Great Expectations
by
Charles Dickens
1861
Classics, Historical Fiction
Richard Alex Jenkins
Reading this book was a form of catharsis to get rid of the demons of the past, with the extra bonus of becoming more familiar with the work of Charles Dickens.
As a rebellious boy, I was obliged to read this alongside Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare for my English Literature exam at school and I absolutely hated every word of it without even turning a page!
It's long in length and burns slowly like a languid 19th century soap opera, but having now read it, I acknowledge that my immature and prejudgemental teenage self made a mistake, suffering as though a child forced to read Ulysses by James Joyce followed by Finnegans Wake as extracurricular punishment.
I have only read one other Charles Dickens book: A Tale of Two Cities, initially being lent a copy when I was only 10 and throwing it into a similar psychological scrapheap of why on earth would anyone want to read that?
I was wrong about that too and A Tale of Two Cities is most excellent.
Throwaway behavior that was understandable at the time, but not now for an aging Englishman who thinks he knows a bit about books, so here goes:
I struggled with Great Expectations at times, slogged at others, but overall, it was worth it.
It's surprising how colloquial and chatty it is, especially when you consider it was published back in 1861, and not at all filled with stoic and stuffy prose from a wooden British author from Victorian England, but a great achievement of off-the-cuff conversations and feelings mixed with occasionally beautiful prose:
I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.
Great Expectations is a transition from relative poverty as a blacksmith's apprentice to a higher social station and all the trappings money has to offer, including having unlimited credit and getting into serious debt.
The main character, Pip, is a perceptive and keenly intelligent lad who receives the help of an unknown benefactor, perhaps the strangely morbid and embittered Miss Havisham who lives on her own, supported by financial wealth and servants, but surrounded by decay and the ghosts from her past? Possibly, singularly, one of the strangest secondary characters in Victorian literature?
We then follow Pip’s transition into adulthood and this is where it starts to get interesting, except that it doesn't really, with one of the book's major difficulties being too drawn out and less focused on storyline and plot, as though you're able to see around impending corners as a reader but still have to wade through reams of dialogue before moving forward due to Dickens’ social commentary style of the 1850s, which can be overly long and sometimes irrelevant, as he plunges his oars against the current instead of getting on with it, paddling along while occasionally giving bursts of scenic poetry and introspection.
The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet.
In a rags to riches story that's akin to magically winning the lottery.
And maybe, by buckling down and remaining true to yourself, good things could one day happen by keeping the faith and retaining your personal values.
✔ Seize the day and grab the bull by the horns.
✔ Acknowledge unrequited love and how painful that can be.
✔ Remain determined to stand by your morals and do the right thing no matter what.
✔ And reaffirm that it’s okay to be less than perfect because, let's face it, we all are.
After finishing the book, my admiration and respect for Pip, the main character, increased twofold, which explains why this book is used for school coursework due to the moral high ground it aims for and, by being noble and placing others first, serves as a lesson to live by higher values if you can rough through the consequences, which I, unfortunately, was unable to do as a teenager.
The underlying subliminal message is deep.
Friendship, loyalty and consistency are extremely valuable lessons to take from this book, and if you can tolerate the long-winded banter and regular plot-stalling tactics, is also a heartfelt tale that's put together very well and goes full circle, with wonderful characters, strange relationships and some not so desirable acquaintances, as Pip gets emotionally pushed from pillar to post as he sorts it out in his own mind with a little help from his friends.
Great Expectations is a sad, remorseful and often quite lovely book.
And there, ... laid quietly in the earth while the larks sang high above it, and the light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.
Best of all, the monkey is now off my back!
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