Somewhere between friend Richard’s calling Dickens “Chuckles the Dick” and LizzieD making her username an homage to Dickens, lies my reaction to [Great Expectations]. I will never be a Dickensian, alas, but ended up liking the book much better than I thought I would halfway through.

From Amazon: Charles Dickens's Great Expectations charts the course of orphan Pip Pirrip's life as it is transformed by a vast, mysterious inheritance. A terrifying encounter with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decrepit Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella at Satis House; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble station as an apprentice to blacksmith Joe Gargery, beginning a new life as a gentleman. Charles Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his identity, and his 'great expectations'.

Until about 70 or pages until the end, I didn’t particularly like Pip at all. Perhaps that’s Dickens’ intent, I do not know. Pip is weak, a spendthrift, and prideful. And, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why he loves Estella. She is proud, disagreeable, and cuts him at every turn.

It is only when bad things happen to him that we see that Joe’s influence on the young Pip was stronger than might be expected, and I come to respect Pip as having grown up, learned his real place in the world, and been satisfied with it.

As for Dickens’ writing style, I found it alternatively lyrical and turgid, wordy and obtuse. There are some extremely eccentric characters, alternatively irritating and endearing.

Thank goodness I decided to read 2 chapters a day until I had finished it; it was only when I got to Chapter 56 that I decided a sprint to the finish line, as it were, would be a good idea. I think that if I had read it without a plan, I would have put it down. ( )