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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
So happy to have read such a classic and what an epic. I listened to it on audible for well over 30hours!!! It’s immense. At time I wished the story would hurry up, but it’s fantastic and so glad I persevered. Highly recommend.
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the longest book I have ever read and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.
David Copperfield is a timeless classic; every single character is completely believable and is someone you could imagine running into today. Character motivations made sense and even when you didn't know their motivations you could easily guess from their actions.
It's amazing that a book published in 1850 captures a coming of age story that is still so relatable to us today. It shows that we have always been the same messy, emotional people that we are today.
The book is very long, but it needs to be to encompass a whole life, and the lives of everyone central to Copperfield's story.
The Murdstone's set my teeth on edge, I found myself mumbling 'f*ck this guy' out loud in every scene with him and David's mother.
The scene where Betsey Trotwood slags off the Murdstone's felt so triumphant; 'Get their *ss' was whispered out loud.
Rosa Dartle's speeches were so venomous that I was taken aback; 'D*mn' was said in shock.
Uriah Heep was so slimly and off-putting, the descriptions of his writhing made me grimace.
I like that the reader isn't positioned to be on David's team all of the time; I found myself rolling my eyes at Dora and was wishing he would see how ridiculous she was. But I could also understand that David was in love with her and that made him blind to her faults, or at least overlook them. It really did make them all feel real.
I spent a lot of time with these characters and feel like I got to know and understand them. To me, that is what the book is about; people. From what I know, David Copperfield draws heavy inspiration from Dickens' own life. These characters are memorials of real people or at least aspects of real people and we are connected to these people through Dickens' writing.
David Copperfield is a timeless classic; every single character is completely believable and is someone you could imagine running into today. Character motivations made sense and even when you didn't know their motivations you could easily guess from their actions.
It's amazing that a book published in 1850 captures a coming of age story that is still so relatable to us today. It shows that we have always been the same messy, emotional people that we are today.
The book is very long, but it needs to be to encompass a whole life, and the lives of everyone central to Copperfield's story.
The Murdstone's set my teeth on edge, I found myself mumbling 'f*ck this guy' out loud in every scene with him and David's mother.
The scene where Betsey Trotwood slags off the Murdstone's felt so triumphant; 'Get their *ss' was whispered out loud.
Rosa Dartle's speeches were so venomous that I was taken aback; 'D*mn' was said in shock.
Uriah Heep was so slimly and off-putting, the descriptions of his writhing made me grimace.
I like that the reader isn't positioned to be on David's team all of the time; I found myself rolling my eyes at Dora and was wishing he would see how ridiculous she was. But I could also understand that David was in love with her and that made him blind to her faults, or at least overlook them. It really did make them all feel real.
I spent a lot of time with these characters and feel like I got to know and understand them. To me, that is what the book is about; people. From what I know, David Copperfield draws heavy inspiration from Dickens' own life. These characters are memorials of real people or at least aspects of real people and we are connected to these people through Dickens' writing.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
From Charles Dickens comes his personal favorite novel, a bildungsroman named David Copperfield. David Copperfield is an autobiographical novel taking the eponymous main character from birth to adulthood, mirroring many real-life aspects from Dickens's life.
Dickens tells the story in meta format with the narrator David Copperfield writing a manuscript about his life while interjecting as the narrator to guide the reader. Thankfully given the length of the novel, Dickens doesn't exclusively use first-person narrator, at times using third-person narration along with free indirect discourse to vary the storytelling.
While I can understand that this novel was popular in its time and remains popular in its day, I do not believe it rises to literary heights to which it is often ascribed. There are far too many plot coincidences for that to be the case. There are far too many characters obviously named after their character traits for that to be the case. There are far too many single-faceted (foils) characters for that to be the case. And the novel is just too damn long for that to be the case. I am surprised that Tolstoy liked Charles Dickens' writing, given that Tolstoy was a level above in aesthetic literary quality than Tolstoy. I'm particularly surprised since Tolstoy despised Shakespeare, and David Copperfield is replete with Shakespearean references.
While the accusation that Dickens got paid by the word is false and a myth, I can certainly see why readers believe that. There were times, particularly in the final third of the novel, in which Dickens would take three thousand words to say something that could've been said in 500. The novel has a total of 368,017 words, and it could very easily have been 300k even without losing much.
Regardless, I did find the novel overall to be enjoyable, particularly the first third focusing on Copperfield's childhood. That in of itself was a novel about a boy growing up with a loving mother, then a tyrannical step-father, then left to his own devices, only to be saved by the funniest donkey-hating great aunt ever put to pen. The middle third of the novel was also relatively solid, but boy oh boy, I think I was ready to bang my head against a table if I heard or read the name "Dora" again. We get it Dickens. Copperfield is in love with Dora. We get it, really.
