Ex Libris Kirkland

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First Written 1861
Genre Fiction
Origin UK
My Copy small leatherbound copy from UK, a gift from meine Schweigermutter
First Read March 23, 2012

Great Expectations



It's a nice surprise how Pip really matures as a character, from a fairly selfish little boy to a flawed but respectable man. Dickens' characters don't often grow or develop like that, and so it was nice to watch.

The classic Dickensian interweaving of the plot is really great. I was on the edge of my seat, so to speak, as the various threads of Jaggers and Magwitch and Estella and Miss Havisham kept drawing closer and closer together.

Noted on March 30, 2012

I haven't read this since I dragged my ass through it as a high school sophomore. Since then I've developed a real love of Dickens, and so this time around I'm really enjoying it. No surprise there, of course.

Noted on March 23, 2012

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold...

Quoted on March 30, 2012

The death before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death.

Quoted on March 30, 2012

"Then is it your opinion," I inquired, with some little indignation, "that a man should never --"

"--Invest portable property in a friend?" said Wemmick. "Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend - and then it becomes a question of how much portable property it may be worth to get rid of him."

Quoted on March 30, 2012

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make as good money!

Quoted on March 30, 2012

He had not a handsome face, but it was better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful.

Quoted on March 30, 2012

Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe - not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together.

Quoted on March 30, 2012

And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way -- which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do.

Quoted on March 30, 2012

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account.

Quoted on March 23, 2012


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
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