I’m a little over 80% of the way through David Copperfield. I give you a percentage because I am reading it on my Kindle and I have no idea what this looks like in terms of the print book. I am enjoying the book very much but I have come to a place where I feel guilty.
You see earlier in the book David met and fell in love with Dora. Dora is an affectionate airhead and so completely the wrong woman for David. But youth and love and youth in love don’t always make the best choices. And so David marries her in spite me repeatedly telling him not to. It is so frustrating when characters do not obey one’s wishes! And of course the marriage is a disaster, though David doesn’t realize it at first while in the clutches of newlywed bliss. But as time goes on and Dora refuses to act anything other than a child, he regrets his choice. He loves her still, but he wishes he had someone with sense with whom he could actually talk about things.
While David continues to love Dora in spite of all, she is nails on a chalkboard to me and I just want to slap her. Hard. I, of course, know exactly who David should marry. And so I have been reading and hoping that maybe something will happen to Dora. I thought she could die in childbirth and that would be just fine.
Then we are told she has a baby, but the baby was sickly and dies very soon after birth. Dora, however, never quite recovers and she begins a slow decline. I almost cheered. Dora’s going to die and David can marry the right person, hooray! And then I felt really, really guilty. As Dora goes downhill she makes me feel worse and worse for wishing her dead. For in her decline she remains cheerful, sunny, and affectionate which shows she has some strength of character in there after all. In my wish for her demise I am no better than the wicked Uriah Heep!
If Dora’s death turns out to be an affecting scene that brings tears to my eyes I am not sure if that will mean I can be forgiven for wishing her ill or that I am being punished for it by being made to cry in public (this being my commute book I am always in public while reading it). Perhaps I should start carrying a handkerchief I can throw over my face like they do in the book. No one will know what I am doing under that handkerchief! I might even frighten enough people that the transit police will show up to talk to me. Wouldn’t that be exciting? They’d haul me off for a psych eval if I tell them I am upset over my book. Would serve me right I guess for wishing Dora dead.
Even though I’m not reading it, but I’ve been following your reader’s response on DC, Stefanie. You sure have a soft heart. Interesting, I can see parallel of your being so involved with the characters, and hoping you can have a say in the matchmaking with us watching Downton Abbey. But of course, we know who the Grand Matchmakers are, CD and JF. Just shows how powerful stories are.
LikeLike
Arti, it is startling how involved we can get in a book and how real the characters can seem. You are right, it does show how powerful stories are.
LikeLike
It’s not your fault, it’s Dickens’! Blame him for writing her that way and for writing such a great book. 🙂
LikeLike
Loni, thanks for exonerating me! 🙂
LikeLike
My kids used to make fun of me a little bit when I would cry over a book. I got them back, though. One time I read a new David Sedaris book in public while waiting for them to get through with their swimming lessons. I have a big, loud laugh and it was well nigh uncontrollable. None of us will ever forget that day.
LikeLike
Jeanne, what an excellent story! I think it near impossible to not laugh out loud over Sedaris. As for crying over a book, thank goodness my husband does it too so neither of us can tease the other about it.
LikeLike
You have been surprised into sympathy, just as Dickens intended. It is a testament to the power of fiction that we can become sympathetic even to Dora.
Your violence still shocks me, and I honestly do not believe a hard slap would do what you wanted in this case, unless what you wanted is loud wails and copious tears.
80% is, in Penguin Classics terms, about 640 pages. A little more maybe.
LikeLike
Tom, yes, Dickens is a manipulative SOB and he does it so well most of the time that it does leave one surprised. A hard slap to Dora wouldn’t do her a bit of good but I’d feel better and then immediately regret it! About page 640? Goodness I knew this was a long book but I didn’t realize just how long. But the pacing is done pretty well so it rarely sags. Another admirable skill Dickens had.
LikeLike
Stephanie, I think I might be more tempted to slap Dickens for creating such a chauvinistic and, in the worst sense, Victorian portrayal of a woman character.
LikeLike
Ian, LOL, I don;t blame Dickens oddly enough. As Rohan notes he knew what he was about. I dare say there were plenty of airhead child-wives who vexed their husbands but it served them right for thinking that kind of women to be the best kind.
