Oh. Oh my.

Dickens considered this his masterpiece, and as much as it pains my Christmas Carol loving heart, it might very well be his greatest work. Semi-autobiographical, bringing us such wonderful characters (in every sense of the word) as the grandiose and insolvent Mr. Micawber (based on Dickens' own father), Aunt Betsey Trotwood with her hatred of donkeys and deep fondness for David's nonexistent sister, Betsey Trotwood Copperfield, Mr. Dick whose attempts to write a memoir are repeatedly foiled by Charles I. David himself is a sweet, intelligent and yet naive boy and man, whose innate goodness is undimmed even after all he has suffered. So good, too, are his friends like Traddles, his beloved little child-wife Dora, the angelic Agnes, and the tough and deep-hearted Mr. Peggotty.

And villains! Oh, such villains! Horrifying, yet in every way believable: people whose vices lead others to despair and even death, the self-righteous, iron-hearted Murdstones, the bizarre and vile Uriah Heep! I am utterly in awe of Dickens' characters in this!

I just . . . I can't say enough. If you haven't read it, go! Read it! Read it now!

Reread 2021: I didn't think I would reread this for my Dickens In Chronological Order Challenge, since I read it for the first time just a couple of years ago. But I just saw the wonderful, WONDERFUl movie starring Dev Patel a few months ago, and Richard Armitage reads the Audible version, and I thought, why not?

Good choice, me! I had forgotten how every little piece of this book was brilliant in every way. Dora is so irritated, and David is so indulgent and rather too naive and silly . . . but then there's Aunt Betsey Trotwood pointing out that they should have loved each other as children, and let it go when they became adults, but they didn't. I mean, it just. All. Works. Perfectly. Also, Richard Armitage's reading is GREAT.

Also ich mochte David Copperfield so sehr.
Dickens hat hier ein Werk geschaffen, welches autobiographische Züge aufweist. Es gab hier einige Parallelitäten zu Dickens eigener Kindheit, zum eigenen Lebensweg. Dies im Hinterkopf zu haben, machte die Geschichte für mich natürlich noch interessanter.

David Copperfield erzählt hier selbst seine eigene Geschichte. Er beginnt mit seiner Geburt und wir begleiten ihn einige Jahre.
Hierbei begegnen wir vielen Menschen, die so interessant und natürlich in die Geschichte eingewoben werden. Und die vor allen Dingen ihre ganz eigenen Kämpfe auszufechten haben.

Copperfield wächst als kleiner Junge bei seiner Mutter auf. Den eigenen Vater zwar nie kennengelernt, verbindet beide eine liebevolle Beziehung. Gestört wird diese jedoch schon sehr bald durch seinen gewalttätigen Stiefvater und dessen Schwester, die sich in das Leben Davids und seiner Mutter Clara drängen und nichts als Gefühlskälte und Unheil bringen. Eine Stütze für Davy, wie er liebevoll genannt wird, ist die Hausangestellte Pegotty.
Traumatische Umstände in Copperfields frühen Jahren lassen ihn unter größter Verzweiflung und als letzte Hoffnung, seine Großtante Betsey Trotwood aufsuchen, zu der er bisweilen keine bewusste Verbindung hatte.
Hier entfaltet sich die Geschichte immer weiter.

Für mich war dieses Werk trotz seines Umfangs von 1136 Seiten gut und relativ zügig zu lesen. Ich wollte immer unbedingt wissen, wie es mit David weitergeht.
Dickens entfaltet hier tatsächlich eine große Geschichte, die sich nicht nur auf die Protagonist:innen sondern auch auf gesellschaftliche Strukturen im England des 19. Jahrhunderts bezieht.
Es geht um Gesellschaftsschichten, Kinderarbeit, Umgang mit Menschen, die besondere Bedürfnisse haben, die Stellung der Frauen, Beziehungen und Erziehungsmethoden Kindern gegenüber, arrangierte Ehen u.v.m.

