David Copperfield (1850)

Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought I would never ever read this - nearly 1000 pages of Dickens? NEVER. Oh, the things one does for points in a team challenge...

Turns out this is really good, and I wasn't ever bored throughout the whole thing! And I read all of it within a week! The wonderful audiobook narration by Richard Armitage (which I listened to while reading) most definitely had something to do with that - and after about 100 pages, I even stopped picturing Mr Thornton the whole time.

While Pip in Great Expectations annoyed me from time to time, I really liked the character of David Copperfield! Following him and his friends (and enemies) throughout so many years was really fun and I enjoyed how their paths intersected time and time again - though I also could've done without some of these people (the 'umble Uriah Heep, first and foremost, the Murdstones as well, and Mr Micawber too, to be quite honest... and Steerforth, of course!), but what would the story have been without those? Betsey Trotwood and Mr Dick were always a delight whenever they showed up, nobody in here made me laugh like Betsey Trotwood did! And Agnes, I'm so glad that she got her happy ending in the end.
( )

Written in 1850, Dickens' 16th major work, and 8th novel, is a solid four-star work. Combining the picaresque bildungsroman from Dickens' early period with the more complex character studies he was becoming known for, it's perhaps his best book to this point. Perhaps because parts of the novel are autobiographical, David starts to feel a bit real in a sense that perhaps no other character in his canon had perhaps yet reached. There's a wonderful array of supporting characters and a real sense of forward movement and thematic unity. I'm ultimately more in tune with Dickens' last works, but David Copperfield is another rung on Dickens' ladder to immortality. He's not a Tolstoy or a Flaubert, and we shouldn't expect him to be. He treats character more as something to be chronicled than to be dissected. Nevertheless, there are many great, detailed little moments in David's life, and the world around him, that suggest the continuous development of this great author. ( )

823.8 DIC

Wow… very long. Interesting, but needed dogged determination to finish. Good!

Based on the 1868-70 edition revised by the author; incorporates passages from manuscript that were removed for serial publication and not heretofore printed. ( )