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Title: Great Expectations (Everyman Library) by Charles Dickens, Robin Gilmour ISBN: 0-460-87335-0 Publisher: Everymans Library Pub. Date: June, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (301 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Read it - even if you've seen the movie
Comment: I know lots of people will flay me for saying this, but this book has a lot of repeat value. I could read it every year, for five years at least without getting bored doing it. I had read the abridged version in school, and a year ago i had seen the movie (featuring gweneth paltrow and ethan hawke). I liked these so much that inspite of knowing the story i bought the unabidged version and was plesantly surprised how much i enjoyed it. Both the movie and the abridged version concentrate only with Pip's relation with estella. The book is infact much wider in its scope. For example Pip's relation with Mr.Pocket fills more pages than that with estella.
Charles dickens surely spins a superb yarn of pip, his ambitions, desires, weaknesses, and pureness of character which is so entirely credible and believeable that it seems like an autobiographical account told in the third person. This inspite of the novel containing eccentric characters like miss havisham difficult to find in actuality. Another important contribution of this novel is to portray the relation between pip and estella. Its extremely difficult to say what exactly it is. Infatuation? No. It was the very soul of his existance without which he could not exist. It lasted from childhood till the end. Love? Unlikely. He was torturing himself in her company and this can hardly be called love. Hatred? No. Vengence? No. On miss havisham's part maybe but not on that of pip or estella. There's no answer forthcoming. Just when we thought we were intelligent and mature enough to understand relationships Mr. Dickens comes along to tell us to start from kindergarten once again.
I found Mr. Dickens style of writing quite modern. Of course there's an influence of the times he lived in but the novel has a very modern tang. In fact if the means of transport were cars instead of horses, there was electricity instead of candle light and so on, making only such cosmetic changes the novel would definitely seem to be written very recently. I just realised - the movie proves this.
Rating: 5
Summary: mystery, romance and suspense
Comment: Charles Dickens was one of the most popular writers of all time, creating some of the best-known characters in English literature. In the book "Great Expectations", the protagonist and narrator, Pip begins the story as a young orphan boy being grown up by his sister. I like this book, because Charles Dickens takes you right inside the Pip's mind and you live through the events and discoveries of his life with him. Pip is passionate, romantic and somewhat unrealistic at heart. That makes the novel interesting. Of course, you cannot forget the great love story (Pip and Estella). The other characters Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Joe Gargery, Miss Joe, Estella, Mr Jaggers and Mr Wemmick are all unique and special in their way and they add to the novel's richness. Another thing I really liked was how all of the characters are interrelated to each other in ways that you may not discover until you get to the end of the novel. This novel will make you sometimes laugh and sometimes make you feel sad, but it is always entertaining. Latif Dose simplifies the texts. The language is very clear. There are not old English words and this gives the reader much pleasure while reading the novel. I think most young people would like this novel because it's not as hard to read as an other classic books. I recommend Great Expectations to anyone who wants to read a good, classic book because Great Expectations has a little bit of everything in it, mystery, romance and suspense. You cannot easily find all of these properties in other novels, which makes "Great Expectations" a special and a classic one.
. That makes this novel very different. It is probably one of the top ten English novels of the 19th century. Some of the passages are beautiful. I cannot forget Pip's response to Estella when she says "You will get me out of thoughts in a week."
Rating: 4
Summary: Things Aren't Always What They Appear To Be.
Comment: GREAT EXPECTATIONS is often the novel used in high schools to introduce students to Dickens. Due to it's length and fairly long and uneventful middle phase, I'm not sure it's the best text to introduce people to Dickens. Still, it is a pretty good story and contains some of the most memorable characters in Dickens' fiction.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS is the story of Phillip Pirrip, otherwise known as Pip. Pip's parents die not long after he is born and he is raised "by hand" by his sister. His brother-in-law, Joe Gargery, is the town blacksmith and loves Pip. The two are best-of-friends. One night while looking at his parents' graves, Pip meets a convict and his life is forever changed by that meeting. As the novel progresses, Pip meets Miss Havisham (the wealthiest woman in town) and her beautiful ward, Estella. Pip immediately falls in love with Estella and is haunted by her all the days of his life. Eventually Pip is bond to Joe as his apprentice and sets to work in the blacksmith forge. Several years later, Pip's luck changes when he is informed by a lawyer from London, Mr. Jaggers, that he has become the recipient of "great expectations". The book then follows Pip's life as he enters this new stage in life and as he develops and becomes a "gentleman". Everything is brought full circle and just about everyone gets what they deserve by the time the novel ends.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS isn't the easiest of books to read. What many writers can do in a sentence often takes Dickens two pages to tell. Also, the book is divided into three phases and the second phase is rather boring (except at the end) and really does nothing more than to fill in a few plot gaps and illustrate to us how much of a prig Pip becomes. Nevertheless, GREAT EXPECTATIONS is still a good story containing some very vivid characters: Pip, Estella, Joe, Miss Havisham, Magwitch, Jaggers, and Wemmick. The characters in GREAT EXPECTATIONS are as memorable as anyone in DAVID COPPERFIELD, OLIVER TWIST, or A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The first phase of the book is quite interesting and sets up everything that later occurs in the novel. The third part of the novel is full of excitement and contains Pip's repentance and reformation. Overall, it's a great book and even though it was written over a hundred years ago, it has a lot to say about the society in which we live today.
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Title: David Copperfield (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Jeremy Tambling ISBN: 0140434941 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Frederick Busch ISBN: 0451526562 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0812580036 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: Great Expectations (Cliffs Notes) by Debra A. Bailey ISBN: 0764585983 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 30 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Currer Bell, Erica Jong ISBN: 0451526554 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: July, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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