Between the Lines discussion

I just finished Great Expectations. I really enjoyed this book. Dickens is a great writer. The book is a bit sad but yet still very touching. Great Moral values and Dickens has a bit of humor throughout. Intense scenes that are very suspenceful that you won't want to put the book down. I stayed up a bit to late finishing it last night but worth it!

I read this book a long time ago for school. I think it was even before highschool. But I do recall that I enjoyed the story.

One of my favorite books. So many unusual characters.

I so love Pip! WHo is your favorite LaTrica?

Depends on which part of the book I'm in. I have a soft spot for Herbert Pocket and Wemmick. I also like the idea of Miss Haversham. So immature as to waste her life and money getting revenge on mankind through beauty.

Dickens is brilliant. His characters are just so colorful!

I hated this book. I didn't hate it quite as much as A Tale of Two Cities, but I hated it more than Oliver Twist, less than A Christmas Carol and about the same as David Copperfield. I absolutely loathe Dickens and it might be because school made me read so many of them. On the other hand I had to read a lot of D.H. Lawrence, Mrs. Gaskell and the Brontes and I love all of them.

Petra X wrote: " I absolutely loathe Dickens and it might be because school made me read so many of them...."

Funny, I wasn't forced to read Dickens at school, except A Christmas Carol (hated it) -- and I love big 19th-century novels: George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Tolstoy, Zola. But I just can't get along with Dickens. I have tried repeatedly, but his characters seem like caricatures and his plots predictable, compared to the depth, subtlety, and wisdom of Tolstoy, George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell. I've managed to finish an audiobook of Hard Times and have started Great Expectations a couple of times, but I just can't get through more than 10 pages without getting terminally bored. I've given up on him!

Veronica, I agree with what you say, but I don't like George Eliot (except for Daniel Deronda) at all. I read all of the same authors as you, except Zola, at school and liked them all except Eliot and Wilkie Collins whom I absolutely loathes.

I loved Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, everything by Mrs. Gaskell and came to Zola by myself in the last years of school. He is one of my all-time favourite authors. Not sure which book of his I like best, Nana or L'Assommoir are frontrunners though. Which one of his do you like best?

Petra X wrote: "Veronica, I agree with what you say, but I don't like George Eliot (except for Daniel Deronda) at all...."

ohh, not liking George Eliot??? How can anyone not love Middlemarch? :) I have read it probably four times and cannot tire of it.

I haven't read much Zola to tell the truth. I enjoyed Germinal despite studying it at university, and also la Bête Humaine. I didn't like Nana that much.

Richard, Wilkie Collins (and Mrs Gaskell I think) wrote for serialisation too, and it didn't do them any harm :) Collins does some great cliffhangers for the ends of instalments!

I enjoyed almost all of Dickens books, except this one! It's not the only one I had to read for school, but it was the only one I really struggled to finish.

I just didn't find this one touching, or at all realistic. A lot of Dicken's is unrealistic, but there are kernels of reality. This just felt silly to me.

I like his silly character names. They certainly make great choices for pet names:)

Richard wrote: "Veronica-two main differences about the serialization of Wilkie Collins and Dickens-(i don't know about Mrs Gaskell) Collins took finished-completed novels-and then serialized them..."

Thanks Richard, I didn't know about this. Collins' novels certainly are structured via cliff-hanging endings to episodes, which makes sense if he was able to plan them that way in advance. I think he had other distractions apart from wife and kids though (mistress/opium addiction??)

Heep would be okay. Pip IS a name we called a tiny dog we had when I was little. Hamm was the name of a hamster...I didn't say they were all perfect pet names, but a lot of them are.

My dog's name is Damian. He's a miniature pinscher. Tiny, so harmless, but looks incredibly fierce. Evil Damian from The Omen, and Father Damian Kerras from The Exorcist. I thought the two characters balanced the name!

Kandice wrote: " I enjoyed almost all of Dickens books, except this one! It's not the only one I had to read for school, but it was the only one I really struggled to finish.

I just didn't find this one touchi..."

I don't think this book was touching at all. I hope he didn't intend it to be. I think everybody pretty much got what they deserved.

Love love LOVE this book: beautifully written, a touching story, endearing and believable characters with depth, and so exciting that it is almost impossible to put down once you start. I am absolutely fascinated by that time period and love England (and Dickens of course)!

This book turned me on to Charles Dickens. I am now in the midst of collecting his works, and really like his descriptive langauge.