Great Expectations has been on my TBR pile for so long, it had almost become my white whale. As I told my friend Susan years ago, “I don’t want to read Dickens, but I want to have read Dickens.” (There’s a difference.) My grandmother loved Dickens and read his entire bibliography, and years ago she gave me her collection of his complete works bound in green leather – which I’ve been moving from house to house ever since and occasionally picked up a volume or two. But I couldn’t really get past my teenaged impressions of Dickens: A Christmas Carol is okay, at least it’s short, but I didn’t see the fuss about the rest of it. After two good Dickens reading experiences in a row, now – I loved The Pickwick Papers – I may have to revise my opinion of Dickens in general.

Great Expectations is, in its most basic terms, the story of young Philip “Pip” Pirrip and his “expectations” – with all the anticipation and reversals of fortune they bring. When the novel opens, Pip is a young boy living with his adult sister (who has “brought him up by hand,” whatever that means – it’s not clear to Pip) and her husband, blacksmith Joe Gargery. Pip is destined to be Joe’s apprentice and eventual partner in the smithy, but in the meantime he wanders the marshes around the small, unhappy family’s cottage. While loitering in the cemetery one day – visiting the graves of his long-dead parents – Pip encounters a convict, escaped and on the run from “the Hulks.” The Hulks are brooding, terrifying prison ships that dock just offshore, and occasionally a prisoner escapes, swims for shore, and makes off through the marshes. They are usually caught, and Pip’s convict is no exception – although he makes a good attempt at freedom, with Pip’s (terrified, extorted) help – namely, a Christmas pie and Joe’s metal file, with which the convict saws off his leg irons.

Pip does his best to forget the frightening experience of meeting the convict in the marshes, and his fortunes take their first turn when he is summoned to attend at the home of Miss Havisham, a wealthy old woman who lives in a mansion in the nearby town. Pip and his family are baffled at the summons, which come out of the blue – but a poor young boy with no prospects does not disobey a summons from Miss Havisham. Not knowing what to expect, Pip presents himself at Miss Havisham’s mansion, where he is let in by the elderly recluse’s adopted daughter, the beautiful Estella. Estella’s beauty appears to be only skin-deep; she is haughty and cruel, looks down on Pip as “common,” and scorns to be in the same room with him. Miss Havisham, for her part, sits in a state of suspended animation, wearing a crumbling wedding gown and surrounded by a mummified nuptial feast and a set of clocks that she has stopped at 9:20, precisely the hour she was jilted at the altar.

Miss Havisham directs Pip and Estella to play cards, and then quizzes Pip on his feelings for Estella.

“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked on. “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?”

“I don’t like to say,” I stammered.

“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.

“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very pretty.”

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then, with a look of supreme aversion.)

“Anything else?”

“I think I should like to go home.”

(Miss Havisham would take a good deposition. That “Anything else?” – masterful exhaustion of the witness’s recollection.)

After presenting himself regularly to play cards with Estella, Pip is summarily dismissed one day when Miss Havisham declares that it is now time for him to be apprenticed to Joe, and he can expect no further help or support from her. By now, though, he is thoroughly spoiled for a blacksmith’s trade, and instead craves an education, the status of a gentleman, and the prospect of winning Estella’s cold heart for his own. Little does Pip know that his fortunes are about to shift again; one day a prominent lawyer appears on his doorstep and notifies him that he has “expectations” – a mysterious benefactor has left him a fortune and desires only that Pip should move to London and be educated as a gentleman (in keeping with his new station). The lawyer, Mr Jaggers, arranges for Pip to lodge with Miss Havisham’s cousin, Matthew Pocket, to be tutored. In London, Pip befriends his tutor’s son, Herbert Pocket, and his lawyer’s chief clerk, and speculates about who his mysterious, anonymous benefactor might be.

Everyone – Pip, Herbert, the rest of the Pockets, Estella, and Miss Havisham’s grasping relatives, believe that Miss Havisham herself is Pip’s patron. Pip latches onto the idea that he is “intended for” Estella, and that they belong together. When summoned to Miss Havisham’s side again, she quizzes him on his impressions of Estella and exhorts him to love the haughty girl.

“Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?”

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat in the chair. “Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?”

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all), she repeated, “Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!”

Pip persists in his understanding that Miss Havisham is his benefactor and that she intends him to marry Estella even after Herbert discloses Miss Havisham’s true designs vis-a-vis Estella. Having never recovered from being jilted at the altar – by a cruel scoundrel who ruined many lives, as the history becomes clear – Miss Havisham adopted Estella with the intent of bringing her up to break as many hearts as possible in revenge. Estella herself is cold and frequently describes herself as heartless – yet she feels something for Pip, because she actively discourages him from pressing his suit or from loving her. Estella explains to Pip that he is the only man she cannot bring herself to lead on or deceive. But she doesn’t need to – Pip leads himself on. Yet he’s not always completely lacking in self-perception.

The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

I won’t divulge whether Miss Havisham really is Pip’s mysterious benefactor, what happens between Pip and Estella, or anything more about the plot – it would ruin the delight of speculation, if you haven’t already read this wonderful story. (I will say, because I can’t resist patting myself on the back, that I worked out for myself who Pip’s patron is.) Pip is a self-important fool who misses the obvious all around him, fails to value his earliest and truest friend – his brother-in-law Joe Gargery – and lets his sudden wealth go immediately to his head… but he’s endearing all the same, and I found myself rooting for him despite my best judgment. Estella is cold, cruel, and proud – she is exactly what Miss Havisham raised her to be – and yet I rooted for her, too. This is a meandering, engaging novel about seeing the true value in people, however humble their origins – but it’s also just a cracking good story. I’m so glad I got around to it at last.

Maybe I like Dickens after all…

Have you read Dickens? What’s your favorite of his novels?