Kurzum entwirft Dickens ein umfassendes Gesellschaftsportrait dieser Zeit .
Was mir am Besten daran gefallen hat, ist die Menschlichkeit und Liebe mit der er dabei auf seine Charaktere blickt. Er zeigt Missstände auf und ist meines Erachtens was einige Ansichten angeht, seiner Zeit voraus. Vermutlich bedingt durch seine eigene Biografie, hatte er keine andere Wahl als beide Seiten der Medaille im Leben zu erfahren und daraus Inspiration für seine Werke zu ziehen. Vor allen Dingen aber nutzt er hier seine Stimme als Schriftsteller, um sich für Humanität, Freundschaft, Liebe , Gerechtigkeit und Empathie auszusprechen.


Mir hat das Buch ausgesprochen gut gefallen. Auch die angepriesene Übersetzung von Gustav Meyrink hat mir ausgesprochen gut gefallen. Alle Charaktere erhalten gemäß der Zugehörigkeit zu einer eigenen Gesellschaftsschicht oder zugehörig einer bestimmten Region eigene
Dialekte und Sprechweisen.

Ein tolles Werk, welches nicht mehr ausziehen wird. Vermutlich werde ich mir noch eine Dickensbiographie zulegen.
Als krönenden Abschluss zum Buch habe ich mir auf Prime noch die Verfilmung von 1999 mit Daniel Radcliffe als junger David Copperfield angesehen und auch diese hat mir sehr gut gefallen.

Nun freue ich mich auf Demon Copperhead von Barbara Kingsolver.

n  

“It was as true,” said Mr. Barkis, “as turnips is. It was as true,” Mr. Barkis said, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, “as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.”

n
I enjoyed the hell out of this book. From the first page to the last, I was having a damned good time. I even made quite a bother of myself several times among friends and family, imitating my favorite characters, only to get blank stares and polite smiles, as I realized that not one among them had read this wonderful book.
tt
Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was that I listened to an audiobook version. If you haven’t tried Dickens that way, I recommend it; what is dull, dry, and dreary on the page becomes lyrical and lively when listened to. Dickens had a great ear for dialogue, and you deserve to hear it.
tt
So what of the book? I’m afraid I won’t have anything terribly original to say. What struck me, and what strikes almost everyone, was Dickens’s amazing ability to caricature—to conjure up, in only a few lines of descriptions, cartoonish and hyperbolic figures that stick effortlessly in the imagination. Some people complain that his characters are too over-the-top; but, to me, that’s like complaining that James Brown shouted too much—that’s the point. And just as James Brown could turn a yelp into high art, so could Dickens turn the lowly art of caricature into world-class literature. It is almost as if, by blowing certain personality traits out of all proportion, Dickens could transcend the silence of the written page, inflating his creations into flesh and blood, like a clown blowing up a balloon. Instead of feeling like you’re reading a book, you feel as if you’re listening to a conversation in the other room.
tt
And what lovely conversation to overhear! Dickens has a tremendous, almost supernatural, ability to create characters. Every character—even if they are extremely minor—has a great deal of care lavished upon them; they have their own ways of speaking, thinking, gesturing, walking, laughing. Whether Dickens is writing of the rich or poor, he doesn’t disappoint; and several I found absolutely endearing. (Mr. Barkis and Betsy Trotwood were my favorites.) The only place Dickens does falter is in his characterizations of young women. Dora was a doll, and Agnes an angel; they were, both of them, uninteresting. Still, I thought that Dickens’s portrayal of Copperfield’s marriage to Dora—marked by both tenderness and frustration—was extremely touching; it had much more verisimilitude and interest than David’s later marriage.
tt
As another reviewer has pointed out, this book does have a quieter side. Beneath the brash and brazen giants, who lumber and lurch through these pages, runs a calm current of wistful nostalgia. In fact, Dickens often comes close to a sort of Proustian mood, as he has Copperfield disentangle his memories. Particularly when David is describing his childhood, with his silly mother and caring servant, or when he is describing the ravages of the Murdstones, or his awkward and difficult time at school, the tone is often tender and delicate, just as when Proust has his narrator describe the anxiety of wanting his mother to give him a goodnight kiss. The juxtaposition of these two moods, of caricature and remembrance, is I think what makes this book one of Dickens’s strongest.
tt
I would like to add, as a kind of perverse afterthought, that a Freudian could have a festival analyzing this book. I am, myself, no disciple of that Austrian oddball; but I do think it interesting that David is born without a father, and has a stepfather who gives him such trouble; that David’s two love interests are, as if reflected by a mirror, girls without mothers. And it doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to note the similarity between Dora and David’s mother; nor does it take a psychoanalyst to find it odd that David marries a girl he called, throughout the whole book, “sister.” What to make of all this, I cannot say; but I thought it worth including.
tt
In any case, I have come away from this book with a pleasant stock of memories, and a new respect for, and interest in, the good Dickens. What is so wonderful about Dickens, I think, is that he is so brilliant and yet so readable. I cannot help grouping Dickens along with Shakespeare and the Beatles, as an artist capable of both keeping the scholars busy and the audience laughing. That, to me, is the mark of the highest genius.

