Great Expectations

I just got finished telling someone a few days ago that I didn't like 'Great Expectations' as much as 'David Copperfield'- well, a hundred some odd pages and I'm singing a different tune.

As far as they are both purported to be a bildungsroman/maturation novel, I stand by David Copperfield as the superior work. However! Great Expectations has been mislabelled!

The protagonist is very often an ungrateful sort, almost from his earliest appearance, which put a limit on how much I could root for the guy and enjoy the proceedings- but coupled with the moodiness of the scene, the tragedy of Ms. Havisham as a broken and corrupting woman, the hints of the supernatural (though never actually utilized, all played with in the eye of the narrator- Great Expectations reminded me more of Wuthering Heights than anything else... with an odd mix of Frankenstein as well (a connection I made JUST BEFORE Dickens actually makes an allusion to Frankenstein... on the one hand that subdues any brilliance I felt on my part, like I was shouting out the punchline to a joke only after the speaker has uttered nine tenths of it, however I take comfort in knowing that I was at least in synch with what Dickens was writing. A helpful thing as far as being assured of my understanding of the text.)

But not long after that Frankenstein bit, the novel shifts into an almost spy thriller, and/or heist film! Sprinkled throughout are the comedy aspects involved (not that there wasn't plenty of comedy in David Copperfield)... in short Great Expectations is a rather marvelous blending of genre.

It could maybe be shorter for the modern audience, but even then it may be impossible to create that same sense of mood without the length as is.

And I forgot to mention that I made a connection between the unlikability of the protagonist and the sorts of doomed individuals that star in various horror tales, EC Comics, Twilight Zone and the like.

Ah, plus, if I wanted to be fair, flawed Pip is perhaps a more realistic character than almost perfect David Copperfield (even though David does marry the very obviously wrong girl the first out... well, he gets it right in the end.) Everything works out perfectly for Copperfield, Pip has a less satisfying end, though more hopeful and (necessarily) philosophic than Copperfield's.

There's actually an alternate, original ending to Expectations that's included in the notes. I'm not really into it, it SORT of perpetuates the tragedy of Ms. Havisham onto the now grown Estella, while also undermining it by having her not REALLY be as tragic a figure?... No, I don't dig it. Better to have Pip and Estella meet up on what once was their shared meeting place, and maybe move past uh.. the past, and forge something new in the future.

Could be I just wanted Pip to get the girl.