Great press for 'Great Expectations'

Great Expectations has been enjoying a bit of the spotlight lately. First of all, there was a nice mention from Denny Drabelle in the Washington Post:

I want to add my two cents to Jack Murnighan's new book, "Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits." I agree with some his skip recommendations. For example, I consider everything in Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" after Hans Castorp's dream in the snow to be anti-climactic, and Murnighan seems to stop on roughly the same page.

But when I saw that he'd included Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations," my razorback bristled. I wouldn't cut a line from that masterpiece and would shake a fist at anyone who tried to. On turning to Murnighan's entry on GE, however, I found this: "What to Skip: Nothing at All." Well done, Mr. Murnighan.

Well done, indeed. (Drabelle does go on to say that he'd cut out the travelers' tales in Pickwick Papers. But after his respectful treatment of GE, I'm inclined to be lenient with him. So I'll let him get away with that.)

Then Edith Hamilton in the Washington Examiner picked GE as the book that changed her life:

I had been concentrating on something else when I read this book. I was very ho-hum about it at first, but once I started, I couldn’t stop, literally; I stayed up until I was finished from a Saturday to a Sunday, only dozing now and again before making another pot of coffee or pasta to keep me awake. And so it was that the Victorians took over a part of my life and one Victorian in particular changed how I saw the world. Good thing, too, for this one book made my life full in ways it wasn’t before.

As I've said, GE was the book that changed things for me too, so I particularly enjoyed her tribute. And here's a bonus: She's got a link that tells about a new Great Expectations musical!

Also, don't miss part 2 of Hamilton's article, where she has some glowing words for A Tale of Two Cities as well.