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Book Review | Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Rating
4 stars – a challenging read — but worth it in the end
Great Expectations is about…
A boy called Pip, who has a chance encounter with an escaped convict, is given into service of the ancient Miss Havisham, and comes into some great expectations which change his life for ever.
Well, it feels like I have been reading this book forever; I think I started it in July – with an audio book I downloaded from librivox.org. Unfortunately the reader only made it to chapter 8 — and left me with Pip, alone in the old brewery, ‘looking up at the frosty light [and seeing] a figure hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet…‘! I quickly searched Book Mooch and was able to get hold of a copy of the book. I ended up, last Sunday afternoon, reading the last few chapters in eBook format on my iPhone. So I think this becomes the book that’s taken me the longest amount of time to read this year, and the only book I’ve ever ‘read’ in three formats!
I’ll admit; it was a challenge for me – but I had expected it to be. I found it hard to find my way through the traditional language; there were times where the story was so strong I would fly through chapters at a pace, and others where I would have to read the same page three times to take it in. In the end Dickens did a fantastic job of weaving all of the pieces together so that in the last few pages everything fell into place.
If you’re looking for a classic to get your teeth into I can definitely recommend this book – and once you’ve read it feel free to stop by the Blue Archipelago Virtual Book Club – which is where I am going now to discuss the book in more detail – click here if you’re interested in the discussion.
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It is so refreshing to know that I am not alone in finding this book a challenge. i have read up to and including, but never past, chapter three about four times.
Somone´s last blog post..Your Own Japanese Garden: Part 1
Yippppeeee, it’s not doing that anymore. I’m going to grab yours and link to mine. It’s funny-you finally made it through and in only 3 formats. I’m glad you enjoyed it for the most part though.
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I felt similarly about the difficulty. I was a bit bleh by the time I finished it.
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I read this for Trish’s Classics Challenge and it was ok for me. I’m going to link to your review too.
@Kim L – I had to really concentrate and dedicated a cuple of hours to the last section of the book – I think if I’d have carried on reading 30 minutes a day I would have gone mad with it!