Great Expectations. Charles Dickens. 1860.
Read for LibriVox by Mil Nicholson. 20 hours, 13 minutes. [Source: Librivox]
First sentence: 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.
Note: This was my fourth time to "read" the novel. The first and second times were in high school and college where I rushed through at lightning speed because I was a procrastinator. I remembered nothing. The third time I savored the novel and it finally CLICKED for me. The fourth time was as an audio book. Audio is always slightly different for me. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes listening doesn't feel like it should count as reading, then again sometimes it does. I was engaged with this audio for the most part--give or take a few interruptions. What I miss most about listening--as opposed to reading--is the inability to mark quotes. For that reason, I am referring back to my first review of the novel.
Premise/plot: Can any Charles Dickens' novel easily--painlessly--be
condensed into a couple of sentences that summarizes the plot and
introduces the characters in an enticing, compelling way? I say NO. But
I'll try. (Because I'm stubborn like that!)
Pip is a young man being raised by his older sister and his
brother-in-law--the Gargerys. Mrs. Joe isn't all that nice to him, but,
Joe--a blacksmith--is a godsend. The novel opens with some excitement.
Pip has been approached--in a cemetery--by a shady character, a grown
man, a man readers learn to be an escaped convict. He wants a file--to
rid him of his chains--and some food. He's depending on Pip for both.
Does Pip have a choice in helping him? Not really. (Though Pip is used
to threats since he lives with his sister.) Some time later, Pip is
given another opportunity. This time an eccentric old lady, Miss
Havisham, wants Pip to be a companion for her and her adopted daughter,
Estella. Does Pip have a choice? Again I'll say not really. The meeting
is memorable and life-changing. Both his meeting of Miss Havisham and of
Estella will change him for better or worse. It is this meeting that
brings about his angst--his discontent. After meeting these two, he's no
longer content in his home being raised by Joe and Mrs. Joe. He's no
longer content being barely literate. He's no longer content with the
idea of apprenticing to Joe and following in his footsteps. He wants
what seems to be impossible: to be a gentleman--to walk, talk, act, live
as a gentleman. But never say never, right? One day--in the middle of
his apprenticeship to Joe--his life takes another turn. A lawyer
approaches him with glad tidings: he's now a man with expectations. The
catch: his benefactor wants to remain anonymous. His life from that
moment on will change dramatically. He's being given the opportunity to
become a new man. But does new always mean better? And what about those
he leaves behind? Joe and Biddy, in particular. (Biddy is a young woman
who has come to live with the family after Mrs. Joe is seriously
injured. Biddy is of their class but has some education.) He's thrust
into a whole new world, and, his manners and morals can sometimes lag
behind. Pip goes to live with the Pockets; he becomes best-best friends
with Herbert Pocket. Herbert christens him "Handel." The two go through
much together; their friendship is deep and sincere. Life seems to be
going swell, going according to Pip's grand plan, when Pip learns an
unsettling truth. He learns the identity of his benefactor. Pip is
shaken, confused, and ANGSTy once again. What is he to do now?! The
foundation of his hopes and dreams has collapses. His big plan of
marrying Estella seems to be truly impossible now. But not just that
plan but all his plans seem to be off-track now. Who can he depend on in
this crisis? From this point on, in my opinion, the novel shifts from
being a coming-of-age story to a dramatic MYSTERY. So much ACTION and
DRAMA are packed into the last hundred or so pages.
My thoughts: I recommend reading Great Expectations at a steady pace. It
is not one to rush through in one or two days. If you do, chances are
you won't remember what you read, and the novel won't stir up your
emotions. It is not one to read slowly hit-or-miss style. If you don't
read in it every day or every other day, you might not remember much
either. The greatest danger may be that you won't connect with the
characters or care about them. And unless you become attached to a
character or two, the book won't stay with you. This was my third time
to read the novel. In high school, I waited until the day before it was
due to open it. It was a NIGHTMARE reading experience. I hated every
minute of it. In college, I don't think I made the same mistake twice. I
don't think I procrastinated. I think my sin in that instance was
holding a grudge and reading it with a closed mind and heart. Since
graduating college, I've read Dickens voluntarily. And this year I
decided to read Great Expectations--as if for the first time. The goal:
to read it with fresh eyes, open heart, open mind, looking for what made
Great Expectations GREAT.
What was great about Great Expectations? I really enjoyed the
characters, the themes, and the contrasts. What kind of contrasts? Love
and hate, foolishness and wisdom, bitterness and forgiveness, friends
and enemies, pride and humility. For example, we have two characters
that live for revenge and thrive on bitterness to a certain degree. Abel
Magwitch and Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham may be the more memorable of
the two. She is living in a her worst moment, perpetuating the agony of
it. She was jilted at the altar, and from that moment on her life
stopped. Instead of moving on with her life, instead of finding a reason
to keep living, she became filled with hate, pain, anger, bitterness.
