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Title: Jack Maggs by Peter Carey ISBN: 0679760377 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: March, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9
Rating: 5
Summary: A Dickens of a Good Read!
Comment: Peter Carey, the Booker Prize winner of "Oscar and Lucinda," brings Jack Maggs to life and in this new novel of the same name, he combines a fresh 20th century style with Victorian atmosphere and resurrects "Great Expectations" and Charles Dickens at the same time! And perhaps to the relief of thousands of school children who have had to read the original!
Carey's Mr. Maggs bears the responsibility of being the protagonist and we meet the former Convict knocking on the door of an earlier acquaintance (whom we will come to know later in the novel) in London. Maggs, as you will remember, was sentenced to life exile in Australia (it was really "down under" then!) when we last heard of him in "Great Expectations." We know from that novel that, via Dickensian and Victorian melodrama and coincidence, he has shaken his chains of bondage and become a wealthy (and worthy!) citizen of the Colony, one who, struck by Pip's kindness in an earlier day, sets the young boy up anonymously to become a "gentleman" in London society. Now, Maggs has dared to return to England (under penalty of death....) to "meet my boy," as he says. Mr. Phipps, Carey has determined, has really led the life of a gentleman; however, he is not so eager to meet his benefactor, fearing, for one, that all this "life of leisure" might be taken away from him! It may come as a surprise that Mr. Phipps appears so ungrateful. Thus, the tragedy begins.
The author introduces us to the "newly-found" technique of hypnotism and we are given an insight into Maggs through this venue, to discover his fears, his Phantom, and to learn the real man, tragic as it seems. Maggs has had to endure the horrifying experiences of being a convict in the British penal colony and through his hypnotism we see these torturous moments and come to understand Maggs the man. Indeed, he is the product of his environment and we meet some real Dickens characters here. Carey pays homage to Dickens--and we see this readily--in a kinder, gentler manner than one first perceives.
Publishers Weekly has called this book "irresistible" and that descriptive aptly applies.
Rating: 4
Summary: A good read.
Comment: I always expect the same things from Peter Carey novels: great characters, poetic language, and an imaginative premise. Jack Maggs delivers on each of these. His protagonist is a criminal with a painful past, but a good heart -- not exactly original, but Carey brings such life to his creation the reader can feel Maggs' presence on every page. His pain is a real thing, and drives the novel. It's also interesting to watch him enter the lives of a few ordinary Londoners, and change their paths, and even their personalities, simply by virtue of his presence.
Tobias Oates (intended as a fictional Charles Dickens) is also very well developed, and very human. Carey has a talent for making his characters capable of both good and evil, and by the novel's end, it's difficult to pin any of his cast as either heroes or villains.
While this novel is based on a character in Charles Dicken's Great Expectations, I think its unfair to compare the two books. Jack Maggs is not a Dickens rip-off: the characters, the voice, the language, the humour, are Carey's own. There has been an attempt by Carey to sketch a London similar, in spirit, to Dickens', but this is a book with its own emotional centre, and it stands on its own.
After reading some of the reviews here, I was surprised to find that the novel did not drag, and that it quickly became a page-turner. The plot steadily builds, with several well-placed and effective twists to keep things interesting (and unpredictable). Carey has managed, again, to lead me into a climax I could not predict, and while the scene had incredible potential, I think it lacks. He seems to rush through it. This is not Carey's best novel (see Bliss) but it is very good indeed, and worth reading if only for Carey's incredible use of the language, which is economical, poetic, and poignant, and also for the characters, which in many cases rise above the subject matter.
Rating: 5
Summary: Carey rewrites a Dicken's classic & challenges Dicken's too!
Comment: This is the first Peter Carey book I have ever read, and it certainly won't be the last. Carey skillfully (& loosely) bases his latest novel on the Dickens' classic "Great Expectations". But whilst the character of Jack Maggs is obviously based on Dickens' Magwitch, it would be an over-simplification to say that Jack Maggs IS Magwitch.
You see, Carey skillfully uses the character of Jack Maggs in order to re-write the character of Magwitch. It's as if Carey felt the need to write his latest novel because of his anger at Dickens' often cold and distant attitude towards Magwitch in "Great Expectations". And Carey is justified in being angry! After all, Carey is Australian and Magwitch was one of the first "Australian" characters in novelistic fiction. But in Dickens' English hands Magwitch is just a pitiable villain. Contrast this with Carey's deeply complex, but ultimately admirable hero, Jack Maggs.
Maggs, unlike Magwitch, is someone we Australians can be proud to call an "Australian".
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Title: The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith: A Novel by Peter Carey ISBN: 0679760369 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: January, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey ISBN: 0679777504 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey ISBN: 0375724672 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 02 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Bliss by Peter Carey ISBN: 0679767193 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Illywhacker: A Novel by Peter Carey ISBN: 0679767908 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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