jlewis 's review for:

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

4.0

challenging hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This is Dickens’ penultimate complete novel. Like almost all his others, I found I needed to get a very long way into the book before I really felt much interest in the characters. And, like almost all his other novels, I’m more interested in the peripheral characters than the protagonists. So Herbert, Joe, Biddy and Wemmick, perhaps especially Wemmick. It is a much shorter book than many of his works and I felt there were aspects which could have been expanded. Mrs Pocket is a hideous character, but only appears briefly and then disappears from view, and it would have been nice to have seen more of the little Pockets. (They have something in common with the Jellaby family in terms of how they are neglected.)  Magwitch is, of course, a triumph.  Miss Haversham is chilling. And the settings, especially the marshes, are superbly done. 
I do wonder if Dickens was running out of originality as he seems to replay ideas from earlier works. Not just the large neglected Pocket/Jellaby family but also Mr Wopsle on stage is reminiscent of the thespians in Nicholas Nickleby and Pip himself seems a fairly similar character to David Copperfield. 
Anyway, on to Our Mutual Friend. And then, I suppose, Edwin Drood, even though unfinished. And then I will have worked through the whole canon of novels.