Amazon Synopsis: In the marsh country of Victorian England, young Pip lives with his sister and her husband, the kindly blacksmith Joe, eking out a hardscrabble life. Pip’s one true aspiration is to apprentice for Joe and become a blacksmith himself, a dream that sustains him and gives him hope. But though he doesn’t know it, Pip’s fates are about to turn.
Alone in a graveyard one night, he encounters a grizzled and mud-smeared escaped convict. Dragging a heavy shackle from an injured leg, the man demands that Pip steal him food and help him remove the clanging iron. Cowed, Pip accommodates his commands without resistance. It isn’t until years later, after Pip has forged a tender relationship with the eccentric Mrs. Havisham, fallen into unexpected prosperity in London, and found himself gripped by love for the charming-yet-fickle Estella, that the true consequences of that night in the graveyard finally come to light.
Celebrated for its vibrant characters, engrossing plot, and universal themes of ambition and hope, Great Expectations stands as a pillar of Victorian literature and a preeminent entry in the Dickensian oeuvre.
I started reading this book about 5 years or so ago. Someone gave it to me as a gift. I went through a time period where no matter what I tried to read I couldn't focus. During quarantine I began to read a lot of books I'd left to the side, this was one of them.
This book is definitely a brain exerciser. It's in no way a book to read after coming back from a hiatus of books. Lucky for me I'd worked on other books and got myself right back where I needed to be to read this novel.
At times I was with the characters and not lost at all. Other times the story went on and I found no interest at all. I felt like this book could have used better descriptions of the world around, but at the same time it was as if he was determined to pull you into the characters themselves. It almost felt like reading a journal of a gentleman's life.
I've previously read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and that was and still is my favorite of his novels, but I have read only two so far.
I kind of felt a little disappointed after reading this. I guess I expected more from the era, and more from Dickens himself. I fell asleep various times while reading this, not from lack of sleep.
The best I can do is give this a 3 out of 5 pinwheels. It at least had some interesting lines every now and again that I couldn't have read anywhere else.
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