Well, I made it!
I finished Great Expectations, and really enjoyed the story, although I thought the writing was exceedingly clumsy at times. (Maybe I'm just spoiled by the excellent German translations that are around - most of my reading of Dickens has been in German.)
I stand by my view that Dickens is amazingly hard on his hero. I find this quite unusual, compared to all other Dickens novels I've read (ok, that's only around half a dozen, so not all that much to compare to, I guess, but still...). GE presents us with a hero who is flawed to a degree that is rarely found in what I remember of other Dickens stories.
I would venture to say that the fact that other readers here don't find this noticeable may have to do with our being used to finding flawed (and even severely crooked) characters as heroes of modern books.
Some evidence for this interpretation can in my opinion be found in the ending of the story. (Which, btw, contrary to other parts of the story, I found excellently written.)
SPOILER WARNING!
One of the features Dickens is most reputed for is the "poetic justice" of his endings. His characters get "what they deserve", according to Dickens's own and the Victorian ethics of his time. Thus, the convict cannot outlive the end of the story, but is granted a peaceful death as a sign that his "sins" are forgiven (though not forgotten enough to grant him surviving the story).
Pip (and I claim that this is as a result of his failings) has to serve 11 years in solitary exile (so to speak - mitigated however by the presence of friends, who are good people and a good influence on him) to atone for his ingratitude and arrogance, even though he has changed from this by the end of the story and his friends have forgiven him, before he can find his own happy ending.
Joe gets Biddy and Biddy gets Joe - I remember when I saw the movie that I was disappointed with the ending, and in the middle of the book I was again hoping that Pip might wake up and love Biddy and have a happy ending. But getting towards the end of the book, it was clear that Pip's dreams of life with Biddy were delusional - he would not have been able to be happy with her. I was very pleased to see my two favourite characters of the book, Biddy and Joe, united in marriage at the end.
(Yeah, I'm a sucker for the good guys.
)
There is, however, one truly amazing end for a character here: Estella.
Are there any other instances in Dickens where a previously married female character gets a second chance at happiness?
I thought it was amazing that her former cruelty is forgiven not only as having been induced by Miss Havisham in the first place, but also as atoned for by her suffering from a brutal husband.
But she is still 'tainted' (in the Victorian view) - and so we don't actually
see the happy end. We are only led to expect it by Pip, and are informed that for Estella it will be quite the surprise, too (as we, Victorian readers that we are in Dickens's mind, would find it a bit too much if we heard such a woman actually
expected any happiness).
This is an odd story, and there's one more oddity (to me) in the resolution: Herbert getting his living "in the East". Often, emigrating is as much a punishment as a reward in Dickens. Characters who have failed but are forgiven may get a new start abroad (think of Steerpike's victim from David Copperfield - can't remember her name right now - Emily? and her father). Living in hot climes, away from England, is not really the fulfillment of all dreams for a Dickensian hero, I think? So, why does Herbert get sent away?
Sure, we hear he's successful, he lives there (wherever it is) with his wife, he's happy enough (why don't we hear whether he's got kids?) - but still... I liked Herbert, and I find the resolution of this part of the plot, well, not unsatisfactory, but inexplicable.
Some final thoughts to be drawn from these combinations, before I'll leave it at that: Pip and Biddy vs Pip and Estella
Even if Pip had developed a sincere love for Biddy instead of just a desire for ease to fuel his dream of life with her - would she have been suitable?
Had Pip not risen too high in society, so that Dickens was forced to deny any real feelings in him for her?
And that even though he had of course not
really risen - all his status, his "expectations" had been void. He had been raised above his station (as contemporary texts would say), but it's no fault of his that it was void. So, how apt that his designated partner should be a woman of no family at all, but genteelly raised - exactly like him, really.
I thought this was an amazing story, much different from other Dickens novels, but the more fascinating for that. And I wonder whether this was a particular phase of Dickens's development as an author or just one tale that is somewhat odder that others.