Una bonita lectura de mil páginas donde merece la pena sumergirse. Cálida y tierna, quizá ahora nos puede resultar algo ingenua, pero el viaje emocional de Copperfield nos muestra la vida misma.

Muy recomendable.

Status Report: Chapters 1 - 8

i had forgotten how much i love Dickens. the man is a master at the immersive experience. it is really easy for me to get sucked into the world he is so carefully constructing, to revel in all the extensive details, the lavish description, the almost overripe imagination at work. his strength at creating a wide range of entirely lived-in settings (both brief snapshots of places in passing and crucial places like David's home and school) is equalled by his even more famous skill at sketching the characters - often, but not always, caricatures - that live and breathe in his world. this is the kind of deep-dish experience that i love to have when traveling, on a plane or a bus or in some plaza, a second world to live in while taking a break in exploring the immediate world around me.

i can't help but also remember how many people dislike Dickens. i'm remembering an ex who told me he was her least favorite author, and how her resentment at being forced to read him in high school almost put her off reading for pleasure in general. it is hard to reconcile such a strong distaste for Dickens with my own easy enjoyment of his novels. my automatic reaction is that the reader who isn't enchanted by him either dislikes the style of writing or is simply the sort of idiot who should stick to reading facebook. well i don't date idiots, so i assume her reaction is based around the writing style. maybe that is the basic rationale for most folks who don't care for him.

or maybe it is based on something else. there is something that i've found to be off-putting about David Copperfield, at least so far. namely, the incredibly passive and naive behavior of David himself (and his mother, of course). it's more than just my automatic distaste for reading about victims, although that is certainly a part of it. what it feels like at times is that Dickens is stacking the deck a bit, making miserable situations even more potentially miserable, by having his protagonist (and that wretched mother, of course) be almost developmentally disabled in his inability to understand even basic things about the world around him. it sorta drives me up the wall.

well, that complaint aside, this has still been an awesome time. first and foremost, even more than the world-building and juicy characters, i love the dry and sardonic humor that is constantly working double-time. not only does it create some distance between reader and book in regards to the various horrors visited upon young David... it is fookin' hilarious!

favorite parts so far:

- that brilliant opening chapter "I Am Born"

- the Peggotty boat-house and the warmth of that wonderful family. i would like to live there!

- Steerforth. ugh! what a charming monster.

- the sadly minor note tragedy of Mr. Mell

☂

Status Report: Chapters 9 - 26

i think i was expecting a bit more evil from the Murdstones. the way they treat David is certainly unkind verging on cruel - but i suppose i thought it would be a lot more brutal. this is not a complaint! if anything, i appreciate that Dickens makes David's predicament a much more realistic one. the Murdstones are cold, cold people. and they certainly drive David's tedious mother to an early grave (i shed no tears on that one). but i was surprised that their primary action is to simply send David away to a boring job, one that no child his age should have (and here i am viewing the narrative through my 21st century lense). a callous decision yet not a vicious one. David is merely an irritation that they want to dispense with, rather than harm. interesting.

that brief segment was certainly enlivened by the depiction of the marvelously goofy Mr. Micawber & Family. and by a fascinating look into life in a debtor's prison. i assume this is the classic Poor House?

