August 19, 2009

Book 43: Great Expectations

Great Expectations
Charles Dickens

To begin, it must be said that this is surely a book whose reputation precedes it, and I embarked with, shall we say, great expectations of this enduring literary classic. I am not quite sure if they were met because, while this is an engrossing read and certainly a frank and excellent portrayal of its historical context, there are moments within when the reader's eyes glaze over and fight to proceed. The book's main fault, I believe, is that to modern eyes each of its characters is, quite frankly, morally dreadful. It's quite easy to side with young Pip when he rashly feeds a threatening escaped convicts in the marshes behind his humble home, but when he begins to turn his back on his family and upbringing he becomes quite intolerable and remains so for a majority of the novel. Dickens is correct in portraying Pip as so, but with an irritating and pompous narrator to book occasionally becomes frustrating and seems to carry on at length without purpose. Though the middle may be plodding, however, Dickens does move to wrap the novel up at quite a reasonable speed, solving its mysteries at a pleasant rate throughout the final acts and providing a sense of conclusion just when certain mysteries seem to have been dropped. Great Expectations has a great sense of mystery throughout, which serves it well and which keeps the reader interested as Pip goes along attempting to be a gentleman while adopting the moral repugnance so often associated with that station in that period.

It's a marvel that Dickens is able to bend readers' sympathies so that, when the time comes for Pip to receive his moral awakening, we are alongside him and cheering him on, almost having forgotten or forgiven his grave errors, only to have Pip remorsefully re-introduce them in full force. What Great Expectations creates, then, is a likely story of a young man's moral education populated by a host of unlikely characters. From the introduction of the very weird Miss Havisham it is clear that this vision of London is populated with unlikely characters who, save Pip, serve ably to flesh out the text with their eccentricities that become, strangely, stereotypical. Most interesting of the supporting cast, I believe, is John Wemmick, clerk to one-man machine Mr. Jaggers and who exhibits an interesting and telling divide between his work and personal personalities. This divide can serve as an imperfect reflection of Pip and his split life as a gentleman and a pauper and an example that even pompous Pip cannot help but draw upon.

Great Expectations is quite strange because it seems to move so slowly and without purpose, but upon finishing the final page each tiny piece of the puzzle has fallen into place and the package is wrapped rather neatly. Pip does not get away clean from his indiscretions, but readers can rest assured that he remains good at heart and for this he is marginally rewarded. Indeed, the novel's greatest failing is its neglect of one of its greatest villains and details of his fate as well as allowing the repulsive Mr. Pumblechook to get a favorable outcome, but perhaps that too adds to the moral of the story, which is ambiguous at best. It remains ultimately unanswered whether Pip has indeed lived up to his great expectations, and his best chance seems to come just as he is losing those expectations altogether. Likewise with the novel, which begins somewhat slowly but which picks up so that by its third act it is nearly impossible to put down as its opening mysteries are solved satisfactorily and with delicate care and consideration by the author. Great Expectations comes to modern readers with a wealth of burdens on its back and, though it takes a while to ease them, it leaves readers satisfied with its place as a classic of English literature and worthy of the giant who penned it.

Grade: A-

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