Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – gets the ‘thumbs up’ from all the Group members
While this wasn’t a novel I would have chosen to read for myself and having seen some film adaptations, the Reading Group challenges us all to get out of our comfort reading zone and try something different. This was Dickens 13th novel and only the second to have a first-person narration.
It was published as a weekly series and was extremely popular with everyone. While I can imagine many young people groaning at the idea of reading a novel by Dickens, coming to his writing in the Third Age after a lifetime of experience and reading, this classic novel was a wonderful rediscovery, with its theme of moral redemption, it’s as relevant now as it has ever been, with echoes of The Alchemist by Paul Coelho and even The Prodigal Son. Often the things you really long for and need were already there for you, where you left them.
When Pip, the central character, meets and falls in love with the beautiful but cold Estella and her guardian Miss Havisham, he becomes increasingly aware of his own humble origins of poverty and poor prospects. As the novel progresses and Pip’s great expectations appear within his grasp he becomes increasingly embarrassed by his relationship to his brother in law Jo Gargary who, since the death of Pip’s parents, has become a father figure to Pip, Jo is a humble working man; a blacksmith by trade, with an innate wisdom, an unassuming manner and who loves Pip like his own.
Pip’s future takes a great turn when he learns that an anonymous donor has provided him with 500 pounds annually, a considerable fortune in the 19th Century this will enable Pip to move to London and become a gentleman rather than learning to be a Blacksmith like Jo. Pip assumes that it is Miss Havisham who is his benefactor and this improved status allows him to dream that he may win Estella’s hand in marriage, Estella however still views Pip with something akin to contempt and derision.
As is the case in so many classic as well as contemporary novels, our hero Pip is destined to fall from grace, he squanders all the money, runs up huge debts, and eventually he loses everything, Estella marries someone else, a cruel and unhappy marriage as it transpires. Pip is now reduced to an impoverished existence and must manage his own affairs and future and his great expectations don’t materialise as he had imagined they would.
Finally, Pip comes to recognise his own culpability and lack of morality in his treatment of Jo. “I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right”. And that the love and true friendship shown to him by his brother-in-law is worth more than any amount of wealth and status. Pip is then shocked to discover that it is Abel Magwitch who is his mysterious benefactor, Magwitch the escaped convict who accosts the very young Pip in the cemetery out on the Kent marshes forcing him to find food and tools to aid his escape.
Much later in the novel hoping that he will have become a prosperous young gentleman Magwitch risks his own life and freedom to see Pip again. Initially very ashamed and embarrassed by Magwitch, Pip eventually realises how much he is indebted to him and the risks he has taken coming back to him after so many years. At the end of the novel after Pip has made his peace with all those who have been his true friends, Dicken leaves the reader feeling reasonably hopeful that Pip’s life, one now managed
by his own hand will turn out well.
While Dickens verbose descriptive and complex sentence structure can prove a stumbling block to the young especially in an age driven by social media and text messaging accustomed to a language reduced and abbreviated with emojis used to express emotions rather than words, perhaps in the Third Age we have more time to reflect and read more carefully to reach that Eureka! moment when we can fully appreciate how skilfully Dickens uses the English language to express ideas, and emotions using all the flexibility and nuances the English language affords us.
As is the case in so many 19 th century English classics, for me the less subtle and often too contrived fitting together of all the puzzle pieces such as the unrealistic relationships between the novel’s main protagonists for example Estella’s parentage and relationship to Magwitch and the lawyer Jagger’s housekeeper Molly. However, bearing in mind that Dickens work was serialised in print when his readers would be expecting the puzzle pieces to fit together as a satisfactory ending in just the same way as we watch TV dramas, always excited to see what will happen next and that the mystery will be solved.
Finally, we can’t underestimate the background scenes of this classic novel that, from the outset, create a sense of tension and foreboding; for example Pip’s frightening encounter with the convict Magwitch on the Marshes always shrouded in mists, masking dangers and the lurking menace of the giant HULKS, the prison ships moored on the Thames estuary from which Magwitch escapes. The vivid descriptions of Miss Havisham’s decaying gloomy dust-shrouded rooms. And Pip’s shock at discovering London that is a city ”ugly, crooked dirty and dangerous” in Dickens‘s view reflecting the moral corruption that is intertwined with wealth and the legal system.
The book group members without exception enjoyed the satisfying challenge of this classic novel and scored it highly.
Report by Gaby Mauger