Book Review: David Copperfield

For my birthday, my parents took me on a mini-holiday to Broadstairs in Kent. I didn't know much about it before we went, but Dad happened to mention that there was a Charles Dickens museum and that we'd probably go see it. Now, I haven't read a lot of Charles Dickens. I know the stories, of course, but as far as actual reading goes, I'd read most of A Christmas Carol, the opening of A Tale of Two Cities and about a third of Hard Times. I decided I should probably try to fix that before going to a whole museum dedicated to the man, and looking through my house David Copperfield was all I could turn up. 

Expectations 

Exceedingly low. I like what I've read of A Christmas Carol, but I couldn't get through Hard Times and I knew nothing about David Copperfield except a vague idea it was the story of a man's life. Having now read it, I think I was confusing it with The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.

Positives 

I was pleasantly surprised! This is very different to Hard Times, much less bleak and depressing. I warmed up to the characters relatively quickly, and there were such a lot of different stories that it was easy to stay interested.

Negatives 

There is still something of a language hurdle to get over, and the book is really long, but for all that I enjoyed reading it. (It probably helped that I got the bulk of it read on holiday, I wasn't carting it back and forth to work for longer than a week.)

Final Thoughts 

I've been meaning to give Dickens another try. I thought I'd start with Nicholas Nickelby or The Pickwick Papers. I definitely didn't expect to start with anything this long, but I'm very glad I picked it up. 3 stars.