but then... good grief, poor David Copperfield goes through hell to escape this life of tedium. many emotions on my part, all centered on the idea of such casual cruelty towards a runaway. brought back some unsettling memories of my brief time as a homeless youth counselor.

and then - at last! - some decency. even better, eccentric rather than mawkish decency. Aunt Betsey & Mr. Dick are two more wonderful Dickens creations. especially that tough old broad Aunt Betsey - each and every one of her appearances are a delight. when David finally gets to the safety of his Aunt's house, i felt a lot of tension drain out of me. it is like his story is now truly about to begin, now that the Gothic horrors slash neglected childhood bits are out of the way.

- an introduction of the best character yet: Uriah Heep! this is the role that Crispin Glover was born to play. what a wondrously creepy and perfectly realized little villain. all that supplicating, all that writhing! brilliant stuff.

- interesting: David is rarely called by his actual name. two more nicknames are added to the list: Trotwood and Daisy. David is rather a tabula rasa of a character.

- the relationship between Mr. Wickfield and Agnes is not heartwarming. it is downright creepy.

and now the tension is ratcheted up again, but in a way that doesn't make me sorta squirm with discomfort (tales of child neglect ≠ a good time for me). three sets of increasingly dire circumstances...

(1) Lil' Em'ly and the despicable villain Steerforth
(2) Agnes and the despicable villain Uriah Heep
(3) Aunt Betsey and a mysterious, blackmailing unknown despicable villain

will David be able to intercede in any of these troubling situations? i am doubtful, but also hopeful. go, David, go!

☁

Status Report: Chapters 27 - end

exhilarating, wonderful, awesome, etc, etc. all the good words. i laughed (a lot), i cried (just a little, and in a manly sort of way), i wouldn't change or subtract a single word. perfect!

☼

Final Report

okay this will be less of a Final Report and more of a collection of final thoughts as i think back on the novel and consult with the various threads in Serials Serially - the group that started me reading this novel.

first, the division in the novel. the first third or so, all about young David and his fairly awful travails: vivid and powerful. the remainder of the novel, all about David in his young adult years and following the growth of all those narrative seeds planted in that fertile first third; an excess of details veering on repetitious, and so that the book becomes less of a frightful gothic tale and more of a slow-burning assortment of mysteries (and many, many instances of pure comedy): less vivid and perhaps less powerful. looking back, i have to say that i am in the minority and preferred the last two-thirds. not only was the tension of potential situations involving child abuse and neglect now gone (a personal bugaboo of mine that will quickly render almost any literary or cinematic experience into something hugely uncomfortable and unappealing)... but it somehow all felt more real to me. the first third was visceral but almost cartoonish while the rest of the novel felt as if i was actually living in the novel. such was the extent of the detail and the effect of following these characters as they move throughout many different situations and changes in their lives.

"cartoonish". or better yet, "Dickensian". what does that really mean? a peculiarly stylized version of caricature? i understand the rep that Dickens has with his characters. they are stylized, obviously. but very few of them remained caricatures to me. ultimately, most ended up feeling very real and i was impressed at Dickens' ability to provide multiple dimensions to his characters - although he does it in a rather subtle way. his heroes do not get strong criticism and his villains do not get endearing moments of humanity. and yet it is there. David Copperfield is kind and good, but he is also a passive, foolishly naive fellow whose kindness and naivete often does nothing but make situations worse - especially in nearly every instance involving his relationship with Steerforth. Agnes is also kind and good, but her passivity makes her function as a sort of enabler to her father. Steerforth is a callous and feckless villain, but has moments of genuine warmth and kindness. Rosa Dartle is a heartless shrew - but look at that poor bitch's entire life with Steerforth & mom - i'd become a heartless shrew in that situation as well. Uriah Heep is an unctuous, slimy kiss-ass and back-stabber... but look where he comes from, his context, the kind of person his father was and the ideals he was raised up to worship. and of course Micawber, who would be pure pathos but whom Dickens treats with an extraordinary amount of affection. Dickens is not necessarily an 'even-handed' author, but he is one who is clearly aware of context.

