earwicker 's review for:

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

4.0

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Teachers, do not make your students read Dickens. I learned to hate Dickens at an early age this way, swallowing Oliver Twist like Jonah swallowing the whale, and it's taken thirty years for me to recover. I still do not love Dickens, but he has a style that is distinctly his own, and I did enjoy reading this. His sentimentality and cinematic treatment of poverty is slightly disturbing, but he makes up for it with a sense of humor that is so supercilious that it does make me laugh. For better or worse (mostly worse) all of TV's stock show stereotypes owe Dickens a residual fee. Made payable to your local orphanage, preferably.