David Copperfield

UPDATE, two months later: I tried again and finished it. Thank goodness that’s over. It was tiresome, heavyhanded; the dialog blathery and often unreadable. The only reason I kept at it was to better read and understand Demon Copperhead, so I ended up just skimming the second half. It often helped to fantasize about Copperfield stabbing a rusty knife in this-or-that evil person’s throat and watching them slowly drown in their own blood. The hope that “next page he’ll do it, for sure!” kept me going more than once.

Ten years separate this from [book:A Tale of Two Cities|1953] and it really shows: although this one shows hints of Dickens’s compassion and sense of justice, he grew up a lot in that time.

Now I eagerly go forward to Kingsolver!

My book club chose Demon Copperhead, which I heard was based on David Copperfield. As a result, I read this book first, to make the comparison. So glad that I did. I had a greater understanding of where the new DC got its “roots”.

No doubt Dickens was one of the greatest authors of English literature, and no doubt David Copperfield was his masterpiece. The book brings up with naturalism discussions about topics, as feminism, classism, under employment, and public policies, that are still relevant today, which demonstrates how ahead of his time Dickens was (or how behind on those topics society still is). 

I picked this up as “homework” for Demon Copperhead. Having finished, I can appreciate the book for what it is: a coming-of-age story. It's very touching and has great characters. I can see why it resonates with certain people. It is a bit of a slog, and I put it down several times to read other stuff.

(Also, my 100th book for 2023!)

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

David Copperfield relates the story of his life from the moment he was born to a time he has settled into his career as a writer. Copperfield meets an astonishing array of people—Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Uriah Heep, Steerforth, Mr. Micawber, Peggotty, Dora, Little Em'ly—who are themselves now classic characters of literature, and he experiences an equally astonishing array of life experiences that shape him from a naive boy into a thoughtful man.

Pff, who am I to judge a 172-years book, that's close to 900 pages, written by a revered author? There are plenty of great reviews on Goodreads about David Copperfield — both favorable and not so much. (Some fall into the mistake of ignoring the almost 2 centuries that have passed.)

I wanted only to point out 2 things: Dickens does indeed “ramble” and over-extend the narrative with tangents that contribute nothing to the story; and the book is remarkable by most standards, whether I found it sublime or not.

If I were to remove one thing from the book, it wouldn't be Uriah or the rambling or what most reviews complain about. I would very much appreciate Dickens getting rid of the poor-people's English that e.g. Mr. Pegotty speaks. Oh, and Dora.

I don't agree with some who claim the characters to be rather flat. Well, except for the Murdstones and Dora. Good lord, do I find Dora detestable...

Regardless, it's a long, grinding read, but one with plenty of pay-off: the colossal quality of the writing, the sense that you're going through the lives of people you care for, the occasional humor, and (obviously) an ending that rewards your expectations about the main characters in the story.

SpoilerOh, and Dora dies eventually, leaving David to finally grap the love staring him right in the face, so there's that to look forward to.

Amazing characters! Hilarious and tragic. Overall wonderfully written.

It's just so darn long!

I'm so glad to have turned to this story again. It's such a beautiful story of life, with all its struggles and uncertainties. The characters are crafted just so to win your heart, except Heep-who was never intended to do so.

This story also gives a glimpse of life in Victorian England-how children were taught, what kind of traveling systems were in place, how the courts worked, the relative wealth of different classes, etc.

As it is a rather long story, I'd recommend the audio version for busy folks.

And then I found out I knew nothing about this book... I thought it was about an orphan wandering around, but my first hint at the fact it might be more than that was that at 34% of the book he had already found a new abode. I still remained suspicious about this state of affairs for a while, lest the new tutor should die suddenly, but hey, Trot Copperfield was 18!
And so much happens. With the acquaintances he made, with his irritating naivete, with the unnerving irony. There were moments that didn't hold a candle to any soap opera, and there were others... You gnawed at things.
The Micawbers, Dora and later Agnes, Traddles and Steerforth, the awful Mr Mell's episode at the beginning, the craziness with Mr Dick, the constant irony borne of naivety.
Dumbfounded, I will say two things that cannot be considered spoilers: one, Dickens was really really something. The talent, mastery of words and sense of irony put others to shame. Two, it is NOT a “book about an orphan”. This hardly scrapes the surface of a whole hot biography.
Not my favorite classic, but it will hold a dear place in my heart.

This is my first Dickens book, and all I have to say is there's a reason he is still famous 140+ years after his death.

“The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.”
― Wilkie Collins, My Miscellanies

The ‘literary exertion' Collins refers to, in the above cited quotation, is something Dickens wilfully exhibits as one glides through the self-consciously rendered train of thoughts and images, linked together as they are, in a whole different world of novelistic space from what modern literature readily deviates. Notwithstanding the effort, reading, first hand, about what is portrayed like a minutely observed phase in society the way Dickens does, seldom amounts to ‘waste of time'.

