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Title: Great Expectations (Cover to Cover Classics) by Charles Dickens, Martin Jarvis ISBN: 1-57270-063-7 Publisher: Audio Partners Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 12 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (302 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting book, but a nice challenge
Comment: First of all, I too am a student forced to read this book for a Freshman Honors English class, and I fail to see how many people can call this book a waste of time. Sure, I know the language is a bit of a challenge, but that's what a dictionary is for!
Anyway, I haven't yet finished the book (I still have a long way to go,) for I'm only on chapter 13, but I had to chime in and counterattack what all of the rest of the whiney students have said. So far, the way Dickens portrays his characters (by means of language, description, and dialogue) seems ultimately realistic (it should be, considering it was written in the 1830's) and there are many things throughout the book one has to come to love: Pip's almighty guilty conscience, the friendship bond between Pip and Joe, etc.
I can't sum up everything, for as I've said, I'm not finished yet, but for those of you who are being forced to read it, read it with an open mind. One of the reasons why I understand this book and find it a good read may be due to the fact that our class discusses the book as a whole, AND we have vocab sets weekly to help enrich what we read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Social commentary, mystery, romance and a great story...
Comment: I've never read any Dickens of my own free will. I was forced to read "A Tale of Two Cities" in high school and I thought that was enough for me. However, one day, on a whim, I bought a copy of Great Expectations. I'm not sure what I expected, but I certainly didn't expect to love it as much as I did.
Dickens is not a writer to read at a swift pace. Indeed, this novel was written in weekly episodes from December 1860 to August 1861 and, as it was created to be a serial, each installment is full of varied characters, great descriptions and a lot of action which moves the plot along and leaves the reader yearning for more. Therefore, unlike some books which are easily forgotten if I put them down for a few days, Great Expectations seemed to stick around, absorbing my thoughts in a way that I looked forward to picking it up again. It took me more than a month to read and I savored every morsel.
Basically the story is of the self-development of Pip, an orphan boy being raised by his sister and her blacksmith husband in the marshlands of England in 1820.
Every one of the characters were so deeply developed that I felt I was personally acquainted with each one of them. There was Pip's roommate, Herbert Pocket, the lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, and his clerk, Mr. Wemmick. And then there was the wicked Orlick. The dialogues were wonderful. The characters often didn't actually say what they meant but spoke in a way that even though the words might be obtuse, there was no mistaking their meaning. I found myself smiling at all these verbal contortions.
Dickens' work is richly detailed and he explores the nuances of human behavior. I enjoyed wallowing in the long sentences and letting myself travel backwards in time to a different world. However, even with the footnotes, I found myself sometimes confused by the British slang of 150 years ago, and there were several passages I had to read over several times in order to get the true meaning. Of course I was not in a particular rush. I didn't have to make a report to a class or take a exam about the book. This is certainly a pleasure.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good read.ting from the secret wealth of Magwitch, who made a fortune in Australia after being transported. Moreover, Magwitch's unlawful return to England puts him and Pip in danger. Meanwhile, Estella has married another, a horrible man who Pip despises. Eventually, with Magwitch's recapture and death in prison and with his fortune gone, Pip ends up in debtors prison, but Joe redeems his debts and brings him home. Pip realizes that Magwitch was a more devoted friend to him than he ever was to Joe and with this realization Pip becomes, finally, a whole and decent human being.
Originally, Dickens wrote a conclusion that made it clear that Pip and Estella will never be together, that Estella is finally too devoid of heart to love. But at the urging of others, he changed the ending and left it more open ended, with the possibility that Estella too has learned and grown from her experiences and her wretched marriages.
This is the work of a mature novelist at the height of his powers. It has everything you could ask for in a novel: central characters who actually change and grow over the course of the story, becoming better people in the end; a plot laden with mystery and irony; amusing secondary characters; you name it, it's in here. I would rank it with A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield among the very best novels of the worlds greatest novelist.
GRADE: A+
Rating: 5
Summary: Great expectations
Comment: Great Expectations was a remarkable book. I really enjoyed it. I didn't really have great expectations before I read it. It was about a little English boy named Pip. Pip is a poor kid who suddenly inherits a bunch of money and becomes rich. When he was poor he hated the way rich people treated poor people, but he finds himself doing treating poor people horribly when rich. He finally learns that everyone deserves to be treated with the same respect, even those less fortunate. This was an interesting book, but a tough book to understand, I would probably recommend it only for adults.
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Title: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Jeremy Tambling ISBN: 0140434941 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0451526562 Publisher: Signet Book Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0812580036 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: Great Expectations (Cliffs Notes) by Debra A. Bailey ISBN: 0764585983 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 30 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Bleak House by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0679405682 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 01 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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