A Word for Wednesday

"...suffering has been stronger than all other teaching...I have been bent and broken, 

but--I hope--into a better shape."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

A Word for Wednesday

"...he had no notion of meeting danger half-way. When it came upon him, he confronted it, but it must come before he troubled himself."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

A Word for Wednesday

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

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

A Word for Wednesday

"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! An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly folding up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the notes and gives me nut-shells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my own nut-shells and pass them on myself as notes!"

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

A Word for Wednesday

"I had little objection to his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

An Important Lesson from Joe Gargery On How to Progress in Life

In Great Expectations, young Pip's world is suddenly flipped upside down upon meeting the beautiful, unattainable Estella at Miss Havisham's house. As the two children sit before Miss Havisham playing at cards, Pip realizes for the first time some of the disparities between the wealthy and the working classes and that--unfortunately, in his mind--he's on the wrong end of that spectrum.

"'He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!' said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. 'And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!'

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it."

When Pip returns home that evening and is being questioned about his time at Miss Havisham's house, he ends up telling some pretty outrageous stories about what he saw and did. As no one else had ever been inside of Miss Havisham's house, no one knew better than to believe his silly claims.

Later on when he is alone with Joe, Pip confesses that he didn't tell the truth earlier and begins to lament his sorry, common life. In the course of their conversation, Joe makes some pretty poignant remarks on how to raise oneself out of that state of commonness that is now plaguing Pip.

 "'There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip,' said Joe, after some rumination, 'namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap.'"

 "'Well, Pip,' said Joe, 'be it so or be it son't, you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his [head], can't sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet.---Ah!' added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning, 'and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z.'"

"If you can't get to be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked."

Simple, common Joe Gargery who was just a blacksmith with no formal education understood that the only true way to succeed and move forward in life is through hard work and uncompromising integrity. The advice he gave to Pip in Great Expectations (written by Charles Dickens in 1861) was sound and wise, and we would do well to follow it today in 2016.


What wise person in your life always points you in the right direction even when you're too focused on yourself to see it?

A Word for Wednesday

"It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

Let's Bust a Recap : Great Expectations

Hello there! I've checked another book off my 2016 reading list, and now it's time to talk about it. After I bought a plane ticket to Japan, obviously one of my first thoughts was, "What books should I take?" Because priorities, people. Nevermind that I'm flying off to a foreign country that I've never visited before and I get to see (and meet!) my favorite people in the world and spend two whole weeks with them--WHAT BOOKS WILL I BE TAKING, for the love?! I quickly decided that taking Great Expectations was out of the question because my copy looks like this:

It's humongous, heavy, hardback, and a heckofa lot to tote around the world and back. So it immediately became my goal to finish it before I left because I really didn't want to start a new novel before I finished this one, but as I already mentioned, I sure wasn't going to take this beast with me. I still had quite a bit left to go, but once I made up my mind to finish it, it really wasn't difficult to do and I finished it last Tuesday with 3 days to spare since my goal was to finish it by last Friday. It's a great book, and I was really into it. But enough with all my goal-setting and accomplishing: let's get down to the actual recap because I leave for Japan TOMORROW, and I probably should start packing.

Charles Dickens wrote and published Great Expectations as a serial appearing in his weekly periodical from December 1860 to August 1861. It was his 13th novel and the 2nd of his novels to be fully narrated in the first person. Dickens began publishing short sketches in London magazines in 1834, and by the time he published his first full novel (Oliver Twist) in 1838, Dickens was already a bestselling writer. 

Great Expectations is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and depicts the life of an orphaned boy named Pip from his early childhood to his mid-20s written from his own perspective. It reads almost like it's his personal memoir, and in my opinion, it's extremely entertaining. In Great Expectations, we meet such memorable characters as Joe Gargery (the humble blacksmith and truest friend to Pip), Miss Havisham (the wealthy, witch-like spinster of Satis House who is still an icon in today's pop culture), Abel Magwitch a.k.a Provis (the scary escaped convict Pip meets in a graveyard in the very first scene of the book and who shows back up much later in a twist I did not see coming), and Herbert Pocket (Pip's loyal friend and companion) among many, many others. I mean, when you have a cast of characters including people named Jaggers, Wemmick, Pumblechook, and Wopsle, why wouldn't you want to read this book, amiright?

In this novel, we begin by learning that Pip is living with his sister and her husband (Mr. and Mrs. Joe Gargery) and will become Joe's apprentice in the blacksmith trade. Before beginning his apprenticeship, Pip spends some time at Satis House with Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella who are pivotal characters throughout the novel. Four years into his apprenticeship with Joe, Pip is approached by an intimidating lawyer (Mr. Jaggers) with the information that he has great expectations from an anonymous benefactor and, should he choose to accept this offer, he would be off to London immediately to become an educated gentleman under the guardianship of Mr. Jaggers until this mysterious benefactor reveals him or herself to Pip. Pip accepts and off we go on his adventure with him.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It's got mystery, intrigue, romance, adventure, suspense, and death all wrapped up into one delicious package, not to mention poignant quotes which will be occupying our Wednesdays here on the blog for a solid month (as you already got a taste of last week). Dickens masterfully weaves this tale together with very few wasted words. It was long to be sure (59 chapters!), but it was not cumbersome in the least, and it really turned out to be a quick read once I got into it. I would certainly recommend it, and after reading this one, I'm looking forward to reading more of Dickens' work. (Confession: Great Expectations is the first Charles Dickens novel I've ever read all the way through.)

All in all, I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's only lacking that last 1/2 star because I could take breaks from it whereas when I was reading The Last of the Mohicans (another long novel I read this year), I could not put it down.

What about you? Have you read Great Expectations or anything else by Charles Dickens? Who was your favorite character? (I am #TeamJoeGargery all the way.) Which Dickens novel would you recommend for my book list next year? (Your choices are listed above in the picture of my Dickens collection.) What books should I take to Japan with me? Comment quick because I LEAVE TOMORROW!

A Word for Wednesday

"Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~

Is our "godliness" more uncomfortable and unacceptable than sin itself? 

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence."
~Matthew 23:25~

#prayforOrlando

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle."

~from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens~