welcome to...GREAT EXPECTA(JUNE)S. that was so bad. i need to write fast - i'm expecting a SWAT team to enter my cute apartment via my lovely floor-to-ceiling windows and put me out of my misery at any moment. you can't murder the art of punning like that and expect to escape with your life.in the meantime. welcome back to the series in which me and elle read a long classic over the course of the month, because we are otherwise too cowardly!this book in particular has been haunting me. maybe if ...

Oh, the beauty and the agony tears at me as I think about this stunning story.The characters are vivid and the settings so well written that I was transported to the graveyard alongside young Pip and his convict, fear streaking through me as it was for that small boy torn by a near-impossible decision. And I’m there with Pip and kind-hearted Joe in the forge. I can feel the fire on my skin and taste hot metal on the back of my tongue. In my mind, I hear the crackling of the decades-old crinoline...

Not as good as Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, a tiny bit better than A tale of two cities, but to its core just Oliver Twist 2.0 with a first person narrator, and a perfect reason for why nobody likes serialized short stories condensed to weak novels. I mentioned some of the weaknesses of Dickens writing in my review of A tale of two cities https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...and the reason why it´s not as bad as it because he went back to a topic he could describe with more credibility b...

هل سنكون سعداء عندما تتحقق امالنا العريضة؟؟سؤال مرعب قد يدور في أذهان المتفلسفين منا..طلاب مدارس اللغات يعلمون ان هناك 4تعاونوا على تعذيبهم..شكسبير..والأختين برونتي..و تشارلز ديكنزو لكن تظل لامال عريضة مكانا في عقلى و قلبي ..فمن خلالها تعرفت على أسلوب النقد البريطاني المنظم..وأيضا تعرفت على جزء كبير من حياة تشارلز ديكنز. .. فهو مثل البطل فيليب بيريب. عرف الفقر طويلا في طفولته بسبب سجن والده مع فيليب عرفت مشاعر اليتم والفقر بدون مبالغةو لم يحرمنا من الأكشن..فنجد بيب يقابل مجرما هاربا..و يساعده م...

”I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.” How do you do Miss Havisham? She makes many lists of the twenty greatest characters from Dicken’s novels.I hadn’t ever met Miss Havisham officially, although I knew of her. I have...

"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." That is such a quote. If there was ever a novel that shows us the dangers of false perceptions then it’s Great Expectations . Pip is such a fool; he constantly misjudges those around him, and he constantly misjudges his own worth. This has lead him down a road of misery because the person who ...

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.” I first read Great Expectations when I was thirteen years old. It was the first of Dickens' works that I'd read of my own volition, the only other being Oliver Twist, which we'd studied parts of in school. You know, I missed out on a lot when I was thirteen. By this, I mean that I didn't always understand the deeper meaning lying beneath the surface of...

Admittedly, I can be a bit dismissive of the classics. By which I mean that many of my reviews resemble a drive-by shooting. This annoys some people, if measured by the responses I’m still getting to my torching of Moby Dick. Even though I should expect some blowback, I still get a little defensive. I mean, no one wants to be called a “horrendous” person just because he or she didn’t like an overlong, self-indulgent, self-important “epic” about a douche-y peg leg and a stupid whale. I’m no phili...

My students (and some of my friends) can't ever figure out why I love this novel so much. I explain how the characters are thoroughly original and yet timeless, how the symbolism is rich and tasty, and how the narrative itself is juicy and chock-full of complexity, but they just shake their heads at me in utter amazement and say, "What's wrong with you, dude?"What's wrong, indeed.I give them ten or fifteen years. Perhaps they'll have to read it again in college, or maybe they'll just try reading...

Boring, dull, lifeless, and flat. This is so drawn out and boring I kept having to remind myself what the plot was.
Best to get someone else to sum up the story rather than undergo the torture of reading it.