Masterful: witty, gripping, hilarious, & sad

It's so amazing how Dickens is able to establish his atmosphere and fill his world with characters just crazy enough to be credible. So much of fiction is filled with cardboard, indistinguishable characterizations, figures whose dialogue cannot be identified in absence of the author's "... said So-and-so."

Dickens had a tremendous eye for irony, for humanity, for injustice, for hope, for people. Of course he works hard to tug on one's heartstrings, sometimes maybe even too hard, but it is a testament to his characterizations that he gets away with it so often. He has managaed to create characters worth caring about (or worth despising).

Particular to Great Expectations, it is best described as a tragi-comedy, along the lines of some of Shakespeare's. The primary character, Pip, is simultaneous sympathetic and despicable. Pip serves as a bridge between the two Englands of have and have-not in multiple ways, and seems to invariably succumb to the greatest foibles of each class.

If you have not read Dickens, Great Expectations would be better left for a 2nd or 3rd book. The mixture of comedy and human tragedy may be a bit much for those not used to Dickens' work. Try Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby.