David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

As suggested by our book club, we branched out in our selection for this month and tried a classic.  I've read a few Dickens novels way back in my past but had forgotten how long it takes for him to develop his characters, interweave them throughout the story and finally bring it all to a conclusion (850 pages). It is not an easy process to wade through the language of the 1700's, and many times I could not decipher the real intent of a person's statements, as it must not have been politically correct to be direct with one another in that day and age!!                       

David Copperfield writes his story...from very young boyhood through his adult career as a journalist and writer.  Most believe that this is an autobiographical novel of Dickens' life, as there are many parallels.  I'm not sure that I will soon forget his amazing yet comical characters: trusted Traddles, sweet silly Dora, sensible Aunt Trotwood, loving Peggotty, steady Agnes, never wavering Mrs. Micawber, sacrificial Mr. Peggotty, maniacal Heep, and the murderous Murdstones.  Dickens has a wonderful way of bringing characters into his stories who represent all levels of society....some whom I totally dislike upon meeting them, but by the end am persuaded of their strengths and goodnesses.  Writing with a quiet wit and humor, Dickens still manages to attack the ills of the time.  Debtor's prison, child labor, poor living conditions, society's condemnation of immoral women, greed and loss are all brought under the author's scrutiny.

 I fully concur with Algis Valiunas in her April 2021 article 'THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DICKENS' as she concludes:  "There was a darkness in him.  Dickens carried with him all his life the indignity and terror of having been put to menial labor in a shoe polish factory when he was twelve, and he was a cad to his wife after he fell in love with a much younger actress.  But Dickens loved being alive, knew his life was a divine gift, and propagated that love and that knowledge wherever he went.  It was his love that allowed him to construct the most extraordinary fictional world since Shakespeare's: a world uniquely his yet unmistakably our own, poised precariously between good and evil, but tilting in the end toward the eternal victory of faith, charity, compassion and delight.  The canon is forever enriched by the Gospel According to Dickens.  He penned a modern quasi-mythic trove of Christian wisdom and, above  all, joy."