OK, here we go. I am an avid reader and I generally enjoy Dickens pretty well. I read this book as a kid, but I didn't remember it well, so I thought I would give it another go-round. I will also mention that I read this one fourth out of five Dickens novels in a binge. I enjoy Dickens' writing style. He paints a realistically bleak picture of the England (especially London) of the time. Dirt, disease, poverty and crime are almost always believable. The characters are very well fleshed out. This is, of course, Dickens' forte. The protagonist, Pip, is described in enough detail that the reader (this reader, anyway) grows to hate him in fairly short order. As a boy he is bitterly resentful towards people who are less than kind to him, if they have little to offer, yet he gives a pass to Estella (the meanest of them all) simply because she is beautiful. Those who are good to him he takes fully for granted because he feels they are somehow beneath him. It is painful to watch him throw away everything that is right and good in his life, and casually scrape off those who love him. He does this because he comes into money which he did nothing to earn or deserve. His descent into the life of a pompous, shiftless, idle, wastrel happens almost immediately. And this is what he considers "gentlemanly"? What an idiot. The only thing that kept me reading was the faint glimmer of hope that Pip would finally receive the comeuppance that is his just desert. Alas, he does not. True, he loses the money, and some might say he regains some of his humanity in the process. But what was his choice? If he had managed to hang onto his wealth he would have remained a major-league jerk until his dying day. In Dickens' other books the cruel, the greedy, the slothful and wicked usually end up getting paid back with interest. Not so in Great Expectations. A couple minor characters, not even remotely as crumby as Pip, get sorted out, but Pip himself winds up pretty much a winner. Come on Chuck! I pronounce Great Expectations a dud. Choose A Tale of Two Cities instead. Even some of the good guys crash and burn in that one.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
awesome book
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Great book
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
thank you ! just what i needed for school this year. this and the other books you sent came before i started this semester and will help very much this book came better then i hoped for thank you
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