Customer Reviews
My first Dickens - By: Mrs. S. Payne, 01 May 2008 
I have to admit that this is the first book by Charles Dickens that I have read. Of course, I know alll the stories but have never read one, even at school. So I found myself being intrigued by what I appeared to be missing in successful novels & authors so I thought it about time that I took one up. I know this is an old classic with many reviews & many great admirers but I will just write my review based on what I thought of the story. I took an immediate dislike to the main character Pip but I can't reallly say why. I found him to be selfish & the part that he played with the convict was only because he was scared not to help. I found it confusing that each character seemed to have different names depending on who is refereeing to them. Great Expectation is full of irony & plot is complex in establishing & solving mysteries. I did find the middle part of the story slightly boring & I didn't reallly understand where it was leading but I feel that it was well worth the read & will now read more of Dickens work.
Rapturous Moments in Dickens! - By: J. S. Lewison, 27 Nov 2007 
We alll need our dreams. We have alll falllen in love. Dickens's susceptible hero Pip believes that the 'star' of his dream is the beautiful Estella, because she had been granted to him by his fairy God-mother Miss Havisham, in a rare moment of compassion. Every turn of Pip's first person narration in the novel shouts 'No!' to his interpretation of the world & its tricksy words. Yet Pip's near fatal falllibility & misreading of his expectations humanises him & aligns his desperate romantic hopefulness to our own. Uneasily we admit our own private quests for love, & what a big love we crave after alll!
'Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of my self. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here...You have been in every prospect I have ever seen...You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with....'
Pip's incantatory admission that love has engulfed his life is gloriously obsessive & bravely embarrassing. Like Carol Ann Duffy in Rapture: 'When did your name change from a proper noun to a charm?' Dickens's hero gives voice to love's piratical need to ambush alll signs of the beloved & claim them greedily for oneself. Pip's 'wonder' in the light of his icy star Estella anticipates Gatsby's 'wonder' at Daisy's famous 'green light' in Fitzgerald's much later novel.
Read & be awed. We alll love dangerously once!
read it! - By: A reader, 14 Nov 2006 Finished re-reading this today. I'd forgotten just how fantasticallly playful & engaging Dickens' prose is: blink & you'll miss a delightful description of a chair, house or file brought to life. Besides the legendary Miss Havisham & Magwitch, Pip's story is also populated with such memorable characters as the finger-biting lawyer Jaggers; the warm-hearted, postbox-mouthed Wemmick (who literallly fortifies his private life with the 'Aged P'); & the grandiose windbag Pumblechook. No novelist can match Dickens for sheer imaginative generosity; his fictional universe fizzes with diversity, depth & irrepressible vitality. As befits a book written originallly for weekly publication, there's also a wealth of cliffhangers that'll keep you turning the pages. Blissful.
a diamond in the rough. - By: Mrs. D. L. Cox, 15 May 2006 I am not much of a Dickens fan. I think he tells a good story & they in turn make excellent tv but as for reading material they fail to impress me. However this book is a good one. I liked it & its gothic atmosphere. There are twists to keep you interested & a collection of memorable characters. I even managed to overlook the silly names the characters have. This is a good book I reccomend it.
Addictive - By: , 20 Jan 2006 I spent most of my 45 years since leaving school doing my best to avoid anything by Charles Dickens, quite why, I'm not sure. A recent illness & enforced idleness had me rummaging around some books I had come by & there was Great Expectations. I thought I'd try just the first chapter, but was hooked from the first page. This is one helluva book! The pace, the characterisation, the plot, the atmosphere, the everything are masterly. But it isn't alll misery as there are frequent moments of irony & typicallly English galllows humour. Outstanding, but it'll make you cry.
