Rating: 
Summary: Life has everything
Review: Charles Dickens is a master at re-creating the world. Throughout most of his books, Dicken's own life is recreated time and again, always with a different plot but with the same basic truths. In "David Copperfield", we go along the protagonist through his troubled and orphane childhood, his sufferings in terrible public schools, his trip to the beach to visit his nanny, his life with the stern yet loving aunt Miss Betsie Trotwood, the intrigues of the despicable yet fearsome Uriah Heep, his marriage to the childish and immature Dora, the betrayal by a trusted friend, success without happiness, and finally the encounter with true love, in the form of a friend from youthness. The characters are all people you find during your own lifetime: your friends, your aunt, your sweetheart, that woman you love but you can't stand, etc. Copperfield is the story of a good man in his learning through difficulties and setbacks. No wonder it is still read and probably will stay alive through the decades: Copperfield has something to tell us all.
Rating:
Summary: The Rich Life of David Copperfield
Review: Dickens' "David Copperfield," despite its dark and overcast tone, is a true pleasure to read. Dickens' longer novels, like this and "Bleak House" may appear to be prohibitively long, but this is only a reader's fallacy. Dickens is one novelist who thrives in, and even requires, an inordinately large canvas to create his masterpieces. "David Copperfield" presents us, through the lens of often idyllic remembrance, with lives, which over the course of our acquaintance, become as real to us now as our own. The novel begins with a tip of the hat to a Lockean 'blank slate' of human experience - one in which David Copperfield presents the text itself, the story of his life, as evidence to the reader, asking us to determine whether he is the 'hero' of his own story. The fatherless Copperfield starts life between two mothers, Clara Copperfield and his nurse/confidant, Peggotty. When his mother marries the firm and controlling Murdstone (and arguably, his sister Jane into the bargain), David enters into the economy of human interaction. Bandied about after his mother's death from the harsh school/prison of Salem House, the harsher world of fiscal self-responsibility at Murdstone and Grinby's, to the irresponsible family environment of the Micawbers - all before he is a teenager - David is continually beset by personal difficulties that challenge and form him. "David Copperfield" is chock-full of fabulously rendered and otherwise memorable characters who all challenge simply being types. David himself is no simple innocent, abandoned, exploited whelp, like an Oliver Twist - David is more like another of Dickens' orphans, Pip in "Great Expectations" who struggles through initial difficulties to cherish and covet the world of prosperity and success, giving a darker cast to his character. Then we have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, whose charming play with language and marital fidelity is often undercut by hyperbolic expressions of devotion to each other. Their constant state of debt and expectation that society owes them a living without putting forth any effort to deserve it also render them problematic. With these examples, I do not mean to qualify the appeal of the characters, but to show how wonderfully complicated and fully realized so many of them are - including the endearing Mr. Dick, the demonic Uriah Heep and the spiteful Rosa Dartle. Dickens makes great effort in "David Copperfield" to show how the blank slates of personhood are formed by social conditions - Victorian gender expectations, economic position, and British imperialism, among others. For example, the first covers the gamut of particularly female experience from the dwarf Miss Mowcher, to the jealous mothers Mrs. Markleham and Mrs. Steerforth, to the confounded prospects of little Em'ly, Julia Mills, and the prostitute Martha. While the novel is not as strictly thematically linked to pressing social problems as some of his other works, broad social themes frame the characters' regard for each other and the institutions of mid-Victorian society. I enjoyed "David Copperfield" so much - I could talk for days about extended motifs of death/suicide, metafiction, and sublimation of instinct to propriety (where David's disturbingly violent impulses are systematically repressed and suppressed). I could also go on about the wide range of Dickens' literary reference, and the use he makes of Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Richardson's "Pamela" and the influence of the major Romantic poets, namely Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Byron. Or I could try tracing the substitute father figure from Shakespeare's Falstaff to Mr. Micawber to the unlikely Humpty Dumpty from "Alice in Wonderland." But I won't. Read "David Copperfield." It is a spectacular entertainment, possessed of - in short, a great novel.
