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rebeccacider 's review for:
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
I should probably write down all the things I've wanted to say about this book before I forget them.
First off, I totally adored the first three hundred pages or so of this book. It's sad and funny and Dickens is a fantastic writer. I did enjoy the rest of the novel, but I didn't fly through it as I did through David's childhood years.
This is mostly, I think, the unfortunate side-effect of Dickens being clever. First sentences of novels are always important, and the first line of David Copperfield is pretty crucial: "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."
Is David the hero of his own life? As a child, he is, and that's what makes the story so engaging. Beset by difficulties, we watch him persevere defiantly, despite his innocence and helplessness. It's a powerful, simple narrative for the rest of the story elements to group around.
As he grows older, however, David rather strikingly loses his agency. For one thing, he explicitly goes from making use of his own moral resources to choosing between the examples of Steerforth and Agnes. By the last paragraph of the novel, it is clear that Agnes is in many ways the hero of David's life. I suspect that Dickens is implicitly questioning whether it's even a good idea to be the hero of one's own life. This is a pretty cool statement about selflessness and humility, so Dickens's choice seems to have some merit.
However, there are some negative results of de-heroizing David. David's loss of agency (dear God this is beginning to sound like a paper) is especially evident near the end of the novel, when all the major subplots of the novel - Little Em'ly, the Micawbers, even Uriah Heep - are pretty much resolved without David's help; he is merely a witness. Again, Dickens seems to have set up David to be a non-hero. But he's sort of shooting himself in the foot here in terms of narrative coherence. It's uncomfortable to read about someone who stops being the main character halfway through, which arguably is what happens to David Copperfield.
For me, the most engaging subplot during David's adult years was Dora's story. She's so likable yet so pathetically tragic, a wonderful critique of Victorian ideals of femininity. I love the moment when David, in the process of trying to form her character, realizes that "her character had already been formed." Their flawed love story is often quite powerful and unadorned, simply human in a way that David and Agnes's (don't worry, there will be a rant about Agnes later on) is not. Moreover, their marriage is the result of David's first important moral choice as a man. It was a bad choice, but seeing David deal with the consequences in a frankly heroic way is satisfying in a way that watching him watch Uriah Heep's defeat is not quite.
I am not sure whether Dickens wanted us to view David's loss of power as sinister in any way. Probably not very, considering the happy ending we get. Still, small details worry me - such as the way that Betsey Trotwood, a wonderful character in her own right, renames David, and he never corrects her or Agnes about what to call him. When a novel is called David Copperfield and the main character ends up being called by a different name, what are we supposed to think? I find it just a bit worrisome, personally.
Anyway, to the Agnes rant I promised. In my opinion, the most problematic element of David's anti-heroic status is poor Agnes. I thought she was simply a terrible character. Her list of qualities looks good at first glance - she's kind, practical, smart, compassionate, and not nearly as much as a pushover as I'd initially feared. However, the way Dickens writes her, she's only a laundry list of characteristics, and not a real person at all. She has no physical presence in the novel; whenever she's described, it's in terms of abstract adjectives - "practical" and "calm" are repeated more time than I can count. She's even described as having a spiritual aura that fills Canterbury with goodness and light. It's not merely that Agnes is every Victorian notion about women as spiritual examples and angels of the household wrapped into one quite improbable girl; if she felt real, I could forgive Dickens for, well, being a Victorian. It was really the manner in which she was presented that make her totally unlikable. Unlike Peggotty and Dora and Betsey Trotwood and even Mrs. Copperfield, who are all psychologically believable flesh-and-blood women, Agnes is a spiritual ideal masquerading as a person, and Dickens was proudly showing this off rather than giving her a human face.
The result of this choice is really rather odd. On one hand, Agnes's characterization means that David's moral agency merely consists of choosing Agnes as his moral guide. That's all very nice and selfless and Christian, although a bit frustrating for the reader, who probably wants David to make more complex choices. But at the same time, Agnes feels like this insubstantial idea who only exists to give David Copperfield moral bearings. Despite David's passivity, I started feeling as if everyone in the novel were just planets rotating around his immense gravitational field. Everything was about David Copperfield! Now, perhaps this is an unfair criticism for a book that is, after all, titled David Copperfield, but most of the characters maintain a solidity and self-possession that Agnes simply does not have. At her worst, she's a woman who really and truly exists for the sake of a man. While Dickens' failure is fascinating to analyze, I still have to regard it as a failure.
Needless to say, it's a very big novel and I would have to reread it again to even begin to organize the rest of my thoughts on it. Generally, I thought Dickens managed this bigness well, and it was a very good read full of very good characters, my criticisms notwithstanding. And in terms of the bildungsroman that is the first few hundred pages, I think it's probably one of the most important novels ever written in English, because I see its legacy very clearly in all sorts of coming-of-age novels written since.
