a_t_rain; Star; Great Expectations; PG (Part 1/2)

[a_t_rain]

Author: a_t_rain
Fandom: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (plus a bit of A Tale of Two Cities)
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: Let us not fear the hidden. Or each other. - Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980), poet, political activist, reporter, playwright, translator, and president of the American branch of International PEN, a world-wide

Comments

[kellychambliss]

Wow! I love this. Your style is impeccable; all of the characters are so absolutely spot-on, and the details make me feel as if I'm actually in the period. Estella's voice is fabulous. I adore her dry insights; I feel all the bitterness of the experiences that lead to her ironic humor. I love Wemmick and Jaggers and the portable property, and the perfect precision of "honest lawyer," and the singular (in several senses) Lady's Saloon Bar, and the little Hamlet debate, and Estella's ruse to get the cabman to drive her, and Mrs Wemmick and the determined orange gown and, and, and. . .I'm just dazzled by how good this is. Dickens himself could not have written a better Jaggers, or Estella, either.

Just a few of the lines/insights that will stay with me:

I was by then old enough, and experienced enough in the world, to understand the meaning of satis.
Oh, yes, perfect.

Matthew, in particular, was remarkable for his probity and lack of self-interest, and received the usual reward of the disinterested man; that is, the privilege of acting as executor for various wills in which he and his children received nothing.

“Let me put another thing to you -”
“I am heartily sick of men putting things to me without so much as asking my leave. Even the flower girls in Covent Garden generally hear a few pleasantries first.”
Ahaha! I admire Wemmick for restraining himself a single choke of laughter. How well you have Estella lay bare the various gender and class hypocricies.

And then it came to me that I had sold myself to Bentley Drummle for far less, for little more than spite, and I supposed there could be little question that I was her daughter, after all.

“Men are men,” I said. “They’ll treat a lady as badly as any other woman, if they think they can get away with it.” (This was not wholly just to Herbert, or to Pip, or even to Mr. Wemmick; but I was not in the mood to be just.) “The only advantage to being a lady is that sometimes you can make them pay.”
So nicely IC.

I wondered whether Mr. Jaggers was motivated by a commendable desire to live among the people he represented in court, or whether he wished to make himself visible in the neighborhood as a cheap form of advertisement.
Thoughts like this -- one of many reasons that your Estella is so sharp and appealing.

I'm eager to read the next chapter, but I may postpone that pleasure until tomorrow, just to have it to look forward to.

[a_t_rain]

Thanks! :: blushes :: Estella was really a lot of fun to write.