Rating:
Summary: the best of Dickens
Review: I've read nearly all of CD's books, and this is the best, and definitely one of his most humourous works. If you like this, also try picking up Nicholas Nickleby. Have patience, because his books are indeed very long, but this one is truly a delight. CD weaves a tale of an orphaned boy that leaves his cruel stepfather to find a home with a gruff but loving aunt. He makes a life for himself and finds love and happiness, of course. Be sure not to skip throught the book and miss all of the humourous commentary! This is my all-time favorite.
Rating:
Summary: A long book with great rewards...
Review: One of the best things you can say about reading this book is that you feel like dancing a jig when you are done. Mostly because if you read the unabridged version, you've read over a thousand pages. But the ultimate best reason for reading this book is to appreciate Dickens at his best. I didn't have to read David Copperfield (DC) in high school or college. I had to read Great Expectations, which I hated, until after I graduated college read it again and fell in love...but that is besides the point. The point is, I chose to read DC. No one should be made to read this book, because by forcing them to do so, you take away its value. David Copperfield is about David's (or Charles Dickens...as some say) life and the trials he had to go through to become the hero of his life in his own eyes. I'm sure I don't get the subtle hints or clues or symbolisms that one is supposed to take away from great literature, but the one thing that does get conveyed to me from this novel is Dickens' cynacism, sarcasm and often times, wicked humor. All things I love in a conversationalist. It was the reason I was able to complete such a lengthy novel and why I have reread it many times since. Dickens was a superb author with excellent timing and poignant observations of his day, but to me, he's a great comic, which is how I will remember him. Read this book, take your time, enjoy its pages, and all the meaning you'll need you'll discover along the way.
Rating:
Summary: interesting contrast to Great Expectations
Review: If the critics are to be believed, David Copperfield was Dickens favorite of all his books and the most autobiographical. Narrated in the first person, it tells the story of a fatherless boy whose happy life with his mother and their doting servant Clara Peggoty is cruelly ended when his mother remarries. His stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, first sends him away to school (Salem House), where he is abused, then, after David's mother dies, puts him to work gluing labels on bottles. Eventually he runs away and is adopted by his stern but loving aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood. She sends him to a better school (Dr. Strong's) and he is launched on a career that will see him become a law clerk, a reporter and ultimately a successful novelist. He marries Dora, the pretty but insipid daughter of Mr. Spenlow, for whom he clerked. She falls ill and dies after an unsuccessful childbirth and David marries Agnes Wickfield, who had been like a sister to him when he lived with her family while he was at Dr. Strong's school. Such is the basic outline of David's life and it is not much to look at, is it? Nor is David a particularly compelling character--of course, Pip, in Great Expectations, isn't either but he at least is subjected to the demented machinations of Miss Havesham. No, the real strength of this novel does not lie in the narrator; it is the delicious cast of supporting characters who make this novel great. Early in life David is befriended by Peggoty and her wonderful brother Daniel, a fisherman raising his niece and nephew in a converted boat on Yarmouth Sands, and Mr. Barkis, the bachelor cab driver who asks David to inform Peggoty that: "Barkis is willing". While attending Salem House, David lives with the family of Wilkins Micawber, grandiloquent and eternally optimistic in the face of dire financial straights, he is always certain that something will turn up. David's Aunt is amusing, but even better is her friend Mr. Dick, an eccentric author who turns his voluminous masterwork into a kite. Equally good are the villains of the piece. The stepfather and his sister, Jane Murdstone, are wicked enough for a fairy tale. David's schoolboy chum Steerforth proves to be a colossal heel. And there is no more malefic figure in literature than Uriah Heep, the scheming clerk who blackmails Agnes father, steals Betsey Trotwood's money and swears his undying enmity towards David. Covering much of the same territory and offering up similar, but significantly different, characters, Copperfield offers a more benevolent view of life than Great Expectations. Because of this, and the general dyspepsia of literary critics and academics, it is often taken less seriously, tarred as somewhat lightweight. But it is vastly entertaining and if the ending is a little too pat, our complaint is less a function of the mechanics of the conclusion than our disappointment.... By any measure, it must be considered one of the truly great novels. GRADE: A
Rating:
Summary: Great as an ebook
Review: I got the cd of David Copperfield a before school started. Put it on my Mac and found that the computer reads the text with a computer voice but much easier than reading it myself. The easiest book I every read for Lit class. A friend foud they do the same for Windows with a download from QVision's web. This is one of the best things the computer has done for high school.