Years after this prodigious construct of realist imagination, expertly expressed with wit whet with irony, had been conceived and realized, as I sift through the word-voluble thickness of the ‘dull' Victorian life, I can't help feel the descriptive vividness of the towns, the school grounds or the sheer landscape of a reality depicted through the warm and snuggling narrative voice.

The novel of education presents a protagonist whose romantic idealism determines a natural inclination towards an infatuated sentimentalism. However, circumstances conditioned for a character as endearing as David, warrant the need for fancy:

‘From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time'.

That Copperfield does not merely remain confined to and projected upon a saccharine-coated screen has been duly demonstrated by Dickens through David's patiently handled or developed point of view with respect to dear friends and lovers.

As David's education ensues—especially at the hands of those whose hands do not miss the chance to spare the rods—he learns, as well, an essential aspect of discipline, the over application of which instills a shuddering shadow of guilt:
‘The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They occupy the place of years in my remembrance'
. . .
‘being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner—the strange sensation of never hearing myself speak'

Early lessons of ‘firmness', at school and home, usher our ‘hero' into a phase of inevitability:

‘In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction'.

Dickens does not leave a stone unturned in presenting the stark contrast between David's imaginative garret of life and the real store-room of troubles.
If David is able to find a corner wherein the romantic idealism breathes, he is bound to, as it is made sure to witness, get handcuffed by the vagaries of the time. It's something beautifully portrayed, at times, in sprawling expressions:

‘A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, and frightens me'.

Soon, however, master Copperfield begins on his own and learns to choose . . . albeit waywardly and sentimentally. Infatuated with untested ideals, David receives life not as he would but as he must, laying the foundation of a character which is as much his as it is to be earned and deserved.
Being receptive to life is David Copperfield's biggest quality. When he is not among his peers because he can't be, David exhibits the capacity to respond humanely:

‘curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years'.

Another attribute accredited to the protagonist's growth is time itself, which David knows he has aplenty to learn from. In many of the firsts, he learns to hold on to the young years of affliction, only to assimilate differences that prove to be pivotal for David Copperfield:

‘When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts!'

As he is aptly called by another character, David also is, notwithstanding what coming of an age would mean to himself, a very ‘Daisy!' proudly blowing in the wind as an emblem of sensitivity. Yet, who is the real David Copperfield; he would live to learn and, hence, be able to discern through the trifling details life bestows upon him.

Character is built as much from love and affection as it does through the ‘humble' concern measured by hatred. And in Heep does Copperfield find his rival to be:

‘I was so haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy,'

Strangely enough, though, David Copperfield gets goaded by what stands in the face of his being. It's odd for a sensitive character as he is; but there he does get, holding on. What drives him away from the comfortable world of fancy is exactly what makes him arrive to himself, where he would rather be.

But what would David be. Who is he? One could immediately hear him whisper, ‘I don't know' sitting on the anvil of uncertainty which permeates his life, right from where the narrative voice begins the story. However, he learns to wait and receive what doesn't turn up or what just shows up nonchalantly:

‘Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head'.

Learning comes from loss. David Copperfield suffers at the hands of not knowing what. It, however, does not stop him from breaking new ground with his effort. David has experienced absence, separation as well as disquiet of guilt. It leads him back to himself, where David searches and finds best: ‘I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength'.

And yet, Copperfield does not find; even as he does not know what to find. Again does he fixate life within the idealistic, in the fancy of beauty that sweeps him off his feet. Again does David recognize the constant gnawing at his heart, which is taken care of only by more toil from his character:

‘I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now'.

The writing is soon on the wall for David, as he reads without repentance: ‘There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose'. In more than a single way, David Copperfield manifests someone who grows up to consider, ‘The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart'.

Death too catches up. The sense of loss after his wife's death had never been stronger with David. Restlessness tests him all the more:

‘There are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets—the old abiding places of History and Fancy—as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it—as at last I did, thank Heaven!—and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn'.

Finally, Copperfield is able to cope for he is able to express. As he finds the vehicle of his being, David writes: ‘I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience'.

No more an ‘undisciplined heart', David Copperfield is finally able to feel when he least expects or desires: ‘And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow'.

Absence, loss, incompleteness and frustration leads him back to his own self, as he returns to the ideal he missed and overlooked for another which beckoned him in his impatience: ‘My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.'

Apparently, ‘retrospect' is a word that Dickens has profusely used, among others; and I get this feeling strongly about how David Copperfield is a book about going back; or the importance of retracing one's steps back, lest one forgets one's own, precariously poised, divergent self. This marks David's character as someone who manifests, eventually, an assiduous walk on the track of life which tracks forward as well as backward; which presents ‘absence' as an essential presence in life. In the end, he is ... because of realizing he is more than and beyond what he thinks he is.

