Oh man, where are the romantics anymore?
The story of Pip is not one of depression, but one of romance, of big dreams and broken hearts, but its not depressing, its beautiful.
I love Pip's journey and the beautiful Estella. I love the mind twist of who Estella is and where she came from.
I love the imagery of Miss Havisham in her faded wedding dress, alas, I can relate.
So many times in my life have I been derailed by my own Great Expectations, to watch Pip move in and out of his is cathartic.
I can't remember the exact line, but Pip tells Magwitch that he knows Estella, and that she is beautiful, the most beautiful.
I think that to me, Great Expecations is not about sadness, it is about hope and love and who we believe we are and who we really are. It is a story for romantics, for the good at heart. I mean, Pip definitely became better off than he was living at home with that horrible sister (no laughs there? None for you all?). He was elevated, his life did change, its just that his expecations weren't what he thought they were.
I love his good heart and his innocent beliefs.
I love Pip.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Havisham, have two!
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8 comments:
man, i guess i'm missing that big picture that you're seeing. cause i see a lady who purposefully turned a little girl bitter, and then regretted it when she saw that she made it so that two people who could have fallen love, didn't.
i saw a guy who never knows his daughter, even though at the end, he possibly had the opportunity to do so. not to mention, there was some BS with how that all went down anyway, the mother, the father, etc.
i see a guy who might possibly realize what good he had right in front of him (biddy), but he throws it all away, and he's left with nothing.
the faded wedding dress thing, maybe i'm just a grosso, but i kept seeing some tim burton-esque scene with her all in cobwebs and a yellow dress and paper thin skin and gross. ick.
i don't see the romance here. the only things that ended up well were joe ending up with biddy, wemmick and his lady and the fact that pip did an unselfish act by setting herbert up right. that was cool. but in that, he had to set aside his great expectations and do an unselfish thing. and then he was rewarded by being taken care of when times were tough.
otherwise, estella STILL doesn't want him even when her horrible nasty old husband is dead! awww, snap! i don't see the romance in this one. i wanted it to end with some romance. people die, there's disaster all around, but at least pip gets estella or something.
but, no. :(
Some of the book was quite funny. Mrs Joe was hilarious.
I guess I'm not a romantic. I get that love and loss go together like Forrest and Jenny but... now wait a minute. Forrest Gump is Pip without the class warfare.
Hixx, you read "good heart and innocent beliefs" and I read "naive and dangerously egocentric." Perhaps I'm just projecting though.
Everyone brings their own bags on this trip.
This is why the book club is awesome!
Maybe the danger that we're supposed to learn from in this book is that we should rely on our own instead of relying on another for our great expectations?
And when I talk about beauty and romance, I mean more about the writing, the story, the beauty of the horrible Estella, not the beauty of the what happens in the book but the beauty of how it happens in the book. Am I making sense?
I have a hard time getting past Dickens' class issues, too. I understand the romanticism of the time and place - definitely thought that some of the turns of phrase were brilliant throughout the book - don't have the book anywhere near me, so I can't bring up anything specific.
Def. agree that the lesson is about learning that self worth comes from within and not from without (i.e. money/class).
on that note, i think quite possibly that my favorite character (and i'm sure i'll change my mind) is herbert. (that was his name, right?)
he's a classy guy, even though he doesn't have any money. he's always friendly and ready to lend a hand. he always keeps up spirits and is hospitable, despite the fact that he doesn't have a lot to be happy about on the outside.
he's doing 'the secret,' and he actually gets what he is thinking about, even though he doesn't quite get it in the way he thinks about it. he comes from a good father and a mother who has fallen prey to her own 'great expectations,' which has left her inbetween about the same predicament as pip and havisham.
she's paralyzed like havisham, and she's forever chasing something outside of herself, like pip. and ignoring her family and the things around her, like pip, too.
i guess i bring my own baggage, cause i didn't find the sister funny AT ALL. i thought he was abused by her! and joe, too. shitty sister. :/
Oh but she gets hers too. I mean, there is some element of karma too right?
oh yeah, that didn't escape me. and of course, then i felt sorry for her.
what in hell was up with that dude orlick? the thing was i felt that for the most part, all the characters were part good and part bad, just like we all are.
but there seemed to be two that were all good and all bad. herbert was pretty much all good (can't really think of the bad), maybe to the point of naivete. and orlick was all bad, all shitty, all negative.
i'd love to hear if i'm missing something on those two.
p.s. i'm getting annoyed with my own word verification, but i was afraid of spam. away with fear!
Pip is "the grass is always greener next door" kinda guy. He'll never be happy and always be looking for something. That's why you really don't have to get by the title to know what this book is all about. Sometimes the simple answer is right.
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