there are some comments in this review's thread about women in Dickens - comments that i initially agreed with. but in retrospect, i actually don't agree. looking back on this novel, the women are often just as full of life as the men. perhaps folks are mainly thinking of the rather anemic Agnes. but now - when i think of dim Dora and vicious Rosa and ferocious Aunt Betsey and tragic Emily and loveable Peggotty and maudlin Mrs Gummidge and pathetic Martha and the eccentric 'two little birds' (Dora's aunts) and pretentious Julia Miles and dignified-under-pressure Mrs Strong and hilariously faithful-to-a-fault Mrs Micawber - i think of characters who leap right off of the page and stay to live in my mind. so, no, i am not critical of how women are portrayed in Dickens.

except, maybe, Dora. she is surely one of the most bizarrely stupid characters ever created in classic literature. when she first baby-talks David's nickname "Doady", i practically wanted to barf. she's so stupid that many times i found myself thinking She's Not Stupid - She's Mentally Disabled! good grief! and so i felt bad about my contempt and i started having mixed feelings about David even being with her. it seemed somehow wrong. there is also something so sexless about her character - it was impossible for me to imagine her capable of any sort of genuine intimacy. but i have to give it to Dickens - he doesn't present her as an ideal (unlike David), he satirizes her mercilessly in scene after scene, and in the end, invests both her marriage and her death with such genuine, palpable emotion that i became genuinely, palpably moved. her marriage scene (practically every paragraph beginning with "Of") was one of the most dreamily written passages i've ever read. and her death - not explicitly described, but paralleled with Jip's death - wow. amazing scene.

the combined death scenes of brave Ham and horrible Steerforth was almost equally moving. that last line describing Steerforth at his final rest: superb.

okay i think i'm spent. this is one of those novels that i can probably talk on and on about, so i should just make myself stop. i'll close by saying that the novel is, in a word, brilliant. i loved the language, the humor, the whimsy, the drama; the characters were wondrously alive; the narrative both surprisingly subtle and excitingly larger-than-life. so many scenes were indelible - too many to recount.

David Copperfield is one of my favorite novels.

☀

David Copperfield: An Alternative Perspective

"De todos los libros este es el que más me gusta... como muchos padres, tengo un hijo predilecto, un hijo que es mi debilidad; este hijo se llama David Copperfield." Charles Dickens

