Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

It is Charles Dicken's 200th birthday today.  I get a lump in my throat just thinking about the impact this man has had on my life and the lives of millions of others over the past two centuries.  No writer has done more (Shakespeare excepted, perhaps) to influence everything from the way our novels are written to how we celebrate Christmas.  And no book, aside from the Book of Mormon, thrills my whole soul like a good Dickens novel.  I remember summer library trips in my youth, where I would bee-line straight to the "D" aisle of our library.  There I would touch the spines of those beautiful old Dickens books, deciding which one to immerse myself in next.

Great Expectations was my initiation into the rich parlance of Charles Dickens.  I remember reading it just after Jane Eyre and liking it, although I'm sure I didn't understand half of it.  It has everything--mystery, humor, a dash of romance--but I believe the most important theme of the book is the impact our choices have on us.

I especially enjoyed reading it with Lydia.  She surprised me one day by looking through the bookshelves in my room (my room is my sanctum sanctorum--it houses my Victorian novels, Harry Potter, and all the Barnes & Noble Classics I've accumulated) and stating her intention to read a Dickens.  "Don't get too excited, Mom," she stipulated, "or I probably won't do it."  (I made that mistake with Anne of Green Gables, and I fear she'll never give those gems a try . . . *sigh*)  She raced ahead of me--she can read like the wind, and she comprehends everything.  I was overjoyed to hear her laugh out loud at Mr. Wopsle & Mr. Pumblechook--she got it!  She discovered Dickens's masterful humor!  I felt like she'd finally joined my personal Dickens Fan Club.  Here are her thoughts--if nothing else, she's honest!


I liked Great Expectations.  The ending was different from the way I expected, but it was good overall.  There were some pretty interesting characters.  Wemmick was one of my favorites because of his funny double-life.  It taught a good lesson about thinking about what you choose, because Pip made lots of decisions, but not all of them were good.  He was kind of hasty at making choices.


I think Charles Dickens is a great author.  Great Expectations wasn't my style, but I think that's because I am a younger girl.  The older you are, the closer you are to that time period, so I'd suggest it to older people.


Yes, thank you, Lydia.  And if you're an "older person," as I obviously am, and closer in years to the 1800's, the story of Great Expectations is probably familiar to you, with its themes of crime, broken promises, and ambition.  I have to agree with Lyd--Pip has never been my favorite character (he seems so weak!), but his choices made for some of the best discussions we have ever shared about books.  I mean, haven't we all let someone down?  Haven't we all wanted to be popular, neglecting loved ones and dear friends in the process?  I'm glad we now have this great classic to fall back on as Lyd nears the teenage years--I can refer to Pip for examples of what not to do.  And there are so many redeeming characters--Joe, Biddy, Herbert, Wemmick--who somehow help make Pip become the man he should be.  We treasure the Biddies and Joes in our lives, don't we?

Dickens is beloved to me for another reason--he offers mutual ground for Seth and I.  While Seth barely tolerates my Jane Austen "chick flick-ish" movies, he hasn't met a Dickens movie he didn't like--or at least one that didn't keep him intrigued.  He actually grew up on this version of Great Expectations, thanks to my wonderful Mother-in-Law, Elaine:

It's fantastic (although I always had issues with Estella seeming so much older than Pip), produced by Disney, and starring the great Anthony Hopkins as Magwitch.  Point of interest:  Miss Havisham is Jean Simmons, who plays Estella in the 1946 version.

I haven't been too interested in any other version, especially the risque 1998 version (Dickens must have rolled over in his grave)--however, the BBC has made a new one (2011) that looks very intriguing.  I love what Gillian Anderson, the new Miss Havisham, has to say about her role in the film, as well as the book itself:

"I can imagine that journey [reading Great Expectations] as a young kid, especially a young boy, must be unbelievably exciting.

"It was the journey pre-Harry Potter. Of course it was longer ago, but I can imagine young people having the same kind of magical response to Great Expectations that we did when Harry Potter books first started to come out.

"That's if it does get introduced at an early age, in school or through a parent or whatever and the child is able to crack the density of it." http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2011/12/great-expectations-gillian-anderson.shtml

I may shy away from the even newer version (2012) with Helena Bonham Carter, bless her creepy heart, as Miss Havisham.  We'll have to see.

