David Copperfield Dickensalong

[Piggywaspushed]

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?

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

It does seem so ! Feeling very virtuous!

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

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.

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.

I did put that knowing I was stirring a hornets nest

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).

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

*want

Oh no I am so far behind. I thought I had omly to read to chapter 12 for February and read something else instead, but I should have read to 18! Another 90 pages to go.
I have read all the chat anyway, I sometimes find these sorts of books easier to get through if I know the story in advance, if that makes sense.

nowanearlyNicemum Dickens's father was in debt and someone suggested to the family that he (Charles) could help the situation by earning some money - they sent him to work at the blacking factory just off the Strand (and later in Covent Garden) and he was completely traumatised by it. He was 11/12.

The person he really blamed was his mother because when his father came out of prison (having managed to pay his debts) and Charles was discharged from the factory, she tried to get him kept on. He never forgot that and it coloured his attitude to women forever after. He supported his parents financially (and his brothers and sisters too) for years but always with a sort of suppressed impatience at their improvidence. Those childhood memories of feeling like an abandoned outcast from the family went very deep with him, I think.

I never read a single thing by Dickens in school. We did Romeo and Juliet and that is the only Shakespeare I remember too. I am in Scotland, we must have read more Scottish authors but I really don't remember. Liz Lochhead is the only one that sticks in my mind. There must have been some Burns poetry. Edwin Morgan, we read his poems. I can't remember a single other thing.

And even as an adult I have mostly avoided all the classics, although I read a lot. But rarely anything written more than about 50 years ago.

So I'm really enjoying reading all you have to say about this book, it's so interesting. I guess it's never too late to start.

I was in Scotland, too. We also did no Dickens! Lots of Shakespeare, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies and done Arthur Miller. And then Brecht, Hardy and Burns later. Did you do Sunset Song?

OK, so I've just read Chapter 19 and was COMPLETELY LOST throughout the whole section with the discussion between Dr Strong, Mr Wickfield, Annie, Mrs Markleham. And I mean COMPLETELY LOST!! If anyone could enlighten me I'd be most grateful

not til March 1st!

Nicemum I was equally a bit lost on that one. Dickens does like to throw a lot of characters into the mix. I've decided that if he were alive today he'd be a script writer for Eastenders or the like.

Gradesaver DC Summary chapters 16-20

Cliffnotes and Sparknotes also have more in depth chapter by chapter analysis, but this one is very simple.

Which Chapter are we reading up to for April 1st?

Ermmm... yes, I meant April 1st

We are reading the next three lots in my OP, so Chaps 19 -27.

I find Mr Wickfield confusing full stop!