Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
21
Terpsichore · 01/07/2020 11:14

Yes, it was great. SUCH a lot to get our teeth into!

I clocked the miscarriage ref but he did it so very discreetly - I guess it wasn't an easy/socially acceptable topic for a male author to broach, although of course Dickens personally (and his wife even more so) had a lot of experience of it. One wonders how Dora would have fared with modern medical intervention.....but yes, I really liked the way DC learned his lesson about Dora and taking people as they are, not as you'd wish them to be. Even if she was, erm, supremely annoying.

I though Peggotty stayed in old Blighty. When they go aboard the ship in Gravesend DC says he 'took my weeping nurse upon my arm and hurried away'.....I gathered that she was the only one of the family not to go.

I did feel it was a bit much saddling poor Mr Peggotty with the sponging Micawbers, though......he'd never be free of them in Oz.

Terpsichore · 01/07/2020 11:17

Sorry, I mean Peggotty doesn't go, as in DC's nurse. Mr Peggotty does go, obvs, and the rest as Keith says 👆

KeithLeMonde · 01/07/2020 11:22

Oops sorry, my mistake for putting "Peggoty" when I meant MR Peggoty.

Terpsichore · 01/07/2020 12:06

More revelations about Miss Trotwood too. I haven't read all of Dickens so can't definitively claim that she's his most rounded and successful female character - but she's got to be well up there. She's become a really well-developed personality with a back-story and an emotional life, not just a caricature.

Piggywaspushed · 01/07/2020 12:30

She definitely passes the Bechdel test!

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 01/07/2020 12:32

I meant Mr Peggoty myself... Blush

I think a surplus of Peggotys, Marthas and Em'lys got to me and, yes , the fact that he seems to wave the ship off twice!

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 01/07/2020 12:34

Ok, just read fortunas update and feel immensely thick.

I didn't know Mrs Gummidge went . not that I ever noticed her

I didn't know, or rapidly forgot, that Ham died. Damn you Steerforth for stealing his thunder!!

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 01/07/2020 12:35

Oh and JIP ! Sad Sad

It's like in my GCSE quizzes when I ask them for a Macbeth bodycount...

OP posts:
KeithLeMonde · 01/07/2020 12:51

I can entirely sympathise, Piggy. The trouble with Mrs G is there is only so much time that one can devote to reading about her being a lone lorn creature etc so after a while you just skip her bits. So it's entirely her own fault if you fail to notice that in the middle of one of her repetitive soliloquies she sneaks in the fact that she's going to emigrate to Australia Grin

KeithLeMonde · 01/07/2020 12:52

Also, yes. Everyone is dead or has emigrated!

ChessieFL · 01/07/2020 13:14

I completely missed the Dora miscarriage reference.

I also found the storm at sea chapter very confusing - I had to go back and reread a couple of times to try and work out who had died!

bibliomania · 02/07/2020 08:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request (and with huge apologies!) as it contained spoilers.

bibliomania · 02/07/2020 08:42

Grr, typos and autocorrect are a bad mix.

Piggywaspushed · 02/07/2020 08:43

Aaarh! My eyes . No film spoilers please!! Thank you ...

OP posts:
bibliomania · 02/07/2020 08:49

Oops, sorry.. Although arguably reading the book before seeing the film is a pretty massive spoiler - this is just about a tweak round the edges.

Piggywaspushed · 02/07/2020 08:52

I know , true, but it's the way round I always do it as I am always interested to see what has been left out, left in, altered or kept the same.

OP posts:
bibliomania · 02/07/2020 09:05

Have asked for post to be deleted - didn't mean to spoil anyone's film enjoyment.

Terpsichore · 02/07/2020 10:14

I missed the spoiler...intrigued now! I did see the film before I started the book, though - so I've been very interested to see which bits Armando Iannucci missed out, kept in, and/or elided.

FortunaMajor · 02/07/2020 12:12

I'd forgotten I'm allowed to watch the film now!

I've been really strict in recent years - no film or tv adaptations of a book if I haven't read it. I do try to leave a gap though as if I watch immediately after the book I spend the whole time muttering.

Piggywaspushed · 02/07/2020 12:14

Don't worry biblio. Am so busy being angry with the government that it's water off a duck's back! Just didn't want a whole conversation to open up!

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 02/07/2020 19:45

Topical Tweet!

Just been listening to Gavin Williamson.
Streuth !
He has so missed his vocation.
He should be auditioning for the role of Uriah Heep in some provincial am dram production.
His monotone obsequious delivery totally detracts attention from the content

OP posts:
ChessieFL · 03/07/2020 17:34

My DVD of the film has arrived today so hoping to get chance to watch that over the weekend now I’ve finished the book! I’m very interested to see how the parts are played and which plot points have or have not been included.

Piggywaspushed · 03/07/2020 17:39

I'm v excited. Perhaps we could meet to discuss the film in August?

I am excited to finish the book, and watch the film!

OP posts:
FortunaMajor · 03/07/2020 21:19

@Piggywaspushed

I'm v excited. Perhaps we could meet to discuss the film in August?

I am excited to finish the book, and watch the film!

I like this, unpicking film vs book would be really interesting.
Piggywaspushed · 03/07/2020 21:34

Let's do it!

OP posts: