Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

9/10

I think once I post this that I will have made a post for every Dickens book that I have read (which is only five), but I plan on reading others, so this will not be the last. It is another Dickens classic. Does any other author have more "classics" than Dickens? Oh, Shakespeare I guess. Dickens is a characters man. He writes individual characters better than probably any author ever. And that's why I enjoy his stuff. I think this one here is one of his better ones (not sure where I rank it or even if a ranking of Dickens would be possible).

The book is about a boy named Pip (short for Philip Pirrip, but his "infant tongue" could only make "Pip" out of it and so that name stuck). The first part of the book during Pip's youth is completely entertaining. It concerns action with an escaped convict (who Pip assists out of fear) and plenty of good ones with Mrs. Joe (Pip's mean older sister and guardian) and Joe Gargery. Joe Gargery is my absolute runaway favorite character in this book, and one of Dickens' all-time best characters, in my opinion. He is super nice, very uneducated, but everything he says is awesome. It is absolutely heartbreaking when Joe and Pip reunite later on in the book and Pip has changed so much. Then there's the goings on with Ms. Havisham and Estella. Estella's lame and is a jerk to Pip but Pip loves her anyway for some reason. And Havisham is nuts. But good ones still occur. My favorite is when he boxes Herbert Pocket. Ha ha, it is awesome.

Pip all of the sudden receives an inheritance from some random benefactor (he presumes that it is Ms. Havisham and the reader does not find out who it is until nearly the end and it is a fun little twist). Pip starts this tutelage under a lawyer and he gets close with the clerk. Another awesome character is the clerk's way old dad, "The Aged". Oh man, he is showtime. Pip and The Aged's interactions are priceless.

I know I didn't talk much about what was really going on. I will mention how Pip is being trained to be a gentleman and has great expectations for his life now that he has been put in such a fortuitous position. The book, to me, is just mainly about characters and their interactions with one another. And it is sweet.

Two quotes:

"If we all did what we undertake to do...we might live in a Republic of the Virtues."

"Her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker."