A deserved classic of coincidence and pace

I love the cover of the Penguin edition. The painting seems almost perfect for Dickens novel. The introduction is, as usual with Penguin, a good essay on Dickens and the novel.

But on to the novel itself. “Great Expectations” was the first of Dickens’ novels that I read and I had to read several more before I found another I liked anywhere near as much. It is a small work compared to “David Copperfield” and his other massive English comic novels. It is a much darker work, too with less of the comedic touch.

Dickens published and/or edited several magazines and some of his novels were first written as serials to bolster flagging circulation, “Great Expectations” is one and it shows. The novel grabs you fast and has a story with many surprises and twists along the way. The one drawback to the earlier serialization is that the book probably has too many small climaxes and cliffhangers

Like many of the other great novels of the 18th and 19th century a modern reader may well find it a little too full of long descriptive passages. I personally feel that it travels along fast enough that you won’t notice.

I feel a word or two may be necessary about coincidence in the novel, certainly some other reviewers have felt there was too much. The first thing that should be said is that Dickens readers would not have criticised the coincidence, at the time they had a much firmer belief in “fate” and would have felt that the coincidence showed how much of Pip’s tale was fated to be. The other thing worth mentioning is that the coincidence is no less than one can find in quite a lot of modern television if you just explain the plot. We need to ask if the number of coincidences seems unnatural within the book and if the book works. My answer would be that this tale runs along at a fine pace, well written and well worth the read. The coincidence does not detract from the novel.