Book #3: Great Expectations

Book #3: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

November 1, 2012

I was hoping to at least be able to make one blog post in October, but obviously, I just missed the cut. In my own defense, Great Expectations is a long book. I have a small, thick (with tissue-thin, gilded-edged pages that I actually enjoyed carefully prying apart, even if it did briefly interrupt the flow of the story) hard-covered edition, coming out at around 620 pages. But I'll admit, I haven't been taking as much time to just read as I was able to before. I'm working a lot more now (though with substitute teaching, you can occasionally sneak in a little reading or homework time), and classes have been getting busier and busier. I need to make more time, for sure, and I intend to. But enough excuses.

As I've slowly made my way through the Dickens classic, I'd been looking forward to doing one thing: re-watching the "Pip" episode of South Park, a parody of the novel that is considered one of the worst episodes in the series' otherwise mostly illustrious run (the newest Halloween episode was pretty funny, by the way). I've been a fan of the show for years. I must admit, I love cartoons. I know it's so immature, but I honestly don't care. And I happen to be of the (popular) opinion that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are pretty hilarious guys, and they come across as being quite intelligent as well. It doesn't surprise me that at least one of them has read the book (oh, yeah, we're talking about a book here). I remember watching the episode once, maybe years ago, and not enjoying it much. It hardly ever airs, because it really is that unpopular. But I had to wonder, are most of the people who watch the show just not getting the humor because the haven't read Great Expectations? Um, probably. But I decided to test that, so I'll discuss my thoughts on the book with the comparison at the center.

Okay, so the episode starts with Pip (the little British character from the show that everyone is mean to...I finally get that gag. Don't really think he's on the show any more though) going to his parents' graves to pay his respects, when suddenly the convict Magwitch appears in his shackles. On the show, Pip voluntarily helps Magwitch, much to the convict's surprise. This is different from the book, because Magwitch threatens Pip and makes him go to his house and get the supplies and food for him over night. But I guess this was just to cut time.

In the episode, Joe is depicted as a simple-minded blacksmith (which he is), though his strangely roundabout way of speaking is not mimicked on the show. I'm sure that they could have done something with that to make it really funny. Joe's shtick in the episode is that he creates a bunch of useless metal crap, which was weird, but the fight between him and his crazy wife was pretty funny and reflective of their relationship in the book. Lots was cut from the beginning of the book, with many central characters missing: Orlick is gone, as are Pumblechook (take him or leave him...I wish Dickens had had Pip really tell him off at the end of the book, just really ripped into him at the Boar, so that was a disappointment), Biddy (who really didn't get enough face-time in the book, by the way, though I did like the fact that she married Joe at the end), Wopsle (a Shakespearean-esque fool, I could have done with more of him in the novel even if it had expanded it by a hundred more pages), and Compeyson (the crook who broke Miss Havisham's heart and was Magwitch's antagonist in the novel).

On the show, Jaggers isn't given a name, and he's definitely not as I pictured him in the book. But then again, he's not an important character in the episode. Jaggers is one character I would have wanted to know more about in the book, especially with regards to that whole situation with Molly, Estella's mother (definitely not in the episode). But he simply comes to the blacksmith shop and gives the news to Pip that he has "great expectations," without that strictly no-nonsense manner of his. As in the book, Pip believes his mysterious benefactor to be Miss Havisham, the crazy rich lady in town. He has "worked" for her as a playmate to her adopted daughter Estella, who is a brat and is very rude to Pip. The depiction of her in the episode is hilarious. She spews ugly insults at Pip in a manner that is very unrestrained, it's a good parody. Miss Havisham, as in the book, is raising the girl to be a heart-breaker, though her intentions in the episode are quite different from in the book.

So Pip goes to the London. The whole situation with him staying with Matthew Pocket and his family is cut from the episode. I thought that Herbert Pocket's mother was an interesting character, and again, more of her would have been great. I am noticing a theme with this review at this point: Dickens did a really great job of creating these complicated, fascinating, sometimes hilariously silly characters, but so much of the story is spent inside Pip's own head that you don't get to know them all that well. It was a disappointment.

