'Great Expectations' has me, unfortunately, in two minds. The first one says, "This novel was FANTASTIC. I defy you to find more personalised, intriguing characters and description so lush you'd might as well be inhaling factory smog through your very own lungs."
The other side of me says, "Don't be fooled by the astounding few segments that this novel had to offer; you waded through countless irrelevant passages praying frantically for Pip to do something interesting. STOP TALKING TO MR. WEMMICK."
So, yes. My thoughts on 'Great Expectations' fall into those two distinct camps. Overall I think I'll have to side with the former just because the last couple of chapters were jaw-droppingly excellent (I'm a sucker for endings - they can be happy or sad as long as they leave a lasting effect) and the characters truly were extraordinary. Miss Havisham, especially, is one of the only characters I can think who, from the very first description of her rotten wedding dress and bitter demeanour, gave me a profoundly affecting visual image of her character. Herbert, Estella, Joe, Magwitch - all perfectly developed, perfectly unique characters. Even Pip, whom I despised for being so selfish and ungrateful was fascinating to learn about, even if i did want to punch him in the face.
Taking a step back, I'm going to discuss one of my absolute favourite elements of the novel. Let's be clear: Volume One mopped the floor with the other two volumes. One particular reason for this was Pip's fascinating narration as an adult who uses a diverse vocabulary and often quite complex syntax to convey the younger Pip's thoughts and actions. It may be a stretch to say that there was dramatic irony at work, but it was fascinating from two perspectives: the first is the later Pip's reflection on his younger self's actions, which always leads to a lot of self-deprecation et cetera, and the second was the omnipresent thought in my mind that the younger Pip, yearning and striving to be educated and successful, would one day reach that goal (well, partially) and reflect on his earlier actions. It's almost paradoxical, isn't it?
So, die Vorteilen:
- Absolutely fascinating characters
- Strangely brilliant writing style in the first volume (which does admittedly continue throughout the second and third volumes, but to a lesser effect)
That's actually only two things, but it made this novel very interesting indeed.
Now for the negatives. One of the main drawbacks of this novel to me was, that although Dickens could provide a beautiful, sensory description of one distinct scene (often a pivotal one), his description of more ambiguous places and lesser scenes was, frankly, shocking. I find it quite hard to visualise many of the places that he was talking about, especially in one of the last chapters when they are on the boat together. This caused me to not enjoy the final exciting climax of the novel, which was actually quite irritating.
I have brought this second point upon myself. Having read the title of 'Great Expectations' and nothing else by Charles Dickens, I quite foolishly prepared myself for a thematic work filled with nothing more than contemplation of dreams and expectation. I was quite annoyed then, when the plot of the novel veered off in other directions other than Pip's "great expectation", but, as I say, this is really my own fault. Since I had presumed it to be largely thematic, I found myself quite unwilling to enjoy the simple adventurous plot that took reign for a large portion of the novel, and to an extent it even stopped me from enjoying the fascinating characters in the novel because I couldn't stop thinking about their representations. I'm really quite angry with myself.
So, there you have it. I love and loathe 'Great Expectations'. And, most importantly, I have learned not to assume anything about a novel before I actually read it, because it invariably makes the experience less enjoyable.
I have been more than that since my absence, although I've kind of forgotten everything by now. There was 'Macbeth', and 'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton (I really do think I prefer English literature to American) and probably some other ones that I've completely forgotten. Oh well. C'est la vie.
It's 11:39. I'm off to watch a BBC documentary!
