zaterdag 30 juli 2016

Charles Dickens: David Copperfield

Hi again

Finally finished Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. It took me the whole month partly because it’s a very long and slow book, partly because I haven’t been feeling very well and partly because my husband and I have been pretty busy around the house.
My copy has 982 pages of story and 3 pages about the book by Matthew Arnold.
I got my beautiful book at the Fnac.
You can find my Charles Dickens reviews here.

“Dickens's epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield's extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.
Dickens's great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood, and which he described as a 'favourite child') is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.”

I really enjoyed David Copperfield.

Dickens’ characters are brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It’s amazing how different they all are and how much I loved most of them. Betsy Trotwood has to be my favorite. I love her.
The characters are obviously very stylized, but that’s his style and they really come alive after just a few chapters. We understand where they’re coming from and why they act the way they do. That doesn’t mean I like them, but I can see what and who made them do certain things.
The story is emotional, sad and funny at the same time. There are a lot of details and descriptive passages but it’s never boring and it makes for a beautiful novel. I felt like I was living there, with these characters, going through everything they were going through.
The prose is wonderful; rich, descriptive and vivid.

But there are a few things that bothered me.
First and foremost; Dora. Dora annoys me so much. She’s been brought up to marry a rich man and be beautiful and she doesn’t want to be anything more than that. That’s what makes me mad (and sad). She doesn’t want to understand what everyone is talking about, she doesn’t want to run her house properly and she can’t cope with any sort of feedback. She cries, says David is mean and blubbers about not being good enough. I mean, really? I know Dickens mocks her himself, but I couldn’t quite get past it to enjoy her character.
Secondly; David is so, so gullible, naive and passive. There were moments throughout the book where he deserved a few shakes to be honest.

I really enjoyed David Copperfield and I would definitely recommend it.
The more Dickens I read, the more I love him.

4 STARS

Happy reading!
Helena

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