LikeLike
I too hate Dora, but I always cry when she dies. So, no slapping from me! 🙂 And especially, I’d say, no slaps for Dickens, who knows perfectly well that Dora is all wrong. Yes, she is in the worst sense a ‘Victorian’ woman character, and Dickens is pretty brilliantly debunking that ideal. Grown-up (narrator) David understands: that’s why he blames his ‘undisciplined heart’ for loving her. Foolish boy! Which is not to say there aren’t some annoying things about the right woman in the novel too, but Dickens is hardly holding Dora up as a good example or endorsing the idea of a child-wife.
LikeLike
Rohan, Oh yes, Dickens is a crafty fellow and knew exactly what he was about. David’s own mother is constantly called a baby and we already know how things did not work out so well for her. I kept thinking how very Freudian it was for David to marry his mother. DC was written before Freud came on the scene but it adds a bit of the creep factor for a more modern reader. I will be sure to have the handkerchief ready when I reach Dora’s death scene!
LikeLike
Oh goodness me I enjoyed reading this so so much! It’s been a good ten years since I laid hands on David Copperfield and your agony over it is only making me want to go back!
LikeLike
baduquainutter, thanks! This is my first time reading David Copperfield and I am enjoying it very much!
LikeLike
I don’t like Dora, charecter or not!! Its just one of those things…so don’t feel too bad!! On a different note, I am a weeper and tears have often rolled down my cheeks on bus/trains when “its one of those moments” in a book – most of the time the person sitting next to me gives me a weird look and start playing with their phone. No drama!!!Sigh!!
LikeLike
cirtnecce, I try so hard to not cry on public transit that when I feel the tears start to come I know I must make the weirdest faces. For some reason I think weird faces are better than actually letting the tears fall. I carefully avoid looking at anyone because I don’t want to know if anyone is noticing!
LikeLike
Lots of Dickens’ young male characters fall for the wrong woman in the first place – although not all of them get as far as marriage, thank goodness. I’m another one who has no time for Dora but if you’re worried about crying in public I would give yourself a good reading session at home one evening and get yourself past that section, then you can cry in private to your heart’s content.
LikeLike
Alex, you know, you are right! I hadn’t really noticed that before. When I get close to Dora’s end I might just have to be sure to read that part at home. Bookman totally understands crying over a book since he does it. At the moment, Heep is about to get his comeuppance and I am having a hard time not cheering on David, Traddles and Micawber out loud! 🙂
LikeLike
Darn that Dickens for manipulating your feelings! What an unforgiveably gifted writer! 🙂
LikeLike
Litlove, LOL, I know, it’s just unacceptable!
LikeLike
I really liked this when I read it–one of my more successul Dickens’ ventures! I can’t remember now, however, if any scenes elicited tears from me or not. Victorian writers always match their heroes and heroines with the wrong people-Wilkie Collins did the same more than once! I want to read A Tale of Two Cities this year–but must first get going again on Balzac–I am a good twenty pages lagging behind you now—so you are going to spur me on to pay him more attention this weekend!
LikeLike
Danielle, I don;t know why it took me so long to get to David Copperfield but I am glad I finally have. I have read Tale of Two Cities. That’s a good one that almost made me cry in public at the end. I am very slow through Balzac so don”t worry. He doesn’t let one go very fast, does he?
LikeLike
It is a powerful testament to Dickens though [no, not your cat!] how much he can make us FEEL for a character, like Dora, or David for that matter. Isn’t he a gem? It’s such a great book, Copperfield is.
LikeLike
Cipriano, a gem indeed. I usually resent it when an author is so manipulative of my emotions but Dickens does it so well I don’t mind at all!
LikeLike
Love everything Dickens. But just think of all the hundreds of thousands of times…probably more…that poor Dora has to suffer her travails. Every single time someone picks up the book to read it, she has to go through the whole thing again! So, a little compassion, please.
LikeLike
Grad, heh, have you been reading Thursday Next? 😉
LikeLike
Oh crying over a book in public. I hate doing that but what can you do when you have such a good book right? I really must read more Dickens!
LikeLike
Iliana, instead of hiding tears I should be flaunting them, making everyone want to know what I am reading!
LikeLike