At least Great Expectations is readable, compared to Moby Dick.  Charles Dickens is a writer of precision and craft.  He got dem skills.  However, I still wasn't floored by the overall story.  To guess where Pip might finally end up after his random encounters with stiff, or haughty, or nasty characters seized my attention about as much as watching a few ducks wading in a dirty pond.  Something about Victorian era classics make me feel boring and old.  I don't want to feel boring and old.  I want to feel energy and curiosity.  I want to feel the intensity of Ares rolling into battle on a chariot, slaughtering Achaeans.  I want my neck to freeze when the White Walkers creep toward the Fist of the First Men.  Without the supernatural, at the least I want to feel authentic longing for a life beyond the Spanish sunset away from post-war demons, (The Sun Also Rises).  Anything but an elderly Victorian biscuit. 
 
In the novel, Pip's expectations change and attenuate as he grows older, his pragmatism gradually substituting for his lofty ambitions and growing self-perception.  Pip's story parallels my own feelings reading Great Expectations.  My enthusiastic preconceptions of the novel withered as the story rambled on and on until the final dusty page.
 
Summary:  A well-written helping of never-ending stale biscuits.  My expectations weren't met.    
 
Rating:  3.0

-E.B.
2019-02-21