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David Copperfield Dickensalong

539 replies

Piggywaspushed · 04/01/2020 11:36

Hello All

Inspired by the Bleak House readalong, I have decided this might be the year to tackle David Copperfield.

Those of us who did BH read it obediently in Dickens' instalments ,which wasn't to everyone's taste! We had a chat at the end of each month. It took 18 months and I think we had three stalwarts left at the end.

DC was published as follows (note different months!):

• I – May 1849 (chapters 1–3);
• II – June 1849 (chapters 4–6);
• III – July 1849 (chapters 7–9);
• IV – August 1849 (chapters 10–12);
• V – September 1849 (chapters 13–15);
• VI – October 1849 (chapters 16–18);
• VII – November 1849 (chapters 19–21);
• VIII – December 1849 (chapters 22–24);
• IX – January 1850 (chapters 25–27);
• X – February 1850 (chapters 28–31);
• XI – March 1850 (chapters 32–34);
• XII – April 1850 (chapters 35–37);
• XIII – May 1850 (chapters 38–40);
• XIV – June 1850 (chapters 41–43);
• XV – July 1850 (chapters 44–46);
• XVI – August 1850 (chapters 47–50);
• XVII – September 1850 (chapters 51–53);
• XVIII – October 1850 (chapters 54–57);
• XIX-XX – November 1850 (chapters 58–64).

I am happy to negotiate reading faster so that we tackle three instalments at a time? Thus , the first would be Chapter 1 -9 and we would be finished in the summer.

What does everyone think?

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Thread gallery
21
nowanearlyNicemum · 01/03/2020 16:30

Have decided to get going on Chapter 19. What to know what David, Betsey and Mr Dick get up to next...

nowanearlyNicemum · 01/03/2020 16:28

piggy mine was George Eliot - I blinking loved Silas Marner and I'm pretty sure that if I'd read it on my own at 14 or 15 or 16 (can't remember which year I read it in) I wouldn't have got half as much out of it.

This is why my blood is boiling at DD2 having had to read Les Misérables alone during the holidays. I've had to re-read with her to help her understand what the hell is going on.

nowanearlyNicemum · 01/03/2020 16:25

Interesting background about the relevance of the Micawbers. Thanks for filling in my poor knowledge of Dickens' life.

KeithLeMonde · 01/03/2020 15:57

I loved the more difficult texts that we learned at school (thank you teachers, even in a crappy 80s comprehensive ❤️ ) and hated the classics that I attempted on my own. I was definitely too young to appreciate them properly on my own, and my teachers really helped to fill in both meaning and context.

Apart from Mansfield Park. I'm afraid no-one could make that any better!

Going back to Copperfield, there is some great stuff here. Aunt B Vs the Murdstones was reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennett facing down Lady Catherine de Burgh - was cheering her on! I wonder if/when we will see them again.

I also have some suspicions that a certain older boy from a certain school may come back in a certain context - looking forward to finding out whether that's right or not.

Uriah Heep so well described! You can see why he remained such a well known character

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 15:43

Oh , I absolutely did not think you did, don't worry!

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FortunaMajor · 01/03/2020 15:25

I wasn't meaning it from a teacher bashing perspective Piggy, just a little good natured teasing. I genuinely think most teachers are saints. Sadly I remember a lot of reading aloud as a class and copying notes from an OHP in a leaking prefab. Although I can still recite chunks of Browning and remember enjoying that. I just wonder from a personal viewpoint if I would have had a different reaction to the authors if I had read them as I would have done any other book, rather than walking away with a poor attitude and a bit of a 'Kevin and Perry' I hate this strop.

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 14:00

Is that TS or George? If TS, then (Voltaire aside) those are exactly the things I studied! With additional Burns, obviously because Scottish.

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Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 13:59

Oh yes, I can tell that fortuna by your innocent opining that you would rather have read the book at home and then discussed it . Some of my A Level classes get to the exam not quite knowing what books they should have read!

