Dickens At His Best
Charles Dickens' David Copperfield is said to be Dickens' favorite book that he ever wrote. Copperfield's and Dickens' childhoods were classically the same and many critics believe that David Copperfield was actually a Charles Dickens autobiography. He modeled many of the characters in this novel after people he knew; for instance, Micawber was modeled after Dickens' own father who was sent to debtors prison. However, Micawber becomes a humorous, amiable character who was quite different from Dickens' own father. This book is definitely of 5 star quality and I will teach it in my College English classes when I begin teaching.
Classic catharsis
What could be more prosaic? A physically abused child surmounts all obstacles through diligence, devotion, goodness, and terrific good luck at key moments. But within this simple frame Dickens paints a tapestry of pity and terror and epiphany. To encounter such a broad spectrum of good and evil - the pure femininity of a lover, the earthy sweetness of a nurse, the generosity of a mentor, the frivolity of a sweetheart, parental naivete and cruelty, the destructive arrogance of a best friend, the viciousness of a Uriah Heep - would be an object lesson in Humanity. But we encounter all this each day. This dawns on you with each passing chapter - and that you are confronting yourself as you confront them: Your own evil and your own goodness rising above the shadows. Copperfield is a quick course in religion and philosophy and psychology. By the end, you're transformed vicariously and like David Copperfield dismiss the shadows: "Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year".
Please note: Dickens is not my favorite author. His style at times is too melodramatic. But David Copperfield is wonderful. If we had only this, it would be clear Dickens was a master who walked the talk. Highly commended even for those who are not Dickens fans.
A Novel with Heart
David Copperfield was always a favorite of mine. It is wonderful, how, circling with the years, I can make my own retrospect and read it again from my older perspective. When I was younger, I too, wanted to complain that all of Dickens' heroines were the same, and now I realize how wrong I was. Agnes is good and beautiful and patient of course, but what about the heroine Aunt Betsey? What about Miss Mowcher, who gives David a piece of advice "from three foot nothing ... Don't confuse bodily defect with mental!" she exclaims, and this is advice we coudl still use today! What about Peggotty, who is true and good and occasionally silly? Then there are the women who are not so good: Mrs Heep, Miss Murdstone, Mrs Markleham (the Old Soldier) and Rosa Dartle? Dickens' characters are marvelous, but what I find most wonderful is the love that brings them together. Aunt Betsey takes David in, and is rewarded by the softening of her own heart; Mr. Peggotty seeks and finds his niece; Traddles finally marries "the dearest girl" and long-suffering Mrs Micawber will never desert her husband and something at last turns up Down Under. The characters who are courageous enough to choose love over pride are almost always rewarded at the end -- assuming that they survive, of course! (I'm thinking of Ham.) Perhaps it is just a novel, and those who have courage to love are not always rewarded in real life, but the idea is wonderfully satisfying.
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