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Pip is content with his simple life until a bitter gentlewoman employs him as a sometime companion to herself and her adopted daughter. Pip then aspires to become a gentleman himself, though his dreams are unrealistic until the day he mysteriously comes into a fortune and is sent to London to become refined. The story follows Pip's journey into adulthood and emotional maturity and understanding.
cbl_tn: Mister Pip explores the reading and interpretation of Great Expectations in a late 20th century South Sea island culture in the midst of a civil war.
Bcteagirl: Thursday Next is a Literary Detective who helps to keep people from changing plots in books, keep book characters from escaping etc. When she goes in for training, who should she be apprenticed to but Miss Havisham who is more than happy to get out of her dreary rooms once and a while. What larks!… (more)
Bcteagirl: If you enjoyed the 'good hard working pastoral theme' of his uncle and their 'Larks' you may enjoy Adam Bede which has many of the same themes.
lucyknows: Great Expectations and Bonfire of the Vanities can be successfully tied together in that both the authors explore the themes of ostentation, ambition and morality
JuliaMaria: In der Einleitung zu "an unofficial rose" von Anthony D. Nuttall wird Dickens als Vergleich herangezogen: "An Unofficial Rose is indeed a surprisingly Dickensian novel, crowded, superabundant."
This is my first Dickens novel (I had only read A Christmas Carol before), and I enjoyed it quite a lot. More than I was expecting. One tends to think of 19th century literature as probably slow and filled with lengthy descriptions, but this was very readable and character focused.
Dickens' characters are interesting. Many of them are memorable because of their eccentricities, but even though those eccentricities define them, they do not feel like mere caricatures. They are infused with such vitality and Dickens describes them with such conviction that they seem perfectly real.
The prose is entertaining and the way Dickens describes the moments of emotional intensity is particularly admirable. He was been accused of sentimentality, and he is indeed guilty of that, but for me it is a feature rather than a bug, and part of the charm of this novel. There are a few coincidences in the plot that may stretch readers' credulity. Also, some parts near the end feel a bit rushed. I didn't care. I was too invested in the central theme of the novel, the moral conflict within Pip's soul. Would the good-natured, generous boy triumph, or would he be destroyed by the excessive ambitions that made him reject those who loved him, his Great Expectations?
This is a story that remains in my mind after reading it, and I have no doubt that this will not be the last Dickens novel I read. ( )
Favourite characters - Joe Gargery, Herbert Pocket, Mr Jaggers Least Favourite character - Miss Havisham (followed very closely by Pip, what a spineless poop) Favourite character's name - Mr Wopsle ( )
I took a buzz-feed quiz on which classic novel I should read and got this. 1) The cover is beautiful. 2) I thought Miss Havisham was a ghost the entire story. I loved Estella the most as a character. She proves that every individual has the ability to love; despite their background. One of my favorites. ( )
What made this great book excellent was Martin Jarvis' narration. I rarely listen to audiobooks. On a whim I thought to give this favoured Dickens a try in anticipation of the upcoming "readaptation" - having it play in the background. But I was riveted. And all because of Jarvis' masterful command of the text. Narrators really make all the difference as to the quality/"listenability" of a book. ( )
The idea of an innocent boy establishing unconsciously an immense influence over the mind of a hunted felon … haunted Dickens’s imagination until he gathered round it a whole new world of characters and incidents
Affectionately Inscribed to Chauncy Hare Townshend
First words
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
Quotations
Neither were my notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my life," laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the wheelwright's or up by the mill.
...a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, in to which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it.
I had little objection to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise. (Chapter XXVII)
"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."
And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.
After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal.
If you can’t get to be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked.
Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion. (Chapter IV)
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretenses did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad hal-crown of somebody else's manufacture is reasonable enough, but that I should knowingly reckon of my own make as good money! (Chapter XXVIII)
Last words
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
This is the main work for Great Expectations. It should not be combined with any adaptation, abridgement, etc. If this is your book but it is an abridged or adapted version, consider changing the isbn to match your version so that it can be combined with the correct abridgement or adaptation.
Pip is content with his simple life until a bitter gentlewoman employs him as a sometime companion to herself and her adopted daughter. Pip then aspires to become a gentleman himself, though his dreams are unrealistic until the day he mysteriously comes into a fortune and is sent to London to become refined. The story follows Pip's journey into adulthood and emotional maturity and understanding.
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Book description
One of the finest novels by iconic British author Charles Dickens, this Victorian tale follows the good-natured orphan Pip as he makes his way through life. As a boy, Pip crosses paths with a convict named Magwitch, a man who will heavily influence Pip’s adulthood. Meanwhile, the earnest young man falls for the beautiful Estella, the adoptive daughter of the affluent and eccentric Miss Havisham. Widely considered to be Dickens's last great book, the story is steeped in romance and features the writer's familiar themes of crime, punishment, and societal struggle. 384
In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman — and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations." In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride
Haiku summary
Characters stick in my memory: Estella, Joe, Miss H. And yours? (ed.pendragon)
Dickens' characters are interesting. Many of them are memorable because of their eccentricities, but even though those eccentricities define them, they do not feel like mere caricatures. They are infused with such vitality and Dickens describes them with such conviction that they seem perfectly real.
The prose is entertaining and the way Dickens describes the moments of emotional intensity is particularly admirable. He was been accused of sentimentality, and he is indeed guilty of that, but for me it is a feature rather than a bug, and part of the charm of this novel. There are a few coincidences in the plot that may stretch readers' credulity. Also, some parts near the end feel a bit rushed. I didn't care. I was too invested in the central theme of the novel, the moral conflict within Pip's soul. Would the good-natured, generous boy triumph, or would he be destroyed by the excessive ambitions that made him reject those who loved him, his Great Expectations?
This is a story that remains in my mind after reading it, and I have no doubt that this will not be the last Dickens novel I read. ( )