Books to Read Poster No 46

 

Being on occasions a bit dense it took me a while to realise the significance of the picture to the text, but if I say that this is a picture of a Stopped Clock then alert readers will conclude that the book was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. 

I read this many ,many years ago although I had little memory of it and I had noted it would have to be a poster read at some stage.  I cannot deny that it called to me at this juncture in view of the travesty  that is the latest BBC TV adaptation. As an aside I do not think that Dickens can be well adapted for film or tv nowadays because we are too used to drama that reflects real life and real people and Dickens' characters, while owning a great deal of psychological truth are often a long way from being real in that particular sense of the word. The TV adaptation by the way, I abandoned after Part 2, and I gather I was far from alone. 

I listened to this on Audible ( one of their many free to member classics ) read by the very talented  Martin Jarvis. My mother always maintained that Jarvis was too conceited to be watchable  which coloured my own opinion of him for a while, but eventually I came to realise that a) a lot of actors come across as conceited/self absorbed b) if he was conceited he had a talent that he was perfectly justified in being conceited about and c) he really is too good to ignore on the basis of 'what your mother said'

He is incredibly good narrating Great Expectations and his performance added a lot to my enjoyment of the book. And yes, I did enjoy it very much (two in a row!). It's not mature Dickens, in parts it's a bit too sentimental for my taste and the ending leaves a lot to be desired, but you know, that said, it's a good book and I had a good time listening to it.