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If most Dickens novels are symphonies, “Great Expectations” is a string quartet. In a minor key. Probably by Schubert. The book is one of his shortest; it’s taut as a noose, and this dark fable glows like an emerald bracelet coiled around Estella’s ivory wrist.
Pip is all of us. Who among us has reached maturity untouched by similar yearnings, embarrassments, ambitions? And who among us has not seen the bitter ghost of Miss Havisham flickering behind his pupils as he pondered the mirror, once or twice during a life’s long road of disappointments? For me, the most moving character is Magwitch, whose love for Pip is doomed to remain as unrequited as Pip’s for Estella. The ironies of this novel are subtle and profound. One of the master’s greatest.
tinky posted this review Friday, October 12 2007.
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