Download And Enjoy Great Expectations Illustrated By Charles Dickens Shared As Audiobook
are in every line I have ever read, ”
Why couldn't every line in this book be this good I took me nearly three whole months to finish it, Not because it was bad, but because it dragged and dragged and there are far more intriguing books out there than Great Expectations,
The good stuff:
An exciting cast of characters, most of them very weird, extravagant and almost to completely ridiculous, By far my favourites are Joe because he's such a goodhearted person and Miss Havisham because I totally look up to her dedication to melodrama,
What also got me hooked were the huge revelations in this book, There were a few things that I did not see coming,
The bad stuff:
Too many words, too many pages, I was completely demotivated to ever finish this, which is why I made myself write a term paper about it so that I would actually pick it up again and read all of it.
I worked.
Honestly, though, this book was originally published in a Victorian Periodical, Imagine watching your favourite TV Show and waiting for a new episode every week, Well, it was like that with this novel, It was published in several instalments, The readers needed to be entertained enough so that they would buy next weeks magazine copy, This also means that Charles Dickens needed to fill the pages every week so that the readers got what they paid for, And I'm afraid it also reads like that, If this novel waspages shorter, I might have enjoyed it more, There was so much going on that I didn't care about, so many details that could have been omitted,
Overall a fine classic and a wellplotted story that bored me with its obsession for things unimportant, I can't wait to watch the adoption with Helena Bonham Carter, though!
sitelinkFind more of my books on Instagram Las obras clásicas son las en teoría más complicadas de leer, y por ende, entender Por qué Por su alto contenido metafórico y en mi opinión, también por una razón muy simple: los tiempos de aquellos libros son muy diferentes a los nuestros.
La forma de vida, la sociedad, la cultura, la libertad, lo que era bueno y malo, todo era diferente, Si se le suma a esto hablar sobre tramas sociales, familiares o amorosas, . . temas siempre complicados para el ser humano, se vuelve aún valga la redundancia más complicados,
Y es en esta temática donde Grandes esperanzas aparece en todo su esplendor, Un libro difícil de comprender si se lee por primera vez y sin la atención necesaria,
La señora Havisham, un personaje tanto completo como complejo, En pocas palabras, ella para mí simboliza perfectamente a un padre o una madre buscando el éxito a través de su hijo,
La forma que usó Dickens para escribir el libro también la encontré genial: es totalmente impredecible, ya que a veces está lleno de amor, otras de esperanzas, otras de esfuerzo y otras de odio.
El orden siempre varía en el libro y ese es el tipo de libros, que al menos a mí, me gusta,
Creo que no es necesario que hable de Pip o Estella, por ejemplo, ya que, si leyeron el libro, se sabe de quien se habla, Lo importante aquí, más que describir cada personaje, es describir el libro en general, the book as a whole,
Recomendable Absolutamente! Siempre y cuando se dediquen a leer el libro pacientemente, ya que la idea de este libro en particular es amarlo y sentir lo que cada personaje siente.
Great Expectationswere formed, . . were metand were thoroughly exceeded!sitelink
The votes have been tallied, all doubts have been answered and it is official and in the books.
. . I am a fullfledged, foaming fanboy of Sir Dickens and sporting a massive mancrush for literatures master storyteller,
Quick Aside: My good friend Richard who despises “Chuckles the Dick” is no doubt having a conniption as he reads thisdeep breaths, Richard, deep breaths.
After love, love, loving sitelinkA Tale of Two Cities, I went into this one with, you guessed it insert novel title and was nervous and wary of a serious let down in my sophomore experience with Dickens.
Silly me, there was zero reason for fear and this was even more enjoyable than I had hoped, Not quite as standing ovationinducing as sitelinkA Tale of Two Cities, but that was more a function of the subject matter of A Tale of Two Cities being more attractive to me.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Here Dickens tells the story of the growth and development of young Philip Pirrip “Pip” who begins his life as an orphan, neglected and abused, by his sister Mrs.
“Joe” Gargery. "I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.
" Through a series of chance encounters, Pip rises above his disadvantaged beginnings to become a gentleman in every sense of the word, Pips journey is not a straight line and his strength of character and inner goodness are not unwavering, but, in the end, they shine through and he the better for it.
THOUGHTS amp GUSHINGS:
Dickens prose is the essence of engaging and his humor is both sharp and subtle and sends warm blasts of happy right into my cockles.
My sister, Mrs, Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up “by hand.In addition to his ability to twist a phrase and infuse it with clever, dry wit, Dickens is able to brings similar skill across the entire emotional range.
” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.
When he tugs on the heartstrings, he does so as a maestro plucks the violin and
you will feel played and thankful for the experience,
For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years.Dickens never bashes over the head with the emotional power of his prose, In fact, it is the quiet, subtle method of his delivery of the darker emotions that make them so powerful,
I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe,
We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us, We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition, There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did, To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one,
OkayokayIll stop on the prose, I think Ive made my point that I love his writing,
Combine his polished, breezy verse with his seemingly endless supply of memorable characters that is his trademark and you have the makings of a true classic, . . which this happens to be, There are so many unique, well drawn characters in this story alone that it is constantly amazing to me that he was able to so regularly populate his novels with such a numerous supply.
