I have a bookcase in my study, displaying some artefacts of my immediate ancestors and from my own childhood.Arrayed neatly on the shelves are a few of my grandfather’s and father’s engineering texts (mechanical and electrical respectively) grandfather’s leather-cased measuring tape, dad’s slide rule, my mother's schoolgirl cartoon drawings, from the thirties. Plus my Biggles books and a hardback copy of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.I used to have such things in boxes, but my good lady wife said; ‘Why not put them out on display?’ So I did. Wise to take heed.One evening long ago, my dad drove into the carport after work, opened his briefcase (one of my lasting childhood memories is the smell of his newspaper coming from the open bag), and handed me a 1961 reprint of a 1952 (Collins) edition of David Copperfield.I was nine years old, ten at the most.I was not nearly ready to read it then and I never did, until now, much, much later. I am a latecomer to literature. My wife learned recently about this paternal gift and said: ‘You have to read it.’ I mentioned this in a Goodread’s review, which a little later prompted a direct question from one of my friends: ‘Have you read David Copperfield yet?’ Note to self: if you say something on Goodreads that smacks of an undertaking, you had better deliver. So I read it. Just finished.It has been quite my most satisfying reading experience for some time, certainly since Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, which interestingly also has a strong boy to manhood motif. Come to think of it, I also really liked Kipling’s Kimfor much the same reason. David Copperfield has an absorbing narrative, of David’s progress over thirty years and it’s full of beautifully drawn characters, many of whom change and grow before our eyes, for better or worse. It’s immensely satisfying to be involved with characters worthy of our support, interest or devotion, but also those who raise our apprehension or merit our poor opinion.I have rarely encountered an author so sure footed at supplying emotion and temperament through words and action, or through the clever view of the narrator, in this case David Copperfield himself. Having the narrator David, writing as an adult, spend so much time with himself as a boy, gives us the boy’s experience. It tells us of his early affections and affiliations, for his mother, for Peggotty and for the young Agnes Wickfield; but also his foreboding and anguish at the Murdstones, his wariness of Uriah Heep. Young David can be perceptive beyond his years: witness the account of his mother and Peggotty being scared of aunt Betsey Trotwood. Nevertheless he perceives something kind about his aunt which leads him to seek her out when he runs away from Salem House School: his journey from London to Dover to find her is one of the most vivid in the story.(view spoiler)[Apart from the loss of his father before he was born the first dark cloud in his life is the advent of the Murdstones. Jane Murdstone moves in after David’s mother marries Mr Murdstsone:It was Miss Murdstsone who was arrived, and a gloomy–looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account.Not an appealing description, which is what Dickens does so well, like when he talks later about Uriah Heep writhing and twisting in paroxysms of ‘umbleness. Meanwhile Dickens goes on to describe Miss Murdstone’s luggage, to hammer home the point:She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm in a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstsone was.Incidentally, this is a splendid illustration of what David Lodge talks about inThe Art of Fiction. Dickens is masterly at repetition, (‘hard’), and using the sound of words to convey personal hardness, viz: ‘nails’, ‘brass’, ‘steel’, ‘chain’ and then short sharp words with edge ie ‘jail’, ‘shut’ and ‘bite’. Very clever. I have a son, who is eight and a half years old, the exact age of David Copperfield at the beginning of the story, which make me think there a was a good cosmic reason for me reading the tale at this time rather than earlier, when the significance of my circumstances would have been less or non-existent. A child’s view of the world is very particular: in my observation children are often perceptive about what is going on, including how people feel and their motivations. An eight year old child can have a clear idea of the truth. Whether my boy could do the London to Dover run by himself I doubt, but Dickens manages to put himself into the head of an eight year old boy. David is, however, sometimes blind to charm, notably towards the older boy Steerforth, his idol at Salem House School. Steerforth can do no wrong, until he reveals his class-based snobbery, when David suggests Steerforth would be delighted to see Mr Peggotty’s household. Steerforth responds: ‘Should I?...It would be worth a journey… to see that sort of people together, and to make one of ‘em.’ (p278, emphasis mine). This rings a small jarring note in David’s head; and of course ours.The book is about a boy’s changing fortunes and his growth in understanding and experience as he makes his way throughout a tumultuous childhood and advances to adulthood, employment and adventure and finally, family responsibility. On the way he gets a horrible step father, is sent to a concentration camp of a school after biting the horrible step father (‘Take care of him. He bites.’ p87) and loses his mother early. His emotional nanny Peggotty is made of the right stuff and so is her brother. David asks Little Em’ly about Dan Peggotty and suggests to her that he must be very good:'Good?’ said Em’ly. ‘If I was ever to be a lady, I’d give him a sky blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat , a large gold watch , a sliver pipe and a box of money.’ (p49)This sets up later events: Emily’s seduction by James Steerforth, with the implicit understanding that he would make her a ‘lady’, and establishes the outstanding character which underpins Dan Peggotty’s later quest to find her again after she is gone.David Copperfield is also romantic. I was intrigued to speculate as to who David was going to end up with (little Emily Miss Larkins, Agnes or Dora). Along the way, of course, he gets some marriage jaundice from his Aunt and Miss Mills, but to her credit Miss Mills sets that aside to urge our hero and her friend to get it together. Miss Mills to David and Dora:‘Mr Copperfield and Dora,’ said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable air. ‘Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be renewed…’ (p447)After David realises that his lovable, simple wife Dora is not going to gain any useful accomplishments and more significantly, is not going to provide the support a partner needs for the marriage journey, Mrs Strong, the pretty young wife of the scholarly old teacher Dr Strong, talks of a childhood relationship with her cousin Jack Maldon, and reflects:‘There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ And a little later: ‘There is nothing,’ said Annie, that we [Jack Maldon and I] have in common. I have long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart.’ (p605)This is a profound sentiment, beautifully expressed, worth savouring: ‘the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart’. David is maturing, beyond his time and years. For the narrative to work and for him to end up with Agnes, where he should end up, something must be done about Dora, and Dickens has her simply fade away and die of an unspecified malady, but not before she anoints her successor. Bit cynical I thought, but acceptable in the context of the story and the times. David did not treat Dora badly, the opposite in fact – he gained the wisdom that Mr Murdstsone never achieves, by accepting his consort for who and what she was. Just fortunate she was sickly.Speaking of the Murdstones, you just know they are going to turn up after their initial appearance and indeed, one of the charms of David Copperfield is the way characters come and go -there are no wasted personnel in Dickens: we get multiple and enjoyable doses of Steerforth, the Micawbers, Tommy Traddles, even Mr Creakle, the nasty overseer of Salem House School, returns as the overseer of a ‘modern’ penitentiary. I wondered why David and Traddles were visiting this establishment. The penny drops when they meet prisoners 27 and 28, Uriah Heep and Littimer, two proper bastards who absolutely deserve incarceration. This contributes to the deep satisfaction which comes from the good people working out OK, pretty much, Micawbers included, and the bad people getting what they deserve: Murdstones, Steerforths, Rosa Dartle, accepting that there are casualties along the way: Ham Peggotty and Little Emily for example.There are heroes and there is Mr Peggotty, hero among heroes. Mr Peggotty speaks with Mrs Steerforth after he has started his search for his adopted daughter Emily, gone away with Steerforth and whereabouts unknown. Mrs Steerforth has just dismissed out of hand the possibility of a marriage as entirely unsuitable and ruinous of her son’s prospects. She hints at compensation and Mr Peggotty responds:‘I am looking at the likeness of the face,’ interrupted Mr Peggotty, with a steady but kindling eye, ‘that has looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, in my boat – wheer not? – smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness of that face don’t turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child’s blight a ruin, it’s as bad. I doen’t know, being a lady’s, but what it’s worse.’ (p433)And the unexpected heroine: Betsey Trotwood. Initially severe and always blunt, she has a profound sense of duty. She gives it to the Murdstones about poor David’s dead mother, after David has run away to find his aunt and begged her to keep him rather than give him back to the Murdstones:‘Mr Murdstone,’ she said, shaking her finger at him, ‘you were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby-I know that; I knew it years before you ever saw her- and through the best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your instruments make the most of it.’ (p207) There is, of course, and relievedly so, a happy ending, although for some reason I imagined Agnes Wickfield as looking like a real person, Olivia de Havilland, not from her Errol Flynn period, but more like she was in Gone with the Wind; serene, self-sacrificing, smart, sweet and good.When you read an old book, and smell the pages, the physical volume comes alive, the pages breathe and the action of turning them makes the dust disappear. The memory of my father comes through as well, speaking to me over the years. He always put stuff in front of me, to see whether I would take to it. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes it took a long time.I will remember this lesson for my own eight year old David Copperfield. (hide spoiler)]