First off, I totally adored the first three hundred pages or so of this book. It's sad and funny and Dickens is a fantastic writer. I did enjoy the rest of the novel, but I didn't fly through it as I did through David's childhood years.
This is mostly, I think, the unfortunate side-effect of Dickens being clever. First sentences of novels are always important, and the first line of David Copperfield is pretty crucial: "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."
Is David the hero of his own life? As a child, he is, and that's what makes the story so engaging. Beset by difficulties, we watch him persevere defiantly, despite his innocence and helplessness. It's a powerful, simple narrative for the rest of the story elements to group around.
As he grows older, however, David rather strikingly loses his agency. For one thing, he explicitly goes from making use of his own moral resources to choosing between the examples of Steerforth and Agnes. By the last paragraph of the novel, it is clear that Agnes is in many ways the hero of David's life. I suspect that Dickens is implicitly questioning whether it's even a good idea to be the hero of one's own life. This is a pretty cool statement about selflessness and humility, so Dickens's choice seems to have some merit.
However, there are some negative results of de-heroizing David. David's loss of agency (dear God this is beginning to sound like a paper) is especially evident near the end of the novel, when all the major subplots of the novel - Little Em'ly, the Micawbers, even Uriah Heep - are pretty much resolved without David's help; he is merely a witness. Again, Dickens seems to have set up David to be a non-hero. But he's sort of shooting himself in the foot here in terms of narrative coherence. It's uncomfortable to read about someone who stops being the main character halfway through, which arguably is what happens to David Copperfield.
For me, the most engaging subplot during David's adult years was Dora's story. She's so likable yet so pathetically tragic, a wonderful critique of Victorian ideals of femininity. I love the moment when David, in the process of trying to form her character, realizes that "her character had already been formed." Their flawed love story is often quite powerful and unadorned, simply human in a way that David and Agnes's (don't worry, there will be a rant about Agnes later on) is not. Moreover, their marriage is the result of David's first important moral choice as a man. It was a bad choice, but seeing David deal with the consequences in a frankly heroic way is satisfying in a way that watching him watch Uriah Heep's defeat is not quite.
I am not sure whether Dickens wanted us to view David's loss of power as sinister in any way. Probably not very, considering the happy ending we get. Still, small details worry me - such as the way that Betsey Trotwood, a wonderful character in her own right, renames David, and he never corrects her or Agnes about what to call him. When a novel is called David Copperfield and the main character ends up being called by a different name, what are we supposed to think? I find it just a bit worrisome, personally.
Anyway, to the Agnes rant I promised. In my opinion, the most problematic element of David's anti-heroic status is poor Agnes. I thought she was simply a terrible character. Her list of qualities looks good at first glance - she's kind, practical, smart, compassionate, and not nearly as much as a pushover as I'd initially feared. However, the way Dickens writes her, she's only a laundry list of characteristics, and not a real person at all. She has no physical presence in the novel; whenever she's described, it's in terms of abstract adjectives - "practical" and "calm" are repeated more time than I can count. She's even described as having a spiritual aura that fills Canterbury with goodness and light. It's not merely that Agnes is every Victorian notion about women as spiritual examples and angels of the household wrapped into one quite improbable girl; if she felt real, I could forgive Dickens for, well, being a Victorian. It was really the manner in which she was presented that make her totally unlikable. Unlike Peggotty and Dora and Betsey Trotwood and even Mrs. Copperfield, who are all psychologically believable flesh-and-blood women, Agnes is a spiritual ideal masquerading as a person, and Dickens was proudly showing this off rather than giving her a human face.
The result of this choice is really rather odd. On one hand, Agnes's characterization means that David's moral agency merely consists of choosing Agnes as his moral guide. That's all very nice and selfless and Christian, although a bit frustrating for the reader, who probably wants David to make more complex choices. But at the same time, Agnes feels like this insubstantial idea who only exists to give David Copperfield moral bearings. Despite David's passivity, I started feeling as if everyone in the novel were just planets rotating around his immense gravitational field. Everything was about David Copperfield! Now, perhaps this is an unfair criticism for a book that is, after all, titled David Copperfield, but most of the characters maintain a solidity and self-possession that Agnes simply does not have. At her worst, she's a woman who really and truly exists for the sake of a man. While Dickens' failure is fascinating to analyze, I still have to regard it as a failure.
Needless to say, it's a very big novel and I would have to reread it again to even begin to organize the rest of my thoughts on it. Generally, I thought Dickens managed this bigness well, and it was a very good read full of very good characters, my criticisms notwithstanding. And in terms of the bildungsroman that is the first few hundred pages, I think it's probably one of the most important novels ever written in English, because I see its legacy very clearly in all sorts of coming-of-age novels written since.