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nowanearlyNicemum · 01/03/2020 13:29

I couldn't agree more that it depends on the teaching!! I adored Hardy, Shakespeare, Eliot, George Bernard Shaw... thanks to a fab English teacher but detested Voltaire, Camus and Maupassant which I blame (wrongly or rightly!) on a seriously uninspiring French teacher.

FortunaMajor · 01/03/2020 12:53

I did put that knowing I was stirring a hornets nest Wink

My Spanish lit teacher at 6th form was a legend. Sadly English and French lit was largely uninspiring for me. (Promise I wasn't a sod, I was a proper inky fingered little swot).

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 12:27

Oh no, I can't agree as an English teacher! My year 10s loved A Christmas Carol so much they applauded it and my hairdresser was talking the other day about how fondly she remembered Of Mice and Men.
Reading Hardy at school made me do an English degree.

I think it does depend on the teaching.

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FortunaMajor · 01/03/2020 12:24

I think any book studied at school is a death knell for enjoyment. I blame my Dickens refusal on trauma from reading Oliver Twist in the 3rd form. The Hobbit was equally massacred the same year. I would have preferred to go away and read each through on my own terms and then come back to study it as a class after the fact.

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 12:09

It does seem so ! Feeling very virtuous!

Not sure my DS, who did Great Expectations for GCSE, would agree.

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nowanearlyNicemum · 01/03/2020 11:56

I thought this WAS a self-help group, piggy ;)

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 11:38

If anyone else gets the Sunday Times, do read page 13 : Dickens better for mental health than self-help groups .Good to hear!

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Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 11:05

It's a shame that's such an ugly mug, as it were!

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Terpsichore · 01/03/2020 11:04

I suspect one reason for DC's seeming innocence is that the early part of the book is so heavily autobiographical and Dickens was so vividly reliving his own experiences. He took large parts of the blacking factory episode directly from his own life - at the point of writing the book he hadn't told anyone about it, not even his closest friends, and it was a source of intense pain and shame for him.

His parents were the Micawbers: his father was permanently in debt and was sent to the Marshalsea (debtors) prison. All the things that happened to the Micawbers (bailiffs pursuing them, having to pawn everything, moving to escape their creditors) happened to the Dickens family. And in later life Dickens had an absolute horror of debt and a terror of being poverty-stricken. He also never forgave his parents.

Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 10:52

There are a whole load of very interesting novels and non fiction books about insane asylums kicking around at the moment, some better written that others. I liked The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale, for example, and The Ballroom by Anna Hope and Dark Water by I forget who are also good.

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Piggywaspushed · 01/03/2020 10:48

As you know I love Janet! Donkeys!

But I also liked the page where he 'fell in love' with the schoolgirl. I thought that was really sweetly done and actually proper laughed at that and the donkeys, which one does always expect to do with Victorian literature. (although Dairyman Dick in Tess also makes me laugh)

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FortunaMajor · 01/03/2020 10:45

I'm finding it hard to keep track of everyone but found a kids study guide that is helping. They do all seem to be caricatures without much depth at this point. I'm getting quite annoyed with DCs naivety.

I fell apart at Janet! Donkeys! as my friend Janet is in a similar situation with dogs on her lawn.

As last time I've over read and gone to the end of chapter 20. I'm holding off until the last week and then I'm struggling to stop. I'm surprised to be enjoying it so much as I haven't had that positive an experience with Dickens in the past.

Terpsichore · 01/03/2020 10:33

It is Peter Capaldi, yes.

BookWitch · 01/03/2020 10:05

@ChessieFL I think it is Peter Capaldi but I'll stand corrected by someone who has seen it

BookWitch · 01/03/2020 10:02

Dickens is certainly a master of names.
The only other books I've read is Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol - love Fezziwig, Mr Bumble, Mr Sowerberry, Bob Cratchit - all genius.

BookWitch · 01/03/2020 09:58

@Terpsichore so do I. I read a book on the history of Broadmoor a few years ago and there was a list of things women could be put away for. Like "Female Melancholy and hysteria" (Probably PMT or menopause symptoms) or "lewd sexual behaviour" (enjoying sex).

I missed the film in the cinema, will wait until I've finished the book before I watch the DVD. It should be out by then Grin