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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
“A tristeza de me ver longe de tantos companheiros”. Assim se sentiu Charles Dickens ao concluir seu projeto de dois anos escrevendo David Copperfield, originalmente publicado em série entre 1849 e 1850. E ele não está sozinho: essa é a sensação de todos nós temos ao finalizar essa longa travessia que é a leitura de DC. Seus temas são conhecidos: a inocência, a perseverança, as consequências graves das escolhas erradas na vida. Tudo isso é central na leitura de DC, mas quem brilha aqui são os personagens. Dickens constrói personagens como ninguém - cada um com seus dramas, seus desejos, seu jeito de agir, falar e, claro, de encarar a vida. DC é um livro muito divertido, um clássico que como poucos entrega tanto sem exigir sacrifícios do leitor. Mas, antes de tudo, é um testamento à lembrança de que sempre é possível recomeçar. Recomendadíssimo!
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“Se terei me revelado ou não o herói de minha própria vida, ou se tal posição será ocupada por outra pessoa, caberá a estas páginas demonstrar”.
.
“Se terei me revelado ou não o herói de minha própria vida, ou se tal posição será ocupada por outra pessoa, caberá a estas páginas demonstrar”.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
i adore the early character sketches and the vividness of david’s childhood scenes. 10/10 for those sections because they are the ones that will stick with me the most. even though i wished the story would’ve progressed faster in the later half, by the end i was left with the feeling of a close time spent with and getting to know these characters and i was glad that i had. the pathos with which dickens details them is so well done that the time spent becomes like memories you’ve lived.
“We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!” i Love u especially miss betsey
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
funny
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Uh. I don’t see the appeal of the book. I didn’t hate it and I managed to finish it, which explains the two stars. I suppose it’s okay for a classic, but I wouldn’t read it again. I’d rather recommend you read something else unless this classic is in your list, which is why I read it.
adventurous
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
It seems a bit sad to me that these days Charles Dickens has been reduced in conversation to A Christmas Carol and "he was paid by the word." This man could WRITE. He was just fantastic at his craft in so many ways and David Copperfield is a pretty immense achievement. It took me seven days to read it, and I read with dedication and diligence. I wanted to read it right before I finally got to Demon Copperhead, but I'm really thrilled to have read it for its own merits. This is the third Dickens novel I have completed (the other two being A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist) and I definitely want to read more of him.
This is famously Dickens' own personal favorite of all of his novels and you can see why. It's obviously very personal to him, taking and tweaking elements directly from his own life. But it's also just a thumping good novel. It is the mid-point of his career and the pivot on which he turns from his earlier comic social satire to his later denser, more emotional works. David Copperfield kind of straddles the line between both, while also having its own unique character as a bildungsroman. We follow David from birth to middle age and read about every period in his life in great detail. This is 900 pages. It's a commitment. Fortunately, it's great.
Dickens is immensely readable. His writing is sharp, clever, detailed, perceptive and rich. He brings the world of Victorian England to life so vividly, and he does so with his own unique flair. There are beautiful passages in this book. There are bleakly grim passages. I laughed out loud on many occasions. He often just has brilliant turns of phrases and ways of putting things. One example: I loved when he described a very tall man as looking like the shadow of a different man in the late afternoon.
He's also so empathetic. His care for the poor and disenfranchised is basically the hallmark of his entire career. People love to cynically bang on about how he wrote by the word. But the fact is that he published serially and each serial was contracted to be roughly the same length--to give the people their money's worth. Publishing serially made his work accessible to *everyone* and it's a great part of why he was so beloved by the working class and the poor.
It's a great story that kept me enthralled throughout. I was always excited to get back to my book, never dreading it. David is a wonderful protagonist. He isn't a blank slate or a boring little angel like Oliver Twist. David is ambitious, determined and a great friend. This book is written in his first person POV, as a biography he is writing in his older age, so he's just as good a writer as Charles Dickens himself! I loved how pretty much every character has their own name for him and their own idea about who he is (Doady, Trotwood, Daisy, Davy, Mr. Copperfell, etc.) but he reclaims his own identity by titling his story, simply, "David Copperfield."
The supporting cast is superlative. These are some of the best and most memorable characters in classic literature. Dickens always was incredibly good at creating characters that strike you immediately, whether they be grotesque or virtuous or hilarious. One of the great things about Victorian literature is how the style wasn't naturalism or "this could really happen." The books are stories and written as such. They embrace coincidence and dramatic irony. The characters are larger than life. You are aware that you are reading a book and it's all the better and more satisfying for it. Dickens had an amazing way of blending realism and honest social commentary of his times with humor, pathos and the ability to just weave a damn fine yarn.
