As part of the Classics book club, and considering we had an extra month off, we embarked on a long journey and reading Charles Dickens’ beast of a novel, David Copperfield.
It is a LONG book – very long. Though back when Dickens was writing this, It would be released in monthly excerpts to the public, which might have been much more digestible than taking on the whole thing in one go! Part of the issue I had was this, though it might mostly be me not having read a book like this in a very long time.
Overall though, it is not a difficult read. It was smooth and entertaining and as the reader, I did develop at some point an interest in the story David Copperfield had to say. There was a HUGE number of characters that weren’t necessarily very 3-dimensional but neither were they flat; the characters all had quirks or phrases that would identify them throughout the novel for the reader to not forget all of the characters, which I didn’t. Characters would come and go throughout the novel which was pretty interesting. The villains of the novel were very interesting indeed as they are not your typical villains in other novels. They had very intriguing qualities that defined them and some were a bit surprising! There were many subplots throughout the novel and every single one of them was addressed at some point and tied up, which was very satisfying!
Charles Dickens says this is not an autobiography, and it isn’t; however, there are sections sprinkled throughout the novel that many Dickens’ experts suggest might be autobiographical. David Copperfield was Dickens’ favorite novel he wrote.
It is a classic for a reason, and while I encourage folks to read it, I would suggest to take your time with it and maybe sprinkle in other books while reading David Copperfield. It really is a beautifully written piece of literature, it’s just a lot!