David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

When I was younger, I read an abridged version of David Copperfield. I didn't know it was an abridged version, so while I was browsing through a reading list for the Tea and Books reading challenge, I was quite surprised to find it on the list. So of course, I had to read it.

And for a really long, and rather old book, it's very readable. While I quite like Victorian fiction, I tend to be able to read it only in print format. Somehow, they don't read well as an ebook. But with David Copperfield, I was able to read the Gutenberg version in a few days.

If you've never heard of it, David Copperfield is basically a fictional biography of David Copperfield, who may or may not be partly modeled after Charles Dickens. David is born to a childish mother, who remarries a harsh man. He's sent to a horrible school, and when his mother dies, sent to work in a factory. He then runs away to his eccentric aunt, who protects him and educates him. After that, well, the novel really just follows the course of his life, just past his (second) marriage.

Despite the fact that I remembered it as a child's book, it's surprisingly mature.. David Copperfield is basically trial after trial after trial. There is seduction, there are wrong marriage decisions, there is blackmail and fraud, there is spousal abuse,  there is an unhealthy obsession with another person (by a minor character), the amount of dark material is actually quite startling. Yet David remains optimistic and along with his friend Traddles, they remain beacons of light in a really dark world. And yes, the world they live in is really dark.

There's a lot of stuff that could be analysed about the book, but really, you can just google that and page after page of results will come out. This book has been assigned reading for a long time after all. The only thing I want to point out is that quite a few characters are rather flat (actually, I could probably make the case that each character has one sort of trait that is there for their interaction with David. So David is like the complete version of them). Something interesting to take note of would be the different names that David Copperfield is called - his real name is called relatively little times.

I loved this book! It was really easy to read and I enjoyed reading it.

Note: I read this book for the Tea and Books reading challenge.