I loved Tommy Traddles, Mr. Dick, Peggoty, Aunt Betsy, the Micawbers and all of David's friends. We get a great cast of villains from Mr. Creakle to Steerforth to the loathsome, greasy Uriah Heep. David gets two love interests. Dora was ridiculous and infantile, but also sweet-natured and self-effacing (and they genuinely like each other). Agnes may seem like a too-perfect Victorian archetype of womanly magnificence, but she has a few tweaks that make her more interesting. First, that she has been so clearly parentified and has to take on so many burdens that everyone takes for granted. And second, she has an absolutely ace bullshit detector and is pretty much the only character brave enough to tell David that Steerforth is a shithead.
Mrs. Mowcher deserves special note. She's a dwarf (based on someone Dickens really knew) who is first presented as a wholly comic character. Serialization also meant that Dickens could change and adapt his story to feedback while he was writing it. He was told that Mowcher deserved better and he provided her with depth and humanity in her second appearance in the novel--she ends up being a really good character.
It's well-paced, with all the different subplots overlapping and interlocking deftly. There is hilarity and tragedy. One thing I never was: bored. People think of classics like Charles Dickens as being stuffy, but it's just not the case. This novel was so alive!
This is famously Dickens' own personal favorite of all of his novels and you can see why. It's obviously very personal to him, taking and tweaking elements directly from his own life. But it's also just a thumping good novel. It is the mid-point of his career and the pivot on which he turns from his earlier comic social satire to his later denser, more emotional works. David Copperfield kind of straddles the line between both, while also having its own unique character as a bildungsroman. We follow David from birth to middle age and read about every period in his life in great detail. This is 900 pages. It's a commitment. Fortunately, it's great.
Dickens is immensely readable. His writing is sharp, clever, detailed, perceptive and rich. He brings the world of Victorian England to life so vividly, and he does so with his own unique flair. There are beautiful passages in this book. There are bleakly grim passages. I laughed out loud on many occasions. He often just has brilliant turns of phrases and ways of putting things. One example: I loved when he described a very tall man as looking like the shadow of a different man in the late afternoon.
He's also so empathetic. His care for the poor and disenfranchised is basically the hallmark of his entire career. People love to cynically bang on about how he wrote by the word. But the fact is that he published serially and each serial was contracted to be roughly the same length--to give the people their money's worth. Publishing serially made his work accessible to *everyone* and it's a great part of why he was so beloved by the working class and the poor.
It's a great story that kept me enthralled throughout. I was always excited to get back to my book, never dreading it. David is a wonderful protagonist. He isn't a blank slate or a boring little angel like Oliver Twist. David is ambitious, determined and a great friend. This book is written in his first person POV, as a biography he is writing in his older age, so he's just as good a writer as Charles Dickens himself! I loved how pretty much every character has their own name for him and their own idea about who he is (Doady, Trotwood, Daisy, Davy, Mr. Copperfell, etc.) but he reclaims his own identity by titling his story, simply, "David Copperfield."
The supporting cast is superlative. These are some of the best and most memorable characters in classic literature. Dickens always was incredibly good at creating characters that strike you immediately, whether they be grotesque or virtuous or hilarious. One of the great things about Victorian literature is how the style wasn't naturalism or "this could really happen." The books are stories and written as such. They embrace coincidence and dramatic irony. The characters are larger than life. You are aware that you are reading a book and it's all the better and more satisfying for it. Dickens had an amazing way of blending realism and honest social commentary of his times with humor, pathos and the ability to just weave a damn fine yarn.
I loved Tommy Traddles, Mr. Dick, Peggoty, Aunt Betsy, the Micawbers and all of David's friends. We get a great cast of villains from Mr. Creakle to Steerforth to the loathsome, greasy Uriah Heep. David gets two love interests. Dora was ridiculous and infantile, but also sweet-natured and self-effacing (and they genuinely like each other). Agnes may seem like a too-perfect Victorian archetype of womanly magnificence, but she has a few tweaks that make her more interesting. First, that she has been so clearly parentified and has to take on so many burdens that everyone takes for granted. And second, she has an absolutely ace bullshit detector and is pretty much the only character brave enough to tell David that Steerforth is a shithead.
Mrs. Mowcher deserves special note. She's a dwarf (based on someone Dickens really knew) who is first presented as a wholly comic character. Serialization also meant that Dickens could change and adapt his story to feedback while he was writing it. He was told that Mowcher deserved better and he provided her with depth and humanity in her second appearance in the novel--she ends up being a really good character.
It's well-paced, with all the different subplots overlapping and interlocking deftly. There is hilarity and tragedy. One thing I never was: bored. People think of classics like Charles Dickens as being stuffy, but it's just not the case. This novel was so alive!