Status Report: Chapters 1 - 8i had forgotten how much i love Dickens. the man is a master at the immersive experience. it is really easy for me to get sucked into the world he is so carefully constructing, to revel in all the extensive details, the lavish description, the almost overripe imagination at work. his strength at creating a wide range of entirely lived-in settings (both brief snapshots of places in passing and crucial places like David's home and school) is equalled by his even more famous skill at sketching the characters - often, but not always, caricatures - that live and breathe in his world. this is the kind of deep-dish experience that i love to have when traveling, on a plane or a bus or in some plaza, a second world to live in while taking a break in exploring the immediate world around me.i can't help but also remember how many people dislike Dickens. i'm remembering an ex who told me he was her least favorite author, and how her resentment at being forced to read him in high school almost put her off reading for pleasure in general. it is hard to reconcile such a strong distaste for Dickens with my own easy enjoyment of his novels. my automatic reaction is that the reader who isn't enchanted by him either dislikes the style of writing or is simply the sort of idiot who should stick to reading facebook. well i don't date idiots, so i assume her reaction is based around the writing style. maybe that is the basic rationale for most folks who don't care for him.or maybe it is based on something else. there is something that i've found to be off-putting about David Copperfield, at least so far. namely, the incredibly passive and naive behavior of David himself (and his mother, of course). it's more than just my automatic distaste for reading about victims, although that is certainly a part of it. what it feels like at times is that Dickens is stacking the deck a bit, making miserable situations even more potentially miserable, by having his protagonist (and that wretched mother, of course) be almost developmentally disabled in his inability to understand even basic things about the world around him. it sorta drives me up the wall.well, that complaint aside, this has still been an awesome time. first and foremost, even more than the world-building and juicy characters, i love the dry and sardonic humor that is constantly working double-time. not only does it create some distance between reader and book in regards to the various horrors visited upon young David... it is fookin' hilarious!favorite parts so far:- that brilliant opening chapter "I Am Born"- the Peggotty boat-house and the warmth of that wonderful family. i would like to live there!- Steerforth. ugh! what a charming monster.- the sadly minor note tragedy of Mr. Mell☂Status Report: Chapters 9 - 26i think i was expecting a bit more evil from the Murdstones. the way they treat David is certainly unkind verging on cruel - but i suppose i thought it would be a lot more brutal. this is not a complaint! if anything, i appreciate that Dickens makes David's predicament a much more realistic one. the Murdstones are cold, cold people. and they certainly drive David's tedious mother to an early grave (i shed no tears on that one). but i was surprised that their primary action is to simply send David away to a boring job, one that no child his age should have (and here i am viewing the narrative through my 21st century lense). a callous decision yet not a vicious one. David is merely an irritation that they want to dispense with, rather than harm. interesting.that brief segment was certainly enlivened by the depiction of the marvelously goofy Mr. Micawber & Family. and by a fascinating look into life in a debtor's prison. i assume this is the classic Poor House?but then... good grief, poor David Copperfield goes through hell to escape this life of tedium. many emotions on my part, all centered on the idea of such casual cruelty towards a runaway. brought back some unsettling memories of my brief time as a homeless youth counselor.and then - at last! - some decency. even better, eccentric rather than mawkish decency. Aunt Betsey & Mr. Dick are two more wonderful Dickens creations. especially that tough old broad Aunt Betsey - each and every one of her appearances are a delight. when David finally gets to the safety of his Aunt's house, i felt a lot of tension drain out of me. it is like his story is now truly about to begin, now that the Gothic horrors slash neglected childhood bits are out of the way.- an introduction of the best character yet: Uriah Heep! this is the role that Crispin Glover was born to play. what a wondrously creepy and perfectly realized little villain. all that supplicating, all that writhing! brilliant stuff.- interesting: David is rarely called by his actual name. two more nicknames are added to the list: Trotwood and Daisy. David is rather a tabula rasa of a character.- the relationship between Mr. Wickfield and Agnes is not heartwarming. it is downright creepy.and now the tension is ratcheted up again, but in a way that doesn't make me sorta squirm with discomfort (tales of child neglect ≠ a good time for me). three sets of increasingly dire circumstances... (1) Lil' Em'ly and the despicable villain Steerforth(2) Agnes and the despicable villain Uriah Heep(3) Aunt Betsey and a mysterious, blackmailing unknown despicable villainwill David be able to intercede in any of these troubling situations? i am doubtful, but also hopeful. go, David, go!☁Status Report: Chapters 27 - endexhilarating, wonderful, awesome, etc, etc. all the good words. i laughed (a lot), i cried (just a little, and in a manly sort of way), i wouldn't change or subtract a single word. perfect!