Not far behind her is Abel Magwitch. He has an enemy and there is this
constant need to get him, to get revenge, to come out on top, to win no
matter what. And this enemy haunts him--taunts him. Abel has his good
side, as does Miss Havisham. But their worldview is tainted more by hate
than love, more by this need to hurt others than to love.
What unites this novel is Pip. And a large part of Pip's identity is his
undying, never changing love for Estella. It's unrequited love at that.
Pip loves Estella. Estella does not love Pip. Estella loves Estella.
I'm not sure if Dickens was trying to enter into the debate of nature
versus nurture or not. But Estella has been raised to hate, raised to
hurt. Miss Havisham thinks she's protecting Estella from having her
heart broken by showing her day in and day out what happens from
trusting a man. But in reality, Estella doesn't have a heart to hurt.
She doesn't even have a heart to love the woman who raised her. Pip has
trouble seeing the real Estella. His Estella is an idealized version,
perhaps a version of who she could be if she'd been raised differently,
if she'd allow herself to be human, if she'd allow herself to be
vulnerable.
"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and
beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart,—if that has anything to do
with my memory." I got through some jargon to the effect that I took
the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no
such beauty without it. "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."
Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and
said in a whisper,— "Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you
admire her?" "Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham." She drew an
arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat in the
chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?" Before I
could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all)
she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love
her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and
as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her,
love her!" Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to
her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm
round my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her.
"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her,
to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved.
Love her!" 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. "I'll tell you," said she, in the same
hurried passionate whisper, "what real love is. It is blind devotion,
unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief
against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart
and soul to the smiter—as I did!" When she came to that, and to a wild
cry that followed that, I caught her round the waist. For she rose up in
the chair, in her shroud of a dress, and struck at the air as if she
would as soon have struck herself against the wall and fallen dead.
"Herbert," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "I love—I
adore—Estella." Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy
matter-of-course way, "Exactly. Well?" "Well, Herbert? Is that all you
say? Well?" "What next, I mean?" said Herbert. "Of course I know that."
"How do you know it?" said I. "How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you."
"I never told you." "Told me! You have never told me when you have got
your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always
adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and
your portmanteau here together. Told me! Why, you have always told me
all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me plainly that
you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when you were very
young indeed." "Very well, then," said I, to whom this was a new and not
unwelcome light, "I have never left off adoring her. And she has come
back, a most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her
yesterday. And if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her."
"O Estella!" I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do
what I would to restrain them; "even if I remained in England and could
hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife?"
"Nonsense," she returned,—"nonsense. This will pass in no time." "Never,
Estella!" "You will get me out of your thoughts in a week." "Out of my
thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in
every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common
boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every
prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the
ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in
the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the
embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become
acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are
made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your
hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and
everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you
cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good
in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only
with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you
must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp
distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!"
Favorite character: I think my favorite character was definitely Joe
Gargery. Joe loved Pip unconditionally. Joe loved Pip even when Pip was
being a brat or a snob--which was often especially in the first half of
the book. Pip did nothing to earn Joe's unconditional love and support.
Pip often thought of Joe as a fool, as ridiculous, as an embarrassment.
But this reader saw him differently. I didn't need a late hour epiphany
to see how awesome and amazing Joe was.
Favorite relationship: I really LOVED Herbert and Handel's friendship. I
love how these two supported one another, confided in one another,
wanted the best for one another. Herbert knew Pip--his strengths, his
weaknesses--and loved him as a brother. That brotherly love was
returned. When Pip came of age, he thought of Herbert first. How can I
use my wealth to help Herbert get a start in life? When Pip's world
started crashing in, I loved that Pip thought first of what this meant
to Herbert and only secondly to what it meant for him and his dreams. I
loved how these two seemed to understand one another. In hard, dangerous
times or easy-going good times, these two were there for each other.
Favorite scene: I think one of my favorite scenes is between Pip and
Miss Havisham. He is an adult now; he knows at last who his benefactor
was; his own dreams are gone--his illusions shattered. He's come to ask
for her help: he is not asking for money for himself, but money for his
friend, Herbert, in setting him up in a career. His maturity in this
scene effected me.
"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as
you have kept your own?" "Quite as faithfully." "And your mind will be
more at rest?" "Much more at rest." "Are you very unhappy now?" She
asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted
tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed
me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid
her forehead on it. "I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have
other causes of disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I
have mentioned." After a little while, she raised her head, and looked
at the fire Again.
"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness, Is it true?" "Too true." "Can I only serve you, Pip, by
serving your friend? Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do
for you yourself?" "Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you
even more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing." She
presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room for the
means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her pocket a
yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon
them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her neck.
She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and
evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the
receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled
again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the
pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without
looking at me. "My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write
under my name, "I forgive her," though ever so long after my broken
heart is dust pray do it!" "O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now.
There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and
thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be
bitter with you."
© 2018 Becky Laney of
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