Great Expectations
ON a recent trip to my hometown Kolkata, I hit upon my favourite childhood book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, in our attic library. As I flipped through its dusty, yellow pages, years flashed past fast; its eternal characters, old London appeared to me as the road to human endurance and truth. The story filled with dark, unacceptable thoughts seemed so enchanting.
The novel is full of a sense of threat that makes it so intriguing. It is replete with imageries of poverty, prison ships, the hulks, barriers and chains, and fights to the death that are boundless and deep. And then there are those reflections of Pip, the protagonist, and Abel Magwitch, the escaped convict and the strange relationship between them.
The mists of infatuations always invite half-baked, unfulfilled yet passionate relationships. When Pip met married Estella in the ruins of Satis House, he could see “the shadow of no parting from her“ to “the shadow of another parting from her.“ As I would read that part over and over again, I could sense dangerous love. Even a child reader would get a sense of ambiguous and original love, and a feeling that “life is unfair but it's still good“.
The story speaks of unconventional forms of love and how beauty, grace and prospects could spice up a humble existence. Yet even then, this could lead to unrequited love, hatred and a failed relationship. The fact that most intense of relationships could lurk in most unlikely of situations comes across in the book.
These days I read a lot of contemporary literature, and I'm not particularly convinced by their rosy and clean version of love. They lack obsession, passion and the dark, beautiful world, the necessary negativities to open up a magnetic life. Yes we need to shun negative impulses and people, but it is not wise to be shut in a mundane, happy existence. I want to look at the boundless world and its infinite possibilities and marvel like an eight-year old, forever.
Meghna Maiti
ON a recent trip to my hometown Kolkata, I hit upon my favourite childhood book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, in our attic library. As I flipped through its dusty, yellow pages, years flashed past fast; its eternal characters, old London appeared to me as the road to human endurance and truth. The story filled with dark, unacceptable thoughts seemed so enchanting.
The novel is full of a sense of threat that makes it so intriguing. It is replete with imageries of poverty, prison ships, the hulks, barriers and chains, and fights to the death that are boundless and deep. And then there are those reflections of Pip, the protagonist, and Abel Magwitch, the escaped convict and the strange relationship between them.
The mists of infatuations always invite half-baked, unfulfilled yet passionate relationships. When Pip met married Estella in the ruins of Satis House, he could see “the shadow of no parting from her“ to “the shadow of another parting from her.“ As I would read that part over and over again, I could sense dangerous love. Even a child reader would get a sense of ambiguous and original love, and a feeling that “life is unfair but it's still good“.
The story speaks of unconventional forms of love and how beauty, grace and prospects could spice up a humble existence. Yet even then, this could lead to unrequited love, hatred and a failed relationship. The fact that most intense of relationships could lurk in most unlikely of situations comes across in the book.
These days I read a lot of contemporary literature, and I'm not particularly convinced by their rosy and clean version of love. They lack obsession, passion and the dark, beautiful world, the necessary negativities to open up a magnetic life. Yes we need to shun negative impulses and people, but it is not wise to be shut in a mundane, happy existence. I want to look at the boundless world and its infinite possibilities and marvel like an eight-year old, forever.
Meghna Maiti
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