Reading David Copperfield: Chapters 1-10 (or In Which I Develop a Hearty Dislike for 80% of the Characters)

I fell ill this week. The result is that I have been shirking the Hard things I was supposed to be doing, and foregoing them for Easier things. One of those Easier things has been charging ahead in my current read, which is David Copperfield. I’m finding it more engrossing than Bleak House, or even Little Dorrit (though I did enjoy that one and became very engrossed towards the end of it – but I enjoyed that one more for the characters than the plot). (Speaking of Bleak House, I had thoughts of writing a review of the 2005 BH this week…but that was not to be. Is it strange that I find reading a Dickens book easier than writing a coherent movie review of a Dickens movie…and yet apparently writing about a Dickens book isn’t too hard? Probably. But everythink goes contrairy with me, since I am a lone lorn creetur.)

In any case, the point of all this semi-coherent rambling is that I thought it might be rather fun, instead of waiting until I finish David Copperfield and writing a sort-of-normal review of it, to write a series of posts as I read, gracing you with some of my random thoughts on each chapter as I read it. That way I’ll get to mention little things which would be too insignificant to make time for in a real review, my thoughts will be delivered to you in manageable chunks instead of one big, unmanageable chunk, and it provides me with a fairly easy post for my addled brain to deal with. Sound good? Lovely. Here goes.

(Oh, and if my thoughts on a certain chapter contain spoilers, I will put that chapter name in bold. Otherwise, I will not. Now you are Prepared.)

(Okay, I’m realizing now going through it that it’s sometimes really hard to decide what counts as a spoiler and what doesn’t. Sorry. I did my best.)

Chapter 1

Betsey Trotwood is a fun person to have around. I like her. The funny thing is that I’ve seen a lot of pictures from that quirky movie they did recently – The Personal History of David Copperfield – and the result is that I cannot help but picture Betsey as looking like Tilda Swinton. I do not picture David’s mother as looking like Morfydd Clark, though. It’ll be interesting to see how many of my mental pictures will be colored from seeing pictures from PHDC.

Chapter 2

PEGOTTY. I love that woman. Also, I think Toby Stephens would make a really good Mr. Murdstone.

Don’t you agree?

Chapter 3

Overall cuteness. (Although, I must say, I do think Clara – or at least Pegotty, if Clara wimped out – could have had the decency to tell David SOMETHING about what was going on before he came back home. Sure, it would have been awkward and uncomfortable, but no more uncomfortable than he must have felt, poor little tyke.)

Chapter 4

Yeesh, those Murdstones are creeps. (I mean, it was obvious that Mr. Murdstone was a creep all along. If Clara couldn’t see that, she needed an eye test and needed it bad.) I find pondering on Dickens’ villains interesting – the Murdstones come across as unrealistically, over-the-top-ly evil with no particular motive, but in a way that – sadly – is realistic. Some people just do like asserting their will over people weaker than they are for no good reason. Not every villain is really a nice misunderstood person deep down.

Also, I find it interesting that while Dickens’ heroines are often criticized for being too timid and fluttery and cute, I think it’s made obvious here that Clara’s timidity and flutteriness are definite flaws which do not serve her well at all – if she had a spine, she 1) wouldn’t have married Mr. Murdstone at all, and 2) would not let him walk all over her after she did marry him…which would both obviously have been good things. So I think Dickens had a more nuanced view of womanhood than is sometimes believed.

Chapter 5

Goodness, that waiter was annoying. One begins to uneasily wonder just how much poor little David is going to be swindled by people who should be trying to help him before all is said and done. (I’m also noticing how similar the plot is to Jane Eyre at this point – small child is treated horribly by adult who should have their interest at heart, small child does something perfectly understandable in self-defense, adult is enraged and sends small child away to a dreadful school, small child is automatically branded as being a horror in some way (Jane as a liar, David as one who bites) due to their act of self-defense. Although Salem House really doesn’t seem that bad yet.)

Chapter 6

Anddd there we go, David is swindled of the rest of his money.

I was actually a little surprised at how un-horrible the student body at Salem House is – considering that the basic storyline so far is “everyone is a jerk to David” (well, except everybody connected to Pegotty), I thought for sure all the boys would be jerks too.

Chapter 7

MR. MELL. I LOVE HIM. HE IS MY HERO. Hence why everyone is so horrible to him, I guess…this seems to be that sort of story. Steerforth deserves a nice sock in the jaw of his “noble handsome” face. It is really nauseating how everyone fawns over the little blighter. And Traddles is a brick, dear boy.

Chapter 8

Poor Clara. Truth be told, I think it’s a little implausible that she would have the gumption to insist on keeping Pegotty on when both the Murdstones were set against it.

Chapter 9

Many tears were shed in the reading of this chapter. *sniffles*

(Also, I must say that I was a little surprised that Mr. Murdstone was grieving, too. His character is more complex than just being a monster, after all.)

Chapter 10

Hm, I don’t know. I think Little Em’ly is turning out a bit annoying. (Maybe this is a long shot, but I feel like there might be hints that Steerforth is going to do something to totally ruin Little Em’ly’s life…just thinking of that bit in an earlier chapter where David (as narrator) said something to the effect of wondering if it would have been better for her to die then and there, and also of the fact that in this chapter she was so interested when David was waxing eloquent about how great Steerforth was (go ahead and make me gag, Davy)…and it would just make sense thematically. We’ll see.)

~

Well, that’s that, then! Who knows when the next installment of this will come, since I’m already recovered a good bit by now, and I shan’t have the leisure to sit about reading quite so much…but it will come at some point. I can assure you of that.

(You can read the further installments of my reading of David Copperfield here: Chapters 11-20, Chapters 21-30, Chapters 31-40, Chapters 41-50, and Chapters 51-60.)

Have you read David Copperfield? Have you seen any film versions of it that you can recommend?