"Ever the best of friends, eh, Pip?"

Took the What Book Are You Quiz today.  Found it through Wev McEwan who I'm convinced is convinced I don't read her blog anymore.  This'll show her.  First one of these quizzes I think is entirely accurate.

Wev's A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving, by the way.  What book am I?

You're Great Expectations!
by Charles Dickens
Coming from humble beginnings, you have become pretty stuck-up in your later years. While hard work and dedication were the path you first walked on, a sudden fork brought you glory and fortune. Unfortunately, you have changed even more than your bottom line. You really should turn back to your old friends and at least respect your old life. Look out for haughty hotties.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Great Expectations was the first of Dickens' novels I ever read.  For the record, I've always identified more with Herbert Pocket and Joe Gargery than with Pip himself.  But if I'm the whole book then I'm all the characters, including Estella, Miss Havisham, Magwitch, Biddy, the rampaging Mrs Joe and her weapon of choice, Tickler, Uncle Pumblechook, the sinister lawyer Jaggers, Mr Wemmick and his Aged P., and Trabb's boy:

Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace, "Hold me! I'm so frightened!" feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him, his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust.

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced another two hundred yards, when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was coming round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb's with cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became aware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators, and I felt utterly confounded.

I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, "Don't know yah!" Words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's boy, when, passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants, "Don't know yah, don't know yah, pon my soul don't know yah!" The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to speak, ejected by it into the open country.

Your turn.  What book are you?

Epilogue:  The Siren's wondering which Dickens she should read next, Little Dorrit or Pickwick.  Help her choose. She doesn't have a post up about it so you can leave your suggestions here.  She'll find them.  She makes the mistake of reading this blog regularly.

All of Dickens' novels are available to buy through my aStore, in case you need to study up.  Help support this blog and America.  Buy stuff!

Comments

[Mike Schilling]

My answers seem to have implied that I'm depressed, so I'm Elie Wiesel's Night.

Now I'm really depressed.

[Scott Edwards]

Weird, I ended up as "Love in the Time of Cholera" with the description being -nothing- like me.

[Karen]

Hi, Siren! Nice to see you in new and unexpected locations!

I'm a huge fan of Dickens, and have read everything he wrote (including the collected Christmas stories), so in the choice between Little Dorrit and The Pickwick Papers my inclination is to say "both." But that's not what was asked, and I'm great at following instructions, so:

It depends on what you're in the mood for: melodrama or comedy. Pickwick plays as broad comedy, although it has the added attraction of serving as an inspiration for a club made up of the four March sisters in "Little Women" (the book, not the films). Dorrit goes for the heartstrings, and also teaches you more about debtors' prison than you were ever likely to want to know (but with the added attraction of human interest, knowing Dickens' father was so imprisoned). So, what's your pleasure? If you've just finished reading, say, The Old Curiosity Shop, then I'd say go with Pickwick, because it will serve as a nice palate cleanser. But if you're set to really dig in and plumb heavy social criticism, Dorrit's the one you want. He's angrier than usual in it, which I always find pretty interesting.

So, your call. Let us know what you choose!

[Karen]

Oh, and I'm "The Guns of August." "Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in the world. A fitting motto for you might be 'Guns do kill, but so can diplomats.'"

Which is pretty cool. But I get the sense that I was asked a different set of questions than the ones that led you, Lance, to be "Great Expectations." I was asked about history and whether my focus was domestic or global, for example. I'm not sure how you answer that and end up as a Dickens book.

[Linkmeister]

Oh, fer..."The Catcher in the Rye?" I thought Holden Caulfield was a whiny little jerk when I first read that book, and I haven't changed my opinion since.

Fie upon your quiz, I say. Fie!

[Linkmeister]

Hm. Karen, I wasn't asked about history at all. There must be random questions. One of mine was "is there a villain in your life?" (I answered no.)

[Apostate]

The Siren should read Pickwick.

(Another Dickens fan here who's read everything he ever wrote, including minor and early sketches -- which are terrific!)

In my opinion, if you're having trouble deciding what to read first, read the earlier work. It's neater. But as the choice is between Pickwick and Dorrit, I have a deeper reason: Dickens' women annoy me. And in Dorrit, the woman is a central character, making her all the more annoying (they're more tolerable in smaller doses).

