“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings
welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a
whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among
such must come, and must be met as they come.”
-spoken by Joe, in the novel
What made me choose this classic for our book club to read? At the time, my husband and I had tickets to see the play "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" about which we were very excited and which turned out to be a wonderful production at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. Also the Orlando Public Library declared a 2014 theme of "What the Dickens?" featuring many special activities centered around the work of Dickens. I chose three of his shorter works and the group voted for Great Expectations. Unfortunately it was not well-received!
When we met to discuss it, only five members were in attendance. Of course, a few had read the book and just couldn't make it but many admitted it was not their cup of tea. Of those of us who met, three had finished the book and really liked it, one had not read it at all but wanted to hear the discussion, and yours truly had finished only half. I had to confess it was the first book I had not completed reading before the meeting since the Page Turners start-up in 2008! And I also admitted I HAD read the Sparknotes! My biggest mistake was not starting the novel soon enough. The language is challenging when you have had a steady reading diet of current fiction and though Great Expectations is one of Dicken's shorter works, it is still quite lengthy! As the participants talked about the plot and characters, I found myself wanting to finish the book, which I did about a week later. In the discussion they brought up some of the humor and intriguing details that had not come out in the Sparknotes. I decided on a rating of 3 because I felt myself trudging through it and yet there were parts I truly appreciated. The group average was 4, though that is based on only 7 members voting. One person who gave it a 2 said it was "too many words to say so little."
The protagonist and narrator is Pip, an orphan being raised by his mean and nasty sister and her kind-hearted husband, Joe. At a young age, near the beginning of the novel, Pip meets Estella who changes his life and makes him aspire to become a gentleman in order to win her. After some time, a mysterious benefactor provides Pip what he believes will fulfill his "great expectations." The plot is intricate with many twists and turns. The characters are numerous, well-developed and mostly eccentric, especially Miss Havisham and Wemmick. Joe, Biddy and Herbert are the most likeable ones, and also Pip, after he begins to learn what is truly important in life.
Dickens does know how to turn a phrase, for example in describing Mr. Wemmick, "He had glittering eyes---small, keen, and black---and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty or fifty years." Much later in trying to hide someone, Pip describes two women in his service "...an inflammatory old female, assisted by an animated rag-bag whom she called her niece; and to keep a room secret from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny." These and many other descriptions I found very amusing.
I happened to be at the library when "Charles Dickens" was a guest speaker. It was very interesting to hear him speak of his life and read aloud some of his work. One of these days, I would love to tackle Nicholas Nickleby but it will be a while!
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