It is a kind of book which, for me, gets populated with words, conversations, scenes and images, as well as the most important base to bring them all together, a narrative cohesion that sketches diligently one shade after another; that is perhaps the biggest strength of the book. And charmingly as it is, Dickens achieves this by employing what he sincerely believes in, that is;

‘trifles make the sum of life'.

Audiobook. Reader performance 5 stars. Story 2 stars. The book started well in typical Dicken's fashion and got my hopes up. It is written in a beautiful first person prose that quite captures you. The technical quality of the writing remains consistent throughout, but that's pretty much all I liked about it. I thought I would never find a Dicken's story boring or useless, but David Copperfield actually brought into my mind the word inane. I can't fathom why the author wrote the story-I just finished it and I feel I was better off before reading. It was a waste of time. The title character is nothing more than a spectator of his own life and his central love story is annoying to say the least. He is insipid, goody-good and maybe one of the most ineffectual man ever written. In short, I did not like it at all. The story though is populated by wonderful characters and Dickens has undoubtedly a great, great hand at characterization. That's probably what captures people. It doesn't work for me on such a long book. I admire the characters, but having no plot, no stakes, and a main character who is only a point of view quite annoyed me.

So I finish one of the more tedious reads of my life so far.

Dickens came highly recommended. For years many have told me I'd love Dickens. “Dickens is just your type of author,” the masses (or a few) have said. No, he's really not.

If Dickens excels at one thing, I'd say that thing is his characters. They can be entertaining, funny, and memorable. Each is unique. Each has his or her own voice. There is such a large cast of characters here and Dickens is not only able to give them each their own identity, even those who have only a couple lines, but also to keep them straight. It's a feat I've never seen accomplished elsewhere.

And what makes reading Dickens so painful? His characters. Yes, those wonderful, colorful characters gnaw at my increasingly fragile patience. They are gross caricatures of caricatures. Perhaps Dickens invented the caricatures; perhaps every exaggerated human personality was original before Dickens came on the scene. Even if that were the case, which I honestly doubt it was, they are so ludicrous they annoy tolerable little me.

It certainly doesn't help that while Dickens utilizes many voices, he employs only two basic personality types for his female characters: the shrewd, severe woman, and the helpless damsel. Though each woman Dickens creates is unique in many ways, she is essentially a variation of one of these two.

And Copperfield himself? Well, he's probably a little bit of the helpless damsel himself. He's so passive in every decision he faces it's a wonder the plot progressed. But, you see, if Copperfield acted on his impulses (like when he feels he should defend the poor girl who is being beaten page after excruciating page) then the reader wouldn't get all secret actions and dialogue Copperfield (as the narrator) wouldn't be privy to. Thank God that Copperfield stood behind that door out of propriety, letting her father handle the situation himself (in fact he was either too scared, or too concerned with his own career as an author to worry whether the girl lived or died). And that would all be fine if David Copperfield were written in a way that the reader was supposed to feel pity for Copperfield, antipathy or wonder. No, Copperfield is a delightful lad who is a hero to all. Blah.

If you ask me, David Copperfield is too sentimental, too exaggerated, too melodramatic. Perhaps others thought I'd like Dickens because I am a little bit of all these things. There's nothing wrong with these qualities, and if people like to read that sort of thing, I think they should. But me? It was too over the top. Throw in all the conveniences (Ahhh, here comes that character from chapter 4, randomly knocking on a door a hundred miles away) and the pat ending, and it's cloying. Cloying and boring in one (sort of like a Hershey's).

Dickens was good at what he did, and it's hard to judge his work negatively because of this, but I really had focus to stay with it. I wasn't interested in the story or any of the characters because I couldn't believe in any of them. It was a sort of fairytale coming from the mouth of one with a monotonous voice. It was the sort of story I'll return to in later years when I'm struggling greatly with insomnia. Sorry, Chuck, but your Hershey-flavored story wasn't for me. I'm more of a Ritter Sport or Toblerone kind of man.

Wow! I'm so glad I've met the Pegottys, the Micawbers, Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Dick... There are so many great characters. I have always had the misconception that David Copperfield was going to be a dry read. Not so at all! I absolutely love this book.

not an easy read and some parts drag out terribly but some very good moments

Beautifully written - Dicken's use of language is sublime. The story runs a little flat in the middle & I felt it could easily have been shortened by a half, but starts & especially finishes strongly. This is my first Dickens' book since leaving school & my first voluntary experience of him & the best I can say is that I will read more.

Rereading this book was a fantastic experience. The first time I've ever cried in a book and it wasn't even at a ‘sad' moment, it was the tender moments between Mr Dick and each of the Strong's.

Yes it's long and yes it's Dickens through and through: odd names, social class contrasts and a cast of thousands, but if a book can build characters and situations well enough to make me well up for the first time in 33 years it's doing something very right.

Plus, absolutely hilarious. I forgot how well Dickens can capture a character and a situation in the most witty way possible. If you can't relate to David Copperfields' first time getting drunk then you and I have lived very different lives.

Worthy of the prestige.