I love Dickens, though. Love love love.

And Lance, Great Expectations was my first Dickens too -- at ten. Took me three weeks. Of course, my English was pretty halting way back then and the long words caused headaches.

[julia]

I have no idea why, but I'm Watership Down.

Pickwick, I think.

[M.A. Peel]

I'm Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Meow.

[Karen]

Linkmeister, I think you get a different set of questions depending on how you answer early on. If you say you feel old, you get a lot of history questions. Sadly, I feel old.

[Apostate]

Speaking of long words, I'm the dictionary.

[Apostate]

Karen, I said I felt old, but only got asked about traveling a lot (which I'd like to, but since I get only two weeks vacation per year, I don't). So maybe lots of travel leads to history questions.

[OutOfContext]

Prufrock and Other Observations...I'll take that, I guess...

[Christine]

I'm Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried... haven't read it. Maybe I should.
Has anyone read it? Is it good?

[K2]

"The Great Gatsby" here. I think I'll have a cocktail and pine.

[Melissa McEwan]

I'm convinced that you're convinced that I'm convinced that you are a big dork. Or something.

Btw, I get Owen Meany when I don't feel old. When I do, I end up David Copperfield. We are both little Dickenses. Naturally.

[Bluegrass Poet]

Christine -- The Things They Carried is one of my all-time favorite novels, but not an easy one to read because, for me anyway, the emotional content is devastating. The prose is wonderful, very poetic. I rather envy you.

Sort of a cross between Catch 22 and The Sound and the Fury (stylistically).

I am also Prufrock -- and it's true that I grow old but I don't feel old and so that's the way I answered the question.

I read The Things They Carried aloud to my sons when they were teen-agers and Great Expectations when they were in middle school. My sons are long suffering.

I think I have to vote for Bleak House as my favorite Dickens because it has the best portraits of women. I fear I couldn't get through Pickwick.

[Charles J. Sperling]

I'd go for *Little Dorrit,* because of the Circumlocution Office and because papa, prunes and prism are such excellent words.

But, like Bluegrass Poet, I'd still pick *Bleak House* as his best -- even if "the best portraits of women" does include one of his worst, in the all-too-virtuous Esther Summerson. (I dare you to arrest me, Mr. Inspector Bucket.)

[Exiled in New Jersey]

The Sound and the Fury. It said something about me being a tortured and confused soul. Maybe if I had my second cup of coffee?

[Jennifer]

Exiled- I got The Sound and the Fury when feeling old. When not feeling old, I'm Watership Down.

[Exiled in New Jersey]

Well, Jennifer, the lst of this month I took on new health insurance, something called Medicare. I prefer Sound and Fury to Watership Down anyway, which makes me wonder just how many possibilites there are. I should have said that I liked England for then I might have been Jude Fawley instead of being one of the Compson boys.

[Jennifer]

Exiled- if I change my answer regarding the British Isles (either answer is appropriate depending on my mood, I'm Ulysses. Who knew!

[Brian]

I'm The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. Wow -- first one of these silly quizzes that really worked.

(Well, there was the one that said I should hook up with Salma Hayek...)

[drip]

Love in the Time of Cholera, which I've read and loved, but don't understand what qualified me for it. I've got The Sound and Fury on my bedside table, but I haven't started it. Maybe I'll switch.The Things They Carried is brilliant and should be read by all. Above all, I am delighted that I didn't warrantUlysses. I would feel all the Irish guilt for not finishing it yet again.

[Polonius19]

It said I was One Hundred Years of Solitude. I don’t get that. Maybe I need to re-read it, but, for the moment, I don’t know. And when asked if I like Oprah Winfrey, I almost couldn’t be more ambivalent about the woman, I don’t dislike her, so I guess that I do like her, but I never watched her show and haven’t seen it even in passing for several years.

But all things being equal, I could do worse than being something written by Garcia Marquez...

[travy]

damn, i'm watership down. so wanted to be less than zero...

[mds]

Apparently, I'm The Mists of Avalon. Seriously, WTF? The Mists of Avalon?!? Did they somehow pick up on my streak of self-loathing? Because if I were a Marion Zimmer Bradley novel, I'd have to remainder myself.

[Jill Bryant]

I'm happy to say I'm Catch-22!