To name just a few, Great Expectations gives us:
the wealthy and bitter Miss Havisham,
the goodhearted but often weak social climbing main character Pip,
the goodhearted criminal Magwitch,
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the truly evil and despicable Orlick and Drummle,
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the virtuous, pillar of goodness "Joe" Gargery
the abusive, meanspirited, nevertobepleased Mrs.
Joe Gargery,
the cold and unemotional Estella,
the officious, moneygrubbing Mr, Pumblechook, and
the iconic Victorian businessman Mr, Jaggers.
Its a veritable panoply of distinct personalities, each with their own voice and their own part to play in this wonderful depiction of life inth Century London.
The only criticism I have for the book is that I tend to agree with some critics that the original "sadder" ending to the story was better and more in keeping with the rest of the narrative.
However, as someone who doesn't mind a happy ending, especially with characters I have come to truly care for, that is a relatively minor gripe,
.to.stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATIONS!!!
P, S. A few bonus quotes that I thought were too good not to share:
Pip: “In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
”
Joe to Pip: "If you can't get to be uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked, "
'In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations.
" In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride "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 its 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 held the highest expectations for Pip was Pip himself, But, in spite of this, Pip does learn the error of his ways and becomes a much better person, though not before hurting those that have the most loyalty to him.
The corrupting power of money is strong through this novel
The money Pip received clouds his vison completely, He, in his innocence, longed to be a gentleman, but when he has the chance he forgets everything thing he is, In his selfimposed aggrandisement he can only deduce that his money came from a source of respectability his limited capacity has determined that only he, a gentleman, could receive money from a worthy source.
But, what he perceives as respectable is the problem, Indeed, Dickens contrasts societies gentleman created through social station with the true gentleman of the age who may, or may not, have any money, Pip has falsely perceived that to be a gentleman one must have money, and must have the social graces that comes with it, However, this is far from the truth as Pip later learns, He thinks Joe is backward and ungentlemanly, but Joe, in reality, is more of a gentle man than Pip could ever be,
In this, he has forgotten his routes and his honest, if somewhat rough, upbringing, He has been tainted by money and the rise in class that came with it, I think if he never received the allowance he would have eventually been happy at the forge, He may have sulked for a year or two, but, ultimately, he would have got over himself as he does eventually do, The money gave him hope it gave him a route in which he could seek his Estella, Without the money he would have realised she was, in fact, unobtainable regardless of his class he would have moved on and got on with his life, But, that wouldnt have made for a very interesting novel,
Pips journey of morale regeneration is the key
Indeed, Pip wouldnt have learnt a thing, Through the correcting of his perceptions he learns the value of loyalty and simple human kindness, This changes him and he is, essentially, a much better person for it, He learns the errors of his ways, and how shameful and condescending his behaviour has been to those that hold him most dear, namely Joe, You can feel the pain in his narration as he tells the last parts of his story it becomes clear that Pip could never forgive himself for his folly.
He wishes forgiveness from those that love him thats why he forgives Havisham, but I dont think he fully deserves it, He is repentant, but the damage is done,
Heaven knows we never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of the earth, overlaying our hard hearts,
Pips morale regeneration was a necessary facet for the brilliance of this work, It creates an ending that, for me, was perfect, It is not the ending that Pip thought he would get, but it is the ending this novel deserved, Pips morale regeneration and revelations are just not enough to offset the past, He has grown but, like Havisham, cannot turn back the clocks, The ending Joe receives signifies this he, as one of the only true gentleman of the novel, receives his overdue happiness, Whereas Pip is destined to spend the rest of his life in a state of perpetual loneliness, he, most certainly, learnt his lesson the hard way,
"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be, I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a better shape,
Anguish is in equal measures
Pips story though, ultimately, sad is not the most woe begotten of the character stories in this novel.
Abel Magwitch and Miss Havisham are two incredibly miserable individuals because life has really got them down, Havisham is the caricature of the spinster she is stuck in the past quarter to nine to be precise and is unable to move on she has turned bitter and yellow she has imposed herself to perpetual agony.
Despite her harshness and venom there is a flicker of light within her soul that Pip unleashes, For me, she is the most memorable, and well written, character in this novel because her story transcends that of Pips,
And then there is the lovable Abel Magwitch, The poor man had been used and cheated he had been bargained away and sacrificed, He has been shown no kindness in his life and when he meets a young Pip in the marshes he is touched by the small measure of friendship the boy offers him.
His response: to repay that debt, with what he believes to be kindness, in turn, These characters are incredibly memorable and harbour two tragic and redemptive stories, But, in order to display their anguish to the world and society, they both use another to exact their revenge, Havisham uses Estella to break the hearts of men, like hers was once broken Magwitch creates his “own” gentleman as a revenge to the world of gentleman that betrayed him.
I love Great Expectations, It is more than just a story of love it is a strong story about the power of loyalty and forgiveness it is a story about falsehoods and misperceptions it is a story of woe and deeply felt sadness: it is about how the folly of youth can alter your life for ever.
It is an extraordinary novel, I've now read it three times, and I know I'm not finished with yet, .