Seth marvels that I can enjoy new versions of shows I have seen so many times before, but I'd like to think Dickens would be proud that his stories are so timeless.  So go ahead--celebrate his birthday with a wonderful book or movie, and I guarantee you'll thank me.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

     I was excited to learn that our prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and I have similar taste in books!  He addressed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints last Sunday:

     "My Christmas reading each year helps bring to me the spirit of the season.  I always . . . read the timeless Dickens' classic; A Christmas Carol.  Who could fail to be inspired and taught by the changes which came to Ebeneezer Scrooge as he's instructed by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future?"  I know of no better way to kick off the Christmas season than with a reading of this beautiful story.  And I know you've probably seen all the movie versions a million times, but there is something so inspiring, so refreshing about this story that I strongly urge you to give the book a try.
     "Marley was dead, to begin with. . . . as dead as a doornail."  Beginning with a pun on doornails and coffin nails, Dickens perfectly mixes the spiritual with the macabre.  I read this every year to begin my holidays, and it never fails to bring a tear to my eye and make me resolve to be a little better.  I truly believe Dickens was inspired when he wrote it.
     The copy of A Christmas Carol I read this year had a fascinating introduction by a guy named Elliot Engel.  Do you have just a second?  You might find this interesting--we owe so much to Dickens' representation of Christmas:
     " . . . Dickens links snow and Christmas together for the first time in popular literature . . . before Dickens's story, the snow was merely mentioned by an author, never utilized to create that uniquely warm atmosphere which has become practically synonymous with our Christmas celebration today . . ."  
     What makes his description of a crisp, bright, snowy Christmas morning more surprising is that according to meteorologic records for England in the 1800's, "it snowed on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in England on the average of only one time every thirty-two years."  However, Dickens' own childhood was unusual in that it was peppered with snowy white Christmases, due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia (reminiscent of the Icelandic volcano eruption this year!) that changed weather patterns for a few years; he actually enjoyed a white Christmas at the impressionable ages of four, six, seven, and nine.
     I'm reading it to my little kids this year, and since they've watched the Muppet Christmas Carol and Mickey's Christmas Carol about fifty times already, they're quite interested (as long as I only read the "fun parts" and sing "There Goes Mr. Humbug" with them . . .).  It has given birth to some good discussions.

     So to quote Scrooge's nephew, Fred:

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say . . . Christmas among the rest.  But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.  And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

"What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together!" (p. 220)

I have been reading Charles Dickens' books since long before I could fully appreciate them. Even though I didn't grasp the social commentary at a younger age, I have always loved the webs he weaves between and around his characters. By the end of each novel, everyone has had some influence on everyone else. The world seems a much smaller, more significant place after reading one of his works.

"His novels are full of energy and are teaming with life," says Andrew Davies, one of my favorite screenwriters (who incidentally did an incredible screen adaptation of this book) "I love the way he makes such a rich mixture of humour, tragedy, sentiment and social indignation. You get so many different things rolled up into one great book. He had such a vivid imagination and some of his characters are just extraordinary. Bleak House combines a terrific mystery with a series of love stores."

Dickens had a huge influence for good on society of the 1800's through his writing, and in this novel he focuses a great deal on the British Court of Chancery. Yet to me, the most interesting characters were those not directly involved with the "infamous" Chancery suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce: I loved (and despised) Mrs. Jellyby, a woman intent on helping children a thousand miles away in Boorioboola-Gha, Africa, with several latch-key, unkempt children of her own. The married life of the sweet Bagnets, the "deportment" or Mr. Turveydrop, the awkward, muddling, good-hearted Mr. Guppy, and the poor street-sweep, Jo, were more interesting even than the main characters. This story is told from two completely different perspectives: chapters told by an all-knowing narrator who can see the end from the beginning (and drops several hints of it along the way), and the autobiographical chapters of Esther Summerson, the sweet and kind orphan girl who ends up blessing countless lives. His jumping back and forth between these two voices keeps the story interesting.

If you don't think you can handle the book (although you really should try!), you must at least watch the BBC version. Even those skeptical husbands out there (like my own) will like it for its mystery and suspense.

"The vast majority of the fastidious critics [of Dickens] have . . . never read Dickens at all; hence their opposition is due to and inspired by a hearty innocence which will certainly make them enthusiastic Dickensians if they ever, by some accident, happen to read him." -G. K. Chesterton