Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Reason read: Dickens was born in the month of February. Read in his honor.
David Copperfield is a classic: character driven and autobiographical in nature. Dickens illustrates the varying sides of human nature; how we all have faults. His portrayal of young David as a naïve child is brilliant. I could picture the boy being unreasonably afraid of a large bird because he acted just as I had when confronted with a gigantic angry fowl; or when Copperfield was bored at church and nearly falling asleep, slipping off his pew; or when he didn’t realize the adults were openly discussing him. His innocence is at the heart of his personality. As David matures and enters adulthood he learns relationships often fail and the motive of some people are not always pure at heart. Malicious people are everywhere. In the end (and I do mean the very end) Copperfield finds true happiness.
As an aside, I heard that the audio book read by Richard Armitage is very good. I didn’t listen to it.
Author fact: I read somewhere that Dickens was born in Landport, Portsea, England. What the what? That sounds like a very interesting place.
Book trivia: David Copperfield is the eighth novel of Dickens and it is his favorite story. Maybe because it is a thinly veiled autobiography?
Nancy said: Pearl said the opening line of David Copperfield was a classic that had slipped her mind.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter “Lines that Linger, Sentences that Stick” (p 140).
~*LunaSea*~ 