Witty, clever, and full of great characters and images. Laughed out loud a number of times. The plot was compelling and kept my interest, though at some point things began to bog down a bit. The chatty, meandering prose put me off at times. I thought I read Dickens was paid by the word for some novels, and I did get the sense that GE would have worked better as a shorter novel. Still, an enjoyable read.Keep a dictionary handy to deal with some of the antiquated and/or vernacular language.