Great Expectations

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

Raised by a humble blacksmith, Pip is recruited by the wealthy Miss Havisham to be a companion to her ward, the cold but beautiful Estella. There, Pip learns to despise his rough origins as Estella torments him about his low prospects. When Pip is informed that an unknown benefactor expects to make him his heir, he sets off to London to realize his “great expectations.” But true gentleman stature, he will find, is a matter of character, not fortune.

Public Domain (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Observe how finely the narrative is kept in one key. It begins with a mournful impression—the foggy marshes spreading drearily by the seaward Thames—and throughout recurs this effect of cold and damp and dreariness; in that kind Dickens never did anything so good…No story in the first person was ever better told.” (George Gissing, English novelist)

Great Performance of a classic!

I sometimes find high-brow victorian literature to be a little to slow and heavy, including Dickens, but 'Expectations' is a clear exception. I loved it. Simon Prebble's performance was captivating.

great book

A classic! Great story well read. it was easy to listen to, and very engaging.

A moving experience!

I read an excerpt of this book in high school and was convinced it was at once dull and ridiculous. What I later learned was that it is important to read a book from its beginning in order to fully appreciate it! A random excerpt from the middle of a classic can hardly do it justice. I'm so glad that I gave this story a chance again, albeit 23 years later. This reading is fabulous. I cried. I laughed. I responded with sighs and smiles. What a fantastic story with such lively characters. I am so glad I gave it another chance!

Great book, great narration

Love the way it was narrated! Recommend it! He uses different voices for each character making it easy to imagine! Really enjoyed it!

Worth the time investment

It starts off eith a bang.. Slows a but in the middle... But rewards the reader in the end. Gorgeous piece of writing and the performance is a fine one. Recommended!

Excellent narrative

Took probably three chapters before I started to appreciate the style of the Old English writing. I found myself really enjoying this book by the fourth chapter. I was quite impressed by the narrator. He was able to keep track of many different characters voices throughout the entire book. Even at the end as the characters were much older you could hear the maturity in their voices... So he did a great job in my opinion!

Narrator was terrific!

Such a beautifully written book and the narrator is an amazing story teller! Loved his voices and the way he read the story.

why it's still a classic

why this isint still required reading is beyond me. a fantastic story and all too real and still common.

A Classic about wanting what is not good for you

For some reason that I can’t really explain, I always have felt I did not like Charles Dickens. But the only two books that I can remember reading of Dickens (Great Expectations and The Tale of Two Cities) I liked. Maybe it is like feeling like you do not like a food, but never actually trying it.

Like many classics, I was first exposed to Great Expectations as an abridged children’s book. I am pretty sure I read at least one additional abridgement in high school or college (not for school but pleasure) but I think this is the first time I have read the whole book.

With so many versions of the story in my head (I have seen at least one if not two of the movies in addition to probably two abridged versions), the basic story is not a surprise. Simon Vance (as always) did an admirable job narrating the audiobook. And like many classics, I think it could have easily been cut by at least a third without a problem. But according to Wikipedia, Dickens originally intended it to be twice as long, but his publisher restrained him. (Thank goodness).

The basic story is familiar. Pip helps a convict escape as a young child. And he is asked to come play with a girl and her deranged (but rich) adopted mother, Miss Havisham. Later, Pip is approached by a lawyer and told a benefactor is going to make him into a gentleman, but he can not know the benefactor until the benefactor reveals themselves to him. Pip assumes it is the crazy rich woman and goes to London leaving his kindly brother in law that is raising him (and his now incapacitated but cruel sister) behind with nary a thought.

With lots of money but not a not a lot of sense, Pip lives the high life with a good friend. He is still in love with the girl, Estella, who was always beautiful but heartless. As he ages he is influenced by a cast of characters, some good and some not as good. Eventually his benefactor reveals himself as the escaped convict, and not Miss Havisham as he had always assumed. His hopes are dashed. Both because he is ashamed of his benefactor and because he had always assumed that Miss Havisham had desired that he and Estella were to be married as part of him being remade into a gentleman.

The problem with the convict coming back is that he is still wanted and through many threads coming together, there are people around Pip that know the convict and want to see him face execution.

In many ways this is a morality play similar to Les Miserable. The convict has made good, has changed his ways, has helped to raise a child to make up for his past wrongs. It is also a coming of age story that seems to draw on the prodigal son and early romance stories, warning the reader to be content with their station and not seek after what they cannot have.

This is a classic of the best sort however. It is a true story of being thankful for the simple things in life (or else everything else will fall down around your ears.) I don’t remember reading many classic books with so many threads that seemed to all come together in the end. Maybe that was more common than I am aware but it is definitely one of the things I either didn’t remember from previous versions or were edited out of the abridgements.

I have seen the 1998 movie with Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke and it deserves its low ratings. I looked around for a free way to watch the 2013 version, but couldn’t find it. I did watch part of a 2013 stage version. But it was dark in ways that I am not sure is true to the story (although it is technically true to the story.) I gave up after about 30 minutes.

The 1946 version is available on youtube and it is both true to the story and seemed to keep the spirit of the work and was quite well done (and can be seen free) but it did play with the ending a bit. More problematic was that it squeezed the timeline of the story so that it felt like things happened one after another instead of the years between some of the scenes. And that made the movie feel a bit less weighty than the book.

And it always seems that movies try to play with the content of books and somehow seem to make the stories less important. Maybe it is the nature of cinema, but it is a rare movie that is better than its book.
______
originally published on my blog Bookwi.se

Classic perfection!

Few can top Dickens. His stories are timeless. His characters are unforgettable. The older I become, the more I appreciate his excellent writing. This is the only audible book I have given 5 stars across the board. I'm excited to read or listen to all his stories again.