Great Expectations

[changeling67]

I chewed through Hard Times, I must admit. No spoilers, but I should have known that Bounderby with all of his bluster, was going to become undone at some point and Gradgrind is really surprised that his daughter is bitter at being raised as an emotionless automaton. Next is Great Expectations, which is 200 pages longer than Hard Times. I watched the film over the weekend but will read over the next few days.

I have just had a look at the other Dickens prerequisites and it appears that Dickens doesn't believe in slim novels.

Oliver Twist - bigger than Great Expectations. Personally, I would not be asking for "more," Oliver.
The Old Curiosity Shop - bigger than Oliver Twist.  More Like The Old Curiosity Mall
Little Dorrit - is a lie.  It is huge, a Big Fat Dorrit, tipping the scales at nearly 1,000 pages.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It seems that I am going to be stuck with Victorian workhouses for my summer break - the joy :-(

Comments

[bluegerl.livejournal.com]

OOOH dear - do you HAVE to read them one after the other? Sooo depressing, and rather similar. Great Expectations was enlivened for me by Miss Haversham... and the convict. but not much else.

The films were more enjoyable. (Ron Moody as Fagin ...oh GORGEOUS!)

I rather prefer Trollope with his gossipyness and bitchinesses. teehee. and he's less 'dooowwwnnn' and dark and - I read Bleak House when I was confined to bed with rheumatic fever... followed by the Decline and Fall of Gibbons... god... I was BORED enough to read ANYTHING! and had to that was all father had in his 'pretty' bookshelves.

Good luck love... I'm going to start on Proust soon! hehehe.

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

I have to plough through Dickens as it is a large chumk of our module 'The Victorians.' I can miss out 'The Old Curiosity Shop' but the others are a prerequisite, especially 'Bleak House,' which I haven't got yet and will leave to the end. I also have to get through 'Middlemarch' and 'Brideshead Revisited.' Think I will do my 'light' reading at bed time :-)

Also, I have been off-track for about 6 weeks, refusing to read anything remotely heavy-going. Alas, my psyche is doing a number on me and I am having bad dreams about screwing up this year because I am not prepared etc.

[j-flattermann.livejournal.com]

Gosh, you may call it theSummer that was Dickens.
I'm not a great Dickensian but I read Little Dorit. I was inspired by the mini series I'd seen on the BBC.

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

Thanks for telling me re mini-series, Fee. Believe me, I will be ransacking YouTube for film footage/TV adaptations - anything to assist my reading load :-)