☼Final Reportokay this will be less of a Final Report and more of a collection of final thoughts as i think back on the novel and consult with the various threads in Serials Serially - the group that started me reading this novel.first, the division in the novel. the first third or so, all about young David and his fairly awful travails: vivid and powerful. the remainder of the novel, all about David in his young adult years and following the growth of all those narrative seeds planted in that fertile first third; an excess of details veering on repetitious, and so that the book becomes less of a frightful gothic tale and more of a slow-burning assortment of mysteries (and many, many instances of pure comedy): less vivid and perhaps less powerful. looking back, i have to say that i am in the minority and preferred the last two-thirds. not only was the tension of potential situations involving child abuse and neglect now gone (a personal bugaboo of mine that will quickly render almost any literary or cinematic experience into something hugely uncomfortable and unappealing)... but it somehow all felt more real to me. the first third was visceral but almost cartoonish while the rest of the novel felt as if i was actually living in the novel. such was the extent of the detail and the effect of following these characters as they move throughout many different situations and changes in their lives."cartoonish". or better yet, "Dickensian". what does that really mean? a peculiarly stylized version of caricature? i understand the rep that Dickens has with his characters. they are stylized, obviously. but very few of them remained caricatures to me. ultimately, most ended up feeling very real and i was impressed at Dickens' ability to provide multiple dimensions to his characters - although he does it in a rather subtle way. his heroes do not get strong criticism and his villains do not get endearing moments of humanity. and yet it is there. David Copperfield is kind and good, but he is also a passive, foolishly naive fellow whose kindness and naivete often does nothing but make situations worse - especially in nearly every instance involving his relationship with Steerforth. Agnes is also kind and good, but her passivity makes her function as a sort of enabler to her father. Steerforth is a callous and feckless villain, but has moments of genuine warmth and kindness. Rosa Dartle is a heartless shrew - but look at that poor bitch's entire life with Steerforth & mom - i'd become a heartless shrew in that situation as well. Uriah Heep is an unctuous, slimy kiss-ass and back-stabber... but look where he comes from, his context, the kind of person his father was and the ideals he was raised up to worship. and of course Micawber, who would be pure pathos but whom Dickens treats with an extraordinary amount of affection. Dickens is not necessarily an 'even-handed' author, but he is one who is clearly aware of context.there are some comments in this review's thread about women in Dickens - comments that i initially agreed with. but in retrospect, i actually don't agree. looking back on this novel, the women are often just as full of life as the men. perhaps folks are mainly thinking of the rather anemic Agnes. but now - when i think of dim Dora and vicious Rosa and ferocious Aunt Betsey and tragic Emily and loveable Peggotty and maudlin Mrs Gummidge and pathetic Martha and the eccentric 'two little birds' (Dora's aunts) and pretentious Julia Miles and dignified-under-pressure Mrs Strong and hilariously faithful-to-a-fault Mrs Micawber - i think of characters who leap right off of the page and stay to live in my mind. so, no, i am not critical of how women are portrayed in Dickens.except, maybe, Dora. she is surely one of the most bizarrely stupid characters ever created in classic literature. when she first baby-talks David's nickname "Doady", i practically wanted to barf. she's so stupid that many times i found myself thinking She's Not Stupid - She's Mentally Disabled! good grief! and so i felt bad about my contempt and i started having mixed feelings about David even being with her. it seemed somehow wrong. there is also something so sexless about her character - it was impossible for me to imagine her capable of any sort of genuine intimacy. but i have to give it to Dickens - he doesn't present her as an ideal (unlike David), he satirizes her mercilessly in scene after scene, and in the end, invests both her marriage and her death with such genuine, palpable emotion that i became genuinely, palpably moved. her marriage scene (practically every paragraph beginning with "Of") was one of the most dreamily written passages i've ever read. and her death - not explicitly described, but paralleled with Jip's death - wow. amazing scene.the combined death scenes of brave Ham and horrible Steerforth was almost equally moving. that last line describing Steerforth at his final rest: superb.okay i think i'm spent. this is one of those novels that i can probably talk on and on about, so i should just make myself stop. i'll close by saying that the novel is, in a word, brilliant. i loved the language, the humor, the whimsy, the drama; the characters were wondrously alive; the narrative both surprisingly subtle and excitingly larger-than-life. so many scenes were indelible - too many to recount. David Copperfield is one of my favorite novels.☀David Copperfield: An Alternative Perspective
Do You like book David Copperfield (2004)?
