What ho, what ho! We’re back once again for the second to last installment of my reading David Copperfield: Chapters 51-60. (This is a long book, my friends. In case you were wondering.)
You can read my other Reading David Copperfield installments here: Chapters 1-10, Chapters 11-20, Chapters 21-30, Chapters 31-40, Chapters 41-50, and Chapters 61-64.
Ready? Here goes!
(As usual, there will be spoilers. You have been warned.)
Chapter 51
Hmm…I’m not sure I approve of the idea of Mr. Peggotty’s sending the money back to Steerforth and his mother…I’m afraid of Miss Dartle’s getting mad and making more mischief.
Aw, the second half of this chapter is so quietly sad and gloomy. Why can’t Ham just go with them and marry Em’ly after all? Would that be such a problem?
Chapter 52
Mr. Micawber saves the day! What fun. He really is well-meaning and not manipulatively malicious, as I was afraid he would turn out! (I’m a little sad he and Mrs. Micawber are emigrating…must everyone either die or go to Australia?)
Also, Miss Betsey has to stop lying about things. It’s confusing.
Chapter 53
Tears were shed.
Chapter 54
I don’t really like the idea of Uriah Heep just being loose in London…I expect he’ll cause more trouble yet.
Chapter 55
Wow…talk about heavy chapters to get through. I thought I was supposed to be reading Charles Dickens here, not Victor Hugo. (Though as I think of it, is it really any heavier than the chapter “What Was Caught in the Traps That Were Set” in Our Mutual Friend? Maybe not.) And not just heavy…nightmare-ish. The vibe of this chapter is very, very like a nightmare. (But truth be told, I thought for a bit that somehow everyone who was emigrating – the Micawbers and Peggottys and all – would be out on the sea during the storm and be killed. So it could have been even more traumatic than it was.)
I must say, though, that the word-painting and atmosphere and everything are created expertly in this chapter. I can almost feel the beat of waves on me now as I pause reading to type this.
Chapter 56
Miss Dartle is a nut. (Also, I said she was in love with Steerforth herself back in Chapter 32, and so can now feel triumphant.) And I do feel sorry for Mrs. Steerforth.
Also…I’m sorry. I know this was a very different sort of context, but when David was trying (with limited success) to intervene when Miss Dartle was raging at Mrs. Steerforth, I couldn’t help but think of Bertie Wooster trying to interfere when Laura Pyke and Bingo’s wife, Rosie, were having a bickering match:
… “Tchah!” said the Pyke.
“And don’t say ‘Tchah!'” said Mrs. Bingo.
“I shall say whatever I please,” said the Pyke.
“Ladies, ladies!” I said. “Ladies, ladies, ladies!”
It was rash. Looking back, I can see that. One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-nurtured a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crêpe and instructing its friends to stand round and say what a pity it all is.
Chapter 57
Gosh, that is a hard situation David is in with the Peggottys…I was kind of dreading his telling them about Ham, so I admit I was very relieved that he didn’t. On the other hand, lying is not good. I think this is the sort of case in which not revealing the truth of what happened while at the same time not actually fabricating anything would be best. I’m inclined to think that this is a case where it would have been a sin against charity to give them all the gory details.
And aw, I wish that David could have at least said goodbye to Em’ly before she left.
Chapter 58
Okay, I have to think that that chapter near the end of The Secret Garden in which Mr. Craven finally decides to come home was inspired by this chapter here. They are so similar.
Also, maybe this just shows me up as shallow and ignorant, but I must say that I think all that “I lost my chance and now I can’t ever tell her! Marrying her now would be wrong!” stuff is just silly. If she loved you before, why would she love you less now? How are you to know that she only loves you like a brother now? How are you ever going to know anything about how she feels unless you ask her? Huh? Are you saying that just because you were stupid before, you have to now punish yourself and potentially her for the rest of your life? THAT’S STUPID, DAVID.
Chapter 59
Aw, poor sweet Traddles is married at last! And it seems that everyone still uses him and his wife as a doormat, but it seems to be to the satisfaction of everybody, including them, so I suppose we’ll roll with it.
Also, although I think the fact that Mr. and Miss Murdstone have destroyed another woman’s life is horrible, David’s conversation with little Mr. Chillip about the Murdstones amused me exceedingly…here are a few bits I especially liked:
“Well, sir,” replied Mr. Chillip, “a medical man, being so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir – both as to this life and the next.”
“The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say,” I returned.
~
“Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,” pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, “that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say, sir,” he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, “that I don’t find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament!”
“I never found it either,” said I.
Chapter 60
DAVID. WHY. ARE YOU. SO. STUPID. How blasted obvious do Miss Betsey and Agnes have to make it that Agnes is in love with you??
But I know that he does stop being stupid eventually, because I know (both from spoilers and from a comment David-as-narrator dropped before) that David does eventually have children, and I know that he’s not going to marry someone other than Agnes. (I’m pretty sure that I saw it explicitly stated that he married Agnes, but I was wrong about other things I thought I knew, so now I am doubting everything.)
Well, that’s that for reading David Copperfield: Chapters 51-60! What would you have told the Peggottys if you were in David’s place? Does the trope of the hero nobly not asking the heroine (WHEN HE ACTUALLY HAS NO IDEA OF HER REAL FEELINGS) annoy you?
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Depressing, now, eh? Ah, Dickens. You do take your readers on a wild ride.
(I haven’t read the post, but I like the little sub-titles you’ve got going. Certainly whetting my interest . . . Once school is over I shall treat myself to some Dickens, as Anne Shirley said. :D)
He does indeed…talk about emotional roller-coasters!
(I’m glad you’re enjoying them! I wasn’t using sub-titles at first, but I eventually realized how much more interesting the post titles would be if I did. Yes, do follow Anne’s example once you have the leisure! I think you’d like David Copperfield…it’s not as good as Great Expectations (in my opinion, anyway), but it’s still pretty fantabulous.)
What fun! Depression and unrequited (?) love, and GOING TO AUSTRALIA—what more could one ask of a beloved Dickens novel?
David should just go ahead and stop being daft, already. I mean, he was always rather a blithering idiot, but has he got to be so FORWARD about it? Just ask Agnes already, you twerp.
(Just gonna go ahead and clarify that Dora has passed into the realm of the dead at this point. Just so we’re clear.)
Yep, just Dickens at his Dickens-iest!
This is true. David always was rather an idiot. (At least he’s an endearing idiot – rather like Marius Pontmercy (although even David does not reach Marius-levels of idiocy. Heh).) You’d think that maybe he’d be less of one at this point, once he’s gone through so much and actually grown up and such, but no.
Oh whoops, I didn’t mention that, did I? If anybody is reading this post who doesn’t already know the story, be assured that David is NOT married while Astrya and I are berating him for not proposing to Agnes. 😛