there he meets the cold, beautiful Estella, through whom he comes to realise his low social standing. When Pip gains an inheritance from an unknown benefactor, whom he assumes to be Miss Havisham, he moves to London to be a gentleman, with Mr Jaggers, an aggressive and prominent lawyer, as his guardian. He gains the friendship of the good-natured Herbert and Mr Jaggers' two-sided clerk Wemmick, acquires expensive tastes and idle habits, and distances himself from Joe and his old home, all the while dreaming to win Estella. Things change when his benefactor is revealed to be Abel Magwitch, an escaped convict whom Pip helped in his childhood. Pip's dreams are dashed. His fortunes disappear with Magwitch's arrest and sentencing to death, but in the process he gains moral principles, lets go of his pride, renews his life with Joe, and begins life as a gentleman in character if not in wealth.

There are powerful moral lessons to learn from this tale, about the emptiness of pursuing worldly dreams, the importance of drawing your identity from virtue instead of wealth, and the falseness of judging man based on standing rather than character. The awareness of social status can create artificial divisions through the workings of pride, but as Pip comes to realise, all men are equal before God, who strips away the differences created by differing circumstances, and judges us based on our true characters. Indeed, there is an undercurrent of a moral message running through the whole story. This is generated mainly by the fact that Pip writes from the perspective of a man reflecting on his past, and it is his condemnation of his old sins that makes his behaviour bearable.

Apart from the moral messages, the other highlight is the imaginative characterisation. Miss Havisham, who through living in isolation in a desolate house since she was abandoned on her wedding day has had time to cultivate her vengefulness, is frightening when we first meet her. In time it becomes clear that Estella is her tool for taking revenge on men by winning and breaking their hearts. Yet you never really hate her because she is a victim of her circumstance. She eventually repents, but dies after setting herself on fire, a fitting end for such an impassioned woman. Wemmick was for me the most delightful character. I've never met any character quite like him. With Mr Jaggers he is no-nonsense, tight, and echoes only the demanding and uncaring views of his employer. But outside the office he owns a pleasant little home built in the fantasy of a castle, with its own moat, drawbridge and cannon, an lives with an almost deaf amiable old man known only as "Aged Parent" or "Aged P.". Another standout character for me, though a minor one, was Herbert's mother Mrs Pocket, who believes that her grandfather should have been baron, spends her time reading a book about nobility, is utterly inept at raising her children, and insists on being respected yet is respected by no one. Unfortunately her character wasn't developed much, like several other promising characters – a flaw that probably arose from Dickens writing and publishing the book in serials, four chapters at a time. But these characters and several others added life to the story through their eccentricity. ...more

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