"David Copperfield" era una de las novelas predilectas de Franz Kafka. De hecho su propia novela "El desaparecido", llamada "América" por Max Brod, Kafka define el personaje de Karl Rossmann en forma secular al de Dickens.
Las novelas de formación o "Bildungsroman" como comúnmente son llamadas nos cuentan la vida de un personaje, a veces en primera persona, a veces en tercera, desde que es niño o muy joven hasta su edad madura e incluso vejez.
Casos como este abundan en la literatura y podemos recordar otras de Dickens como "Oliver Twist" y "Nicholas Nickleby" pero también encontramos novelas de otros autores, tal es el caso de "Rojo y negro" de Stendhal, "Jane Eyre" de Charlotte Brontë, Agnes Grey de su hermana Anne Brontë e incluso novelas como "Retrato del artista adolescente" de James Joyce, "El Adolescente" de Fiódor Dostoievski y también, por qué no, "Israel Potter" Herman Melville. En fin, ejemplos los hay y muchos.
En mi caso, vaya a ser por qué prurito o prejuicio, no quería leer a Dickens y es a partir de libros como este cuando me doy cuenta de lo equivocado que estuve, ya que como buen cultor de novelas y autores del siglo XIX, debería haberlo intentado antes. Pero, como nunca es tarde para comenzar, me pareció buena idea iniciar la lectura dickensiana con este libro. Seguramente vendrán más.
Dickens es un novelista total de la talla de otros inolvidables autores, famosos por su prolífica obra y sus extensísimas novelas, como lo pueden ser Fiódor Dostoievski, Honoré de Balzac, Víctor Hugo y Lev Tolstói. Adentrarse en estas novelas es saber que por una buena porción de tiempo, uno estará abocado a la lectura de cientos de páginas, que a veces, sobrepasan las mil.
El autor escribió este libro durante dos años enteros y los fue publicando por entregas semanales hasta completar la historia y publicarla en forma de libro y se nota: mi edición, que aunque es de bolsillo es íntegra y consta de mil cuarenta y nueve páginas.
Son muchos los especialistas que coinciden en que esta es la novela más autobiográfica de Dickens, ya que lo que le sucede desde niño a Copperfield prácticamente se asemeja casi en forma idéntica a la vida que Dickens atravesó especialmente en su infancia y los distintos personajes que rodean a Copperfield están tomados de la vida real de Dickens con nombres cambiados, aunque existe también en esta novela un gran conglomerado de hechos y personajes que no están sacados de su propia vida.
Los inicios de David Copperfield son duros, crueles y despiadados. Sufre todo tipo de atropellos y castigos. Por momentos me recordó a los de Jane Eyre.
Es vapuleado por su cruel padrastro, el señor Edward Murdstone y su hermana, la señorita que eleva su categoría de ser humano a bruja. La muerte, el hambre y la pobreza son moneda corriente en su infancia y de no ser por su eterna niñera Peggotty, corre continuamente riesgo de no llegar a adulto.
Su vida transcurre entre los ignotos pueblos de Suffolk y Yarmouth y por momentos en la Londres de fines del siglo XIX, en plena Revolución Industrial, donde la diferencia de clases sociales es tan marcada como injusta.
Otro aspecto destacable, es el total sometimiento de la mujer y los niños por parte de los hombres: machismo, misoginia y patriarcado son algo común en Inglaterra y estos sufren el desprecio y la violencia innecesaria de una sociedad que lo reduce a la mínima expresión. Muchas de las situaciones que Copperfield, los alumnos de escuela o las señoritas de su época tienen que vivir son realmente terribles.
La brutalidad de la enseñanza primaria, a base de golpes que se utilizaba en ese país llegó a extenderse a hasta bien adentrado el siglo XX. Inglaterra siempre fue un claro ejemplo de excesos a cargo de profesores y maestros, algo que recuerdo mucho cada vez que escucho "Another brick in the Wall" de Pink Floyd en el que Roger Waters grafica claramente cómo hasta la década del 40 era normal castigar a los alumnos también a partir de su propia experiencia empírica.
Le llevará años a Copperfield quitarse de encima este karma y será recién entrado en su adultez cuando pueda ponerse realmente de pie.
Naturalmente, una novela de este calibre está construida sobre la base de personajes sustanciales e inolvidables. Además de los ya nombrados, la historia girará alrededor de David Copperfield, su amigo y protector de la infancia James Steerforth, su otro amigo Traddles que lo acompañará hasta el final, el entrañable señor Wilkins Micawber, siempre al borde del colapso y la cárcel, la tía de David, Betsey Trotwood, pieza fundamental en su vida, el señor Dick, amigo inseparable de la tía, el profesor Creakle durante sus días de infancia, el señor Peggotty, hermano de su niñera, Ham, la pequeña Emily, quien tendrá varios capítulos dedicados para ella, y ya a partir de la mitad de la novela, la aparición de la bellísima Dora Spenlow quien robará el corazón de David, y muy especialmente para recordar es la aparición de Agnes Wickfield cuya injerencia tendrá importancia suprema para el desarrollo de la segunda mitad del libro.
Por último, dejo a Uriah Heep, uno de los villanos mejor construidos de la literatura a cargo de Dickens, amo y señor de las bajezas más impensadas que tendrá a todos bajo su malvada influencia.
Uriah Heep cuyo nombre fue incluso utilizado por una banda de hard rock de los setenta, se asemeja a los grandes villanos que nos hemos encontrado en otros libros famosos y su poder de atracción en el lector es hipnótico, ya que constantemente uno quiere saber cuál será la siguiente movida de Heep y cómo afectará al resto de los personajes.
Dentro de la novela, nos encontraremos con un sinfín de situaciones y giros en la trama, y todos ellos estarán conectados entre sí, atravesando en algunos casos, varios años.
Claramente se ve lo que puede surgir de la pluma magistral de este autor enorme que se llamó Charles Dickens y a quien le debo una sincera disculpa y un gran respeto y agradecimiento por tantas novelas inolvidables como esta que iré leyendo con el correr del tiempo.

