Thoughts on Reading

To be honest, I did not enjoy Great Expectations. I wasn't particularly compelled to read to book to solve the mysteries. I didn't care all that much. Dickens' style of writing was much too drawn out and wordy for my taste. And part of why I didn't like it all that much is that I felt no sympathy or connection with Pip, and I think it's important to have that with the main character of a novel. I thought that he was just shallow and overly obsessed with silly things (like Estella; she was terrible to him and he let her basically control his life after meeting her once). Little of the reading actually stuck because it was just so dull. After I did my reading, I had to check Sparknotes almost immediately after just to remember what happened. That website was a life saver; without it, I probably would have had to reread all of the chapters at least twice.

Because I was so tired of Dickens' novel, reading and annotating was difficult. I tried to read every night, but that usually consisted of me glossing over the chapters after reading the first few paragraphs. I had to do a lot of catch-up reading on weekends, too.During the week, I'd be so busy with other homework, I would completely forget about reading the next few chapters. I woke up around 5:00 on a few occasions to finish the reading (which was not fun at all, especially considering my lack of coffee). I can't say that Great Expectations had compelled me to read any more Dickens stories. My family had warned me that it was slow and dull, but I had no idea it would be this bad. Maybe this is only my opinion because I'm too young to appreciate sophisticated writing... but I can't see myself voluntarily rereading this book or any of his others in my lifetime.