What did I think of this book.....hmmm.I don't rightly know to tell the truth. I listened to about half of the book and upon realizing I still had as much to slog through as I already had, I gave up. I really tried to follow it. I was doing really well, but then I realized at some point that I didn't know what was happening. But this, I decided was okay because nothing was happening....at all. But I kept going for awhile. I would hear a character's name that I found mildly interesting and would pay attention, but then I would drift off again. Something I've noticed about women of this era fainted at the drop of a hat. Just walking down a hallway and BAMB! Fainted. Seem's like an emotional shock is all it takes for a woman to loose consciousness. I find that I go about my daily life fully conscious until I decide not to be any more. It just doesn't happen randomly.I don't know if people really spoke in a repetitive manor back in that time period, or if the authors (because nothing ever happened) wrote that way for filler. Nothing annoys me more than repetition*. I know one thing for sure, there were characters named 'Peggety' (I have no clue if this is the correct spelling, because I listened to it) in this book. 'Peggety' was said over and over and over...... Arrrggghhh!I also learned it was perfectly acceptable that a man name David could have a nickname of Daisy, no one thought it was weird that he was suddenly being referred to as Daisy.***I began to wonder if this was a 'thing', this hating with a white hot anger, repetition and certain sounds (and movements), so I looked it up and it WAS! It's called Misophonia....Oh well, what's another neurological disorder?
—Stephanie
David Copperfield is Dickens’ great nostalgic sigh of a novel. It is, we are told, his most personal, the one he cherished above all his others; it is also one of his most highly rated – Tolstoy and Virginia Woolf were fans – and most loved by the general public. It is, this being Dickens, who is for my money the greatest English novelist of all time, very good, of course. Yet I couldn’t quite fall for it in the way that I have done with many of his other works. Indeed, while reading it I felt a little bit like one of those rare guys who doesn’t think Angelina Jolie is super-hot. As with all of Dickens’ novels there is much in David Copperfield to admire, and much, actually, that sets it apart from the rest of oeuvre. Perhaps the reason that this novel is so highly rated by other writers and critics, in particular, is that it is his most beautifully written. There are passages in the book, lyrical passages, that genuinely moved me; there is an elegiac, Proustian, quality to the writing, which is something, I must admit, I wasn’t even sure he was capable of. I have been moved many many times by his work previously, but on those occasions it was the characters that drew an emotional response from me. I wish I had bookmarked some of my favourite passages, but unfortunately I didn’t. However, here is a lovely line I found at random:"As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weather-beaten, ragged old rooks’ nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea."It is fair to say that some readers find the abundance of zany, eccentric, or larger-than-life people in Dickens’ novels tiresome. I am not one of those. The man simply had an immense talent for creating memorable characters, some of whom are as immortal as Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Ahab and so on. The big deal is that those were all thought up by different writers; Dickens – one man, one writer – created a whole bunch of them. In any case, David Copperfield houses much fewer of these sorts of people; the characters are, to my mind, far more understated, more [and this seems to matter a lot to some of you] real. This may go some way to explaining why I did not enjoy it quite as much as, say, Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend or Great Expectations. Truth be told, I found quite a few of the characters in this book tedious or slightly irritating, people like Peggotty, who is very good and very lovely and well written and all that jazz, but who simply did not hold my interest.This neatly leads me on towards my biggest issue with the book, which is that I just could not take to David himself. As previously stated, I struggled with Bleak House’s Esther, the only other Dickens first-person narrator, but I at least found her intriguing, or interesting. David, aside from his wonderful prose, is, bafflingly for a narrator, a kind of void; he lacks a strong personality. I came out of the novel knowing almost nothing about him as a man, aside from numerous biographical details. For much of the novel, he seemed oddly distant from the action, was, so to speak, standing apart, in a corner while the action took place. I did wonder whether that was Dickens’ point, that David Copperfield is about how someone sees their life and the people who played a part in it, that it isn’t meant to be a portrait of the narrator; maybe he was trying to say something about the functioning of one’s memory, how it relegates you to a position of observer. If that is what Dickens intended then his book is a success. But the damn thing is called David Copperfield, so if we don’t get to know him that counts, at the very least, as false advertising.I must confess that the little of David I did get to know I found pretty objectionable. Of course, one doesn’t need to like a narrator, but I couldn’t shake the feeling, what with him being to some extent a stand-in for the author, that I was meant to. It’s strange, because one of the things I