The final third of the novel is where this book slips. As I hinted above, Dickens became prolix, clearly dragging out the ending. It kind of reminded me of a modern TV show on a 13-episode season run -- but only having 10 or 11 episodes of material. So, they create a bottle episode or two as filler before getting to the end. It made the story drag though, and I wish he had foregone that material and cut to the chase with the obvious ending hinted at from like say oh page 300.
I will end with what I believe is the strongest aspect of his writing in this novel: characterization. While as I said above, there were many foils, too many. The characters that Dickens focused on were brought to life on the page, multi-faceted with real growth through this tome. This includes Betsey Trotwood, the endlessly entertaining Mr. Dick (who does NOT live up to his name), Steerforth (who does live up to Dick's name), all the Pegottys, and so much more. I think this more than anything else kept me entertained throughout.
While I don't love this novel, given all the conveniences discussed above, I will say that only a writer with the prose stylings of Dickens could make this novel work. He took a bunch of cliches and trite plotpoints from romantic era novels -- and just made it work. A lesser writer would've failed. This gives me faith in his overall qualities, and I will pick up another one of his works in the future, but probably a shorter one.
3.5 stars.
Dickens tells the story in meta format with the narrator David Copperfield writing a manuscript about his life while interjecting as the narrator to guide the reader. Thankfully given the length of the novel, Dickens doesn't exclusively use first-person narrator, at times using third-person narration along with free indirect discourse to vary the storytelling.
While I can understand that this novel was popular in its time and remains popular in its day, I do not believe it rises to literary heights to which it is often ascribed. There are far too many plot coincidences for that to be the case. There are far too many characters obviously named after their character traits for that to be the case. There are far too many single-faceted (foils) characters for that to be the case. And the novel is just too damn long for that to be the case. I am surprised that Tolstoy liked Charles Dickens' writing, given that Tolstoy was a level above in aesthetic literary quality than Tolstoy. I'm particularly surprised since Tolstoy despised Shakespeare, and David Copperfield is replete with Shakespearean references.
While the accusation that Dickens got paid by the word is false and a myth, I can certainly see why readers believe that. There were times, particularly in the final third of the novel, in which Dickens would take three thousand words to say something that could've been said in 500. The novel has a total of 368,017 words, and it could very easily have been 300k even without losing much.
Regardless, I did find the novel overall to be enjoyable, particularly the first third focusing on Copperfield's childhood. That in of itself was a novel about a boy growing up with a loving mother, then a tyrannical step-father, then left to his own devices, only to be saved by the funniest donkey-hating great aunt ever put to pen. The middle third of the novel was also relatively solid, but boy oh boy, I think I was ready to bang my head against a table if I heard or read the name "Dora" again. We get it Dickens. Copperfield is in love with Dora. We get it, really.
The final third of the novel is where this book slips. As I hinted above, Dickens became prolix, clearly dragging out the ending. It kind of reminded me of a modern TV show on a 13-episode season run -- but only having 10 or 11 episodes of material. So, they create a bottle episode or two as filler before getting to the end. It made the story drag though, and I wish he had foregone that material and cut to the chase with the obvious ending hinted at from like say oh page 300.
I will end with what I believe is the strongest aspect of his writing in this novel: characterization. While as I said above, there were many foils, too many. The characters that Dickens focused on were brought to life on the page, multi-faceted with real growth through this tome. This includes Betsey Trotwood, the endlessly entertaining Mr. Dick (who does NOT live up to his name), Steerforth (who does live up to Dick's name), all the Pegottys, and so much more. I think this more than anything else kept me entertained throughout.
While I don't love this novel, given all the conveniences discussed above, I will say that only a writer with the prose stylings of Dickens could make this novel work. He took a bunch of cliches and trite plotpoints from romantic era novels -- and just made it work. A lesser writer would've failed. This gives me faith in his overall qualities, and I will pick up another one of his works in the future, but probably a shorter one.
3.5 stars.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I suffered through Dickens when I was in high school, but while reading David Copperfield I *finally* figured out why Dickens is just so damned awesome! Read. this. book.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
This massive book took me ages to get through but man am I glad I did. David Copperfield is writing his life’s events and offers his insight to the story throughout. I found the cast of characters diverse and loveable (except Uriah); although I did find myself forgetting who was who quite a bit throughout. I laughed many times during my reading mainly at points involving his Aunt. I definitely recommend this classic to anyone who is in the market!
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Loved it. Dickens is much funnier than I expected, given my memories of "A Tale of Two Cities".
I’d never read this before, but was curious to read it before reading Demon Copperhead. It’s very plot driven and there are a lot of side stories about adjacent characters, some of which I had a hard time sticking with. David’s relationships with women are also VERY of the time.