David Copperfield (1850)

I was thoroughly entertained by this and never found it a slog reading through its 800 plus pages--and that actually came as a surprise to me because I am by no means a Dickens fan. I decided to read this one because it's on the the list of 100 Significant Books I've been reading through--and because a friend told me that I should at least try this one before giving up on Dickens. This was actually his own favorite among his novels, and the one most autobiographical. Even knowing as little as I do of his life, I could certainly see plenty of parallels between the young Charles Dickens and David Copperfield. And especially given this was written in first person, this book has a confessional quality that drew me in and propelled me forward.

The thing is this novel I so enjoyed is guilty of every sin that so often drove me batty in Dickens: the rambling plot riddled with unlikely coincidences, the long, long length, the at times mawkish sentimentality, the phrases repeated again and again, the characterizations that often seemed more caricatures, and above all, the women characters that convince me Dickens thinks of the female gender as not quite human--or at least I felt so at first. David's mother Clara in particular drove me up the wall--I wanted to reach into the book and throttle her. It seemed to me in my reading of several of Dickens novels that his women run to four types or combinations and at first David Copperfield seemed no exception. There is the angelic creature who is often a victim, such as Clara, Little Em'ly, Agnes and Dora. There is the evil harridan such as Miss Murdstone or Rosa Dartle. There is the sacrificing Earth mother such as Peggoty. And finally, there is the (often rich) eccentric such as Betsy Trotwood. But ah, often the eccentric characters are so richly comic--and in the case of Trotwood there is more than initially met the eye--in fact I wasn't a third way through the novel before I loved her. And Agnes grew on me too. Not everyone's reaction--George Orwell, among others, despised the character. But she was the first female character who struck me as being a rational creature. But they're memorable--and not just the women. I don't think I'm ever going to forget Mr Micawber. I know I'll never forget Uriah Heep, the most odious, shudder-worthy villain I've met in literature.

So yes, after this book I got more of a sense of Dickens' charms. A Christmas Carol has been a favorite since childhood. And I did love Great Expectations--till the end, which I found a bit of a cheat. But I hated Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities. It's David Copperfield that's convinced me I should try more of Dickens. It was worth traversing its long and winding length. ( )

David Copperfield adores his sweet widowed mother and their servant Peggotty, and his early childhood passes easily in quiet contentment. However, when his mother marries her second husband, a cruel man named Edward Murdstone who is convinced that David is lazy and stupid. He eventually convinces the boy's mother to send the child away to a boarding school. There, David makes new friends and finds a hero in this classmate James Steerforth. His mother eventually gives birth to a son, but both she and the baby die soon afterward. Murdstone, not caring about David, ships him off to work for a wine merchant amidst miserable conditions. David eventually runs away to find his estranged aunt and begs her to allow him to stay with her; she agrees and helps David complete his education. But David's troubles do not end as he grows older as one tragedy after the next strike his friends and family.

Of all the novels of Charles Dickens, it's said that David Copperfield is the most autobiographical. Like his young protagonist, Dickens was raised in a middle-class household, but fell into poverty and had to leave school early to work. I think that this is part of the reason why the characters in the book are so well-portrayed. In only a few sentences, Dickens is able to present an entire personality and hint at a man's character and intentions. For example, on his way to London David eats a meal at an inn where the server tricks him into giving up most of his food and paying extra, besides. The waiter's scene lasts only a few pages, but his manipulative character and personable approach to fleecing poor David is very memorable.

The book was originally written as a serial, and this gave the novel a certain cadence and information is sometimes repeated multiple times. It's rather episodic, in fact, but even so the strong characterization and convoluted plot twists make it hard to put down. By the end of the long story, nearly every plot thread is resolved and neatly tied up, and the journey getting there proves very satisfying and fulfilling. ( )

The first time I've read a book on the recommendation of a fictional character in another novel. The main character in Per Petterson's 'Out Stealing Horses' re-reads David Copperfield regularly and finds it inspiring for his approach to life. I hadn't read any Dickens since school days so when I saw it in a charity shop I thought 'why not?'. And I'm glad I did. A 700 odd page meander through the life of David Copperfield is known to be a heavily fictionalised and romanticised autobiographical novel by Dickens. What a pleasure it is to wade through the high Victorian mannered and florid language at such a leisurely pace. Characters sculptured rather than sketched so it's no wonder they have endured as much as those in Shakespeare. Great also to get a view of life in the mid 19th century. Pre-electronic and pre-motor car life was nevertheless full and varied. But with it a clue to the sytle of writing. Long and leisurely. How else to fill the evenings? ( )

This is a wonderful novel, in which David feels like a real person, unlike many of Dickens’ characters. As a reader, I sympathized with his painful childhood, the vicious characters he has to survive, his mistakes and what he learns from them. As he begins to mature, I felt, yes, he’s growing up, and he’ll be okay. The development of David, in association with so many extraordinary and memorable characters, lets you overlook the plot devices and improbable coincidences that Dickens uses to move the story in the direction he wants to take it. And what characters – among Dickens’ most inspired. (Is snake-like Uriah Heep really the inspiration for Harry Potter’s snaky enemies? Rowling seems to have a Dickens-like love of incident and odd characters.) And even though the trajectory is perfectly obvious, it remains satisfying because David is a character you’d like to know as a friend. After reading over 700 pages, it’s a bit sad to have it end. ( )

This reads like a memoir of David’s life starting with his birth. His life as an orphan, mistreated by his stepfather and eventually running away to his aunt who had wished he were a girl, his marriage to his child bride and eventual success as an author gives this book has a blending of fairy tale with bildungroman. The story compares punitive father figure Mr. Murdstone with the eccentric fun of Mr Micawber. There is elements of problems that surround class and gender mostly in the tale of Emily and Steerforth and Agnes and Uriah. My conclusion is “all’s well that ends well”. This book is the most autobiographical of Dicken’s works. This book was written in the usual serial method but also encompasses some of the newer, psychological realism and social details of the changing novelistic style. ( )