most like and enjoy about Dickens is his open-heartedness, his warmth, his, yes, sentimentality. However, David, although absolutely sentimental, isn’t particularly warm or open-hearted; in fact, I found him pompous and judgemental. I don’t think that was intentional. I guess much of that can be put down to a paradigm shift; which is to say that things that were acceptable, or expected, during Dickens’ time are less so now. I’m referring to things like his reaction towards his workmates early in the book, which is sneering and rather unpleasant, and his thoughts and behaviour towards the fallen Little Em’ly. The whole storyline concerning her got right on my tits. She leaves her intended to be with a man who she loves, and it, ultimately, ruins her. Dickens, via David, almost appears to believe that she got her just desserts. I found that surprising. Yes, paradigm shift and blah blah blah, but Dickens always struck me as a morally forward-thinking writer, it’s one of his most admirable qualities, and yet in David Copperfield he doesn’t come across that way at all.There are, however, still some great characters in the book. Uriah Heep is the most famous, and justly so. His physical appearance, his verbal tics are brilliantly imagined and written. But, once again, I would say that David’s immediate response to him, which is one of suspicion and dislike, perturbed me a bit. Of course, he turns out to be right in his judgement, his negative appraisal, in the end, but I couldn’t help but think he was judging Uriah not on his qualities, or lack of them, as a human being, but rather his status. In any case, Aunt Betsey and Mr Dick are two other memorable creations, and all of their appearances are a joy.A joy, also, are numerous scenes or episodes throughout the novel. It seems, from the reviews I have read, that many people do not find much to praise in the opening section that features David and his mother, but I did. I found their relationship entirely believable. Furthermore, I was particularly smitten with David’s school days and, later, an awesome chapter in which he gets drunk with some friends. Indeed, this drunk scene is the best description of drunkenness I have ever read, and it was one of the few times I warmed to David. My favourite section of the novel, however, was David’s and Dora’s courtship and marriage. Women, I imagine, might hate Dora because she’s the kind of girl women typically can’t stand i.e. she’s impractical, otherworldly, cute and child-like. As a man, I loved her. She charmed me entirely. The tragic nature of the relationship – that, really, they were ill-suited, despite their love – was heartbreaking, particularly Dora’s acknowledgement of her own failures as a wife. Truly, all that killed me. In fact, I’m feeling emotional just thinking about it. But, then I’m sentimental too. And, I guess, that, that parts of this book still managed to floor me, even though it is not at all my favourite Dickens, is further evidence of the author’s colossal genius.
—[P]
I finished reading David Copperfield on the Kindle a few days ago.I’m not an English major, and so I’m not going to pretend to be one. I’m not going to discuss what themes the book touches on, what category it fits in, or generally dissect it to the point where it’s more monotonous than fun.I read the book because I wanted to, not because I had to write a paper about it.I must say, first of all, that this has got to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. The vivid descriptions of the characters were just fun to read. One particularly meek man was described like this: “He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it.”Some of the scenes in the novel are amazingly vivid and memorable. The hilarious and tense scene towards the end where one of the main villains is taken down was one, and of course just about every scene involving David’s aunt is too.Dickens is a master of suspense. He does it through subtle premonitions in the book. You might not even really notice them as you’re reading. But it sure had an effect on me: I had trouble putting the book down, and stayed up later than I should have on more than one night to keep reading another chapter or three.Like any good book, this one left me to think even after I was done reading it, and left me wanting to read it again. Right now.There are some practical downsides to it, though. It was written in the 1850s, and some of the vocabulary and British legal, business, and monetary discussions are strange to a modern casual American audience. Nevertheless, with the exception of the particularly verbose Mr. Micawber, you can probably make it through without a dictionary, though one will be handy. I read it on the Kindle, which integrates a dictionary and makes it very easy to look up words. I learned that a nosegay is a bouquet of showy flowers. And that Mr. Micawber was fond of using words obsolete since the 17th century, according to the Kindle. If you remember that “pecuniary emoluments” refers to a salary, you’ll be doing OK.The other thing that occasionally bugged me was that the narrator (David) would comment on some sort of gesture, or comment that wasn’t very direct, and then say something like, “But she didn’t need to be more explicit, because I understood the meaning perfectly.” Well, sometimes I didn’t. Though I usually figured it out after a bit. I was never quite sure if Dickens was being intentionally needling to the reader, or if an 1850s British reader would have figured out the meaning perfectly well. But that was part of the fun of it, I think.This review also posted on my blog at http://changelog.complete.org/archive...
—John
