Pete's Log: David Copperfield
Entry #2253, (Books, Writing, n such)(posted when I was 44 years old.)
I finally finished David Copperfield. I quite enjoyed it, although it was a challenge and took me more than a month.
Before I get too deep into anything, here's the part I chose to quote on Mastodon:
“[…] and friends is dear, and I am heer.—Which is verse,” said Mr. Pegotty, surprised to find it out, “though I hadn’t such intentions.”
The 1850 equivalent of "I'm a poet and I don't even know it" just made me feel such a kinship to the past.
So anyway... I was motivated to read it after reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which was a modern retelling of it, based in Appalachia.
I had enjoyed Demon Copperhead. It was well-written and it felt important. I felt sympathetic to the main character, and I often had to put it down for a while when it got too intense.
But on the flipside, I think I would have enjoyed it less if I had read David Copperfield first. While many of the characters of David Copperfield have their counterparts in Demon Copperhead and most of the major plot points are repeated, the characters in Demon Copperhead for the most part have less depth. I think the only exception I can think of is Agnes.
The character who's diminution bothers me most is Wilkins Micawber, who in David Copperfield is a silly and flawed, but ultimately good character who significantly contributes to the plot. The more I got to know him in David Copperfield, the more disappointed I felt in his treatment in Demon Copperhead.
Less significantly, I felt James Steerforth/Fast Forward was much more a one-dimensional antagonist in Demon Copperhead, while in David Copperfield there was some introspection to the character that made him not a wholly bad person.
I should leave Demon Copperhead to stand as its own novel. It tells a story of Appalachia and the opioid crisis that feels important and is well written. On retrospect the character development could be more and the story definitely lacks the humor I found in David Copperfield. But it's still a good book. It's hard to live up to Dickens. And as far as the narrator's arc goes, both books had the same effect on me: first I pitied him, then I was annoyed with him, then he had his redemption.
But David Copperfield sure has a lot of likeable characters, with much in the way of development. And I really enjoyed laughing at the humor of it. There's something profound about laughing at a joke written 170 years ago.