In a Nutshell: Still remains my favourite Dickens work, though middle-aged-me found more flaws in it than teen-me did. If you are a classics lover, this ought to be on your read list at least for its impeccable character development.


In many ways, this was a reread for me, but strictly speaking, this is my first read of the complete and unabridged work.

During my childhood years, the classics were an inevitable part of my life, primarily because of my school who added a variety of classics to our agenda. No full-length tomes were forced upon us. Rather, we were given abridged versions of works by classic giants ranging from Mark Twain to Anthony Hope, George Eliot (whom I had assumed to be a man!!) to Johann David Wyss. Because of these relatively thinner, illustrated volumes, I never felt overwhelmed by the writing style and enjoyed the large-than-life stories.

A few years ago, I decided to read the unabridged versions of my favourite old titles. Of all the abridged classics I read in my tween years, David Copperfield had the top spot on my list of favourites (sharing the #1 rank with Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days.”) So you can guess why I am so happy today. After all these years, I have finally read the unabridged version of this lovely story!

What I hadn’t realised before that this is an example of character-driven fiction. But today, I see how impressive the character sketching is in this novel. Right from the major game-changers to the minor fleeting appearances, every single character is given enough flesh and bone so as to make us know them in and out the minute they make their appearance on the page.

It was so wonderful to take a relook at my favourite characters after nearly three decades. I had loved and continue to love Peggotty, Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Dick, Mr. Micawber, Tommy Traddles, Mr. Peggotty, and the dearest-of-all Agnes Wickfield. My opinion about all of these remains the same even after knowing them in greater detail. My opinion of the ‘umble Uriah Heep also stays unchanged – I continue to abhor him, probably at an enhanced level.

On the contrary, my feelings for James Steerforth, Little Emily, and Dora Spenlow are altered, but not due to Dickens’ fault. I hadn’t known that my abridged school-time copy had provided a picture-perfect depiction of these characters, chopping out whatever cast grey shades on their personality or took a negative turn in their story. Seeing their actual portrayal was heartbreaking, especially when it came to Steerforth because I just didn’t expect that strong a villainous angle to come up in his arc.

You might be wondering why the eponymous character is missing from the above names. That’s simply because I have now seen David in a myriad new ways, and am hence undecided about whether to like him or not. As this is his coming-of-age story, it is a treat to see him grow from the shy lad to a confident man who knows what he wants only when others . But as I have the advantage of now being older than David, I see just how many times he is quick to jump to conclusions, how blind he is to the flaws of those he loves, and how he follows his heart without taking advice from his head. He is quite judgemental and more than a little snooty. All these factors make him an exceptional titular character, but not necessarily a likeable one.

Honestly, I value my abridged copy even more now because it expertly cut out whatever was extraneous and outdated without altering the core story. In other words, it retained the best of Dickens’ characters and chucked out the worst. My old copy had eliminated not just certain sad incidents but also all offensive elements such as the portrayal of the dwarf character, the silly tendency to equate looks with virtue, and the outdated, misogynistic comments. That said, I am not going to hold these shortcomings against the full-length version because this book was first published in 1850. That’s the social mentality Dickens lived with, and that’s the readership Dickens wrote for, not for modern-day “woke” mortals who believe that they know more than the author himself about how he should have written this work almost 175 years ago.

If you haven’t yet read this book and are fond of classics, I would definitely recommend this tome to you. After all, you would know how to read classics in the right spirit – without getting all twenty-first century-judgemental about it.

I'm not going to claim that this is the best Charles Dickens work, because there are still many I've not read, but of the ones I've read, this was the dearest to my heart, and will continue to be so. I appreciate the number of strong female characters Dickens managed to insert into this epic despite the story being so male-dominated - such a rarity for a book by a male author and published in the 1800s.

Not changing my original rating because… you know… nostalgia.

4.5 stars.