David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens 

Doff your top hat! Fire up the tea kettle! Add the letter U to words! It’s time for another DICKENS TUESDAY!!! And today’s book is one of my favoUrites!

I picked this up a few years ago. At the time, the only other work by Dickens I read was A Christmas Carol, which I loved. But A Christmas Carol is a mere short story or novella or…I don’t know what the rules are for what is and isn’t a full-blown novel. David Copperfield is a great big book, a book without any Muppets. 

But I gave it a go and I’m glad I did. This Charles Dickens guy? He’s pretty good at writing. 

One of the surprising things about this book is how funny it is – genuinely funny. There are jokes and bits that feel just as fresh today as they were in the late 19th century. 

The story follows the titular Dave as he makes his way in the crazy British world. The book takes its time (perhaps because Dickens was dragging the story out in serialized format and wanted to get more money by taking his sweet time), and there are entire chapters where not a lot happens. For instance, there’s a chapter in which Dave almost gets a haircut. That’s it. It doesn’t sound compelling, but the scene where he almost gets a haircut is great! There’s a little person who cuts hair and she’s among the big roster of Dickens characters who are completely nutty! She only has two or three scenes in the whole novel, but she’s memorable and delightful. 

And that’s what this book is: Memorable and delightful.

Is it long? Yep. 

Is it good? Double yep.

David is a likeable character. He has a run of bad luck; his parents die (because this is a Charles Dickens character, afterall), his stepfather is cruel, he’s forced to work in a factory, but even as a poor kid, he’s never a sad sack. He’s not happy-go-lucky, either. In the character scale of positivity he exists somewhere between Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson. He’s kind, thoughtful and a little dumb – like a great dog! 

If you want to take a trip into non-Muppets Dickens, this is a good place to start. You don’t need to understand the British legal system (unlike Bleak House) or world history (unlike A Tale of Two Cities), so you can just jump right in. It’s a big book, but it’s never slow, even if not a lot happens. That’s one of the magic tricks Dickens pulls off – making a boring thing somehow interesting and often funny. I loved it!

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