Anyway, in the episode, they poke fun at Herbert's obviously homosexual tendencies. Parker and Stone really don't like this character (at the end of the episode, the "British Guy" who is narrating the episode says that "Pocket" died of Hepatitis B. Oops). I found Herbert to be annoying most of the time as well, and I wasn't at all surprised that he wasn't pissed when he found out that Pip had paid for him to get his current job. He was such a wimp that he had to wait for his girlfriend's alcohol father to die before he could marry her. But at the very least, he saved Pip from Olick, so that's where he came in use. So I enjoyed the parody of him on the show, huge (HUGE) front teeth and all. The scene of him politely correcting Pip's table manners was great, and I definitely wouldn't have appreciated that one as much if I hadn't read the book.

Okay, so the episode runs on a much shorter time frame than the book. While Great Expectations follows Pip from the age of seven to his mid-twenties (then briefly in his mid-thirties or so), the "Pip" episode only goes over a time span of a few months, maybe a year. Oh, well. Some more characters were cut from the story, most notably Wemmick and the characters surrounding him (Aged P. and Miss Skiffins/Mrs. Wemmick). It is easy to see why these characters would not be included in the episode, though. Thinking back on it, they were really the closest thing that Pip had to family during all that time in London, yet they didn't really help him to appreciate the family that he'd had with Joe and Biddy any more than he had when he left. In fact, I'll just note here that the lessons that Pip should have realized long ago where quickly realized in the end (unsatisfactorily, I might add), and as much pity as I felt for him at the beginning of the book, I feel that and more than a little annoyance at him now that I've finished it. The Pip in the episode is definitely the more likable hero.

So Pip (in the episode) goes to show himself to Miss Havisham and Estella. As in the book, he speaks alone with the crazy woman in her chambers (okay, I gotta throw it in...how could little Pip, in the book, not be just disgusted by the conditions of the Havisham home? Why was he so impressed with all the rotting decadence? It was too depressing, and it made me wonder how shitty his life could be that he would envy that). She urges him to love Estella, as in the book, with the same intention of having Estella break his heart. At a ball in London thrown by King Tony Blair (very silly, South Park), Pip and Estella dance and Pip confesses his love, while Estella confesses to having no heart. That's not quite how it all goes down in the book, but that was a good enough summary of it.

At the ball, Estella has an older boyfriend (he, unlike the other characters in the episode, is modern in appearance and manner) who is an asshole. In the book, she marries Drummle, a jerk whom Pip went to school with. Pip, heartbroken, rushes back to Miss Havisham's house to get the old woman on his side. But he finds the couple there with her, and Miss Havisham announces her evil plan to Pip, which is nothing at all like in the book. I remember reading somewhere that either Parker or Stone hated the ending of Great Expectations (I didn't hate it, but after all the build-up, I was left unsatisfied), so they just made the rest of the episode really outrageous. I thought it was a riot. To keep it brief: Pip, Herbert, Magwitch (who is apparently a robot), and Joe burst into Miss Havisham's chambers ready to fight. Miss Havisham plans to transfer her soul into Estella's young body, and Estella's boyfriends are tied up, their tears to be used to power her evil machine. Pip, trying to convince Estella that she does have a heart and that she doesn't want to give up her life for Miss Havisham, keeps giving her baby bunnies, which she kills to prove him wrong in his claims. But after a couple dozen dead bunnies, she decides to stop killing, and she and Pip leave happily together. Miss Havisham burns to death (sort of like in the book, except more dramatic and immediate), and that's that.

Overall, not the greatest of South Park episodes, but I definitely get the gags now that I've actually read the book. It's interesting, Great Expectations is considered by many to be Dickens's "masterpiece," but it is definitely not as integrated into popular culture as, say, Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol, which have both had many parodies made of them (especially the latter). I'd say that this book was worth the read, even if it did take the better part of two months to plow through, but in the end I didn't feel like I really connected with the narrator and main character. 600+ pages, and I felt like I connected more with some of those other characters. But now that I've gotten through this long book, which had been sitting on my shelf for more than two years, I'm more excited than ever to continue on with my readings.

Above: Pip and Herbert, as depicted in the South Park episode. To the left: Charles Dickens. A great writer, but I watched a brief video about him with a class I was subbing last month, and he sounded like kind of a douchebag. Doesn't he look kind of douchey in that picture? Nice beard, dude.