Rating:
Summary: A 19th Century Dilbert
Review: Dickens writing is hugely entertaining, but it's also a serious criticism of personal and social norms of his time. Dickens' characters are memorable -- and famous -- but they are almost all caricatures. Can Uriah Heep really be so loathsome? Can Mr. Murdstone really be so cold, cruel, and controlling? Can Mr. Creakle really be so incompetent and credulous? These characters aren't meant to be taken seriously any more than Catbert the evil HR director from Dilbert. They're meant to be laughed at and to shine light on the absurdity of certain kinds of behavior. But there is one critical difference: the irrational, absurd, and hypocritical things that Dilbert lampoons are relatively superficial. The ones in David Copperfield are often tragic, with dire consequences that affect people personally - not just their careers. Within this framework, Dickens gives us a wonderful view of early Victorian English society - upper, middle, and lower-class people - teachers, lawyers, fishermen - good people, bad people, and people just trying to get by. Nearly everyone is tested by success, or by failure, or by scandal - or even all three - and some come out the better and some the worse. But with all its richness of characters, the reader is never overwhelmed; they become distinct individuals to us, and we actually care about them and what happens to them. Also like Dilbert, David Copperfield himself is something of an innocent bystander; much of the plot is driven by things people do to him - for good or evil - but he's not actually an interesting part of the action. In fact, if he weren't the narrator, he wouldn't even be a major character, and this has the effect of showcasing the rest of the characters. Thoroughly enjoyable, said to have been Dickens' own favorite among his works, David Copperfield is still a pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: un gran libro, un gran escritor
Review: este extenso(como muchos otros de esa epoca, solo piensen en ana karenina, los hermanos karamazov, que largos eran tambien)en esa epoca los escritores dedicaban mas paginas para sus historias, aunque aun hay libros extensos, como los de normam mailer y los de issac asimov, pero el libro ha tendido a hacerse algo corto, de bolsillo, manejable, practico, en fin esta es la histioria de david copperfield y las peripecias de su vida, es excelente en el tratamiento de la historia aunque a veces resulten cansones tantos detalles con los que se adorna la historia , el titulo original de esta historia es LA HISTORIA DE LA EXPERIENCIA PERSONAL Y LA OBSERVACION DE DAVID COPPERFIELD,EL JOVEN DE BLUNDERSTONE ROOKERY. es un titulo muy largo, pero los escritores de esa epoca querian siempre o en casi todos los casos darle una hojeada , una especie de repaso o de idea de lo que se iba a leer, algo que en los escritores contemporaneos no se usa ya, bueno aunque marquez lo usa en LA TRISTE HISTORIA DE LA ERENDIDA Y SU ABUELA DESALMADA, solo para hacernos recordar un poco. es un libro muy bueno y espero que este siempre entre esos libros que la gente nunca deja pasar y este como el cantico de navidad del mismo escritor, siempre estara con nosotros. LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do
Rating:
Summary: A must-read
Review: David Copperfield is one of those books that you must read at least once in your life. It is rich, sad, happy, sweet and sour all at the same time. Written as an autobiography, the book narrates the life of a fatherless child who becomes an orphan at the early age of about eight or nine years. The story continues throughout David Copperfield's life and the plot is as rich as the characters he meets during the book. One of Charles Dickens most notable qualities is how well he creates and describes the characters in his books. And David Copperfield presents plenty of them, some of the most famous: the strong-minded Betsey Trotwood, the lovely Peggotty family, the persuasive Steerforth, the wise Agnes, the ugly Uriah Heep and of course the micawberish Mr Micawber. All of them are so amazing and yet so real... Dickens put a lot of effort to write this book and it is sometimes difficult to know if David Copperfield is a fictitious autobiographical book or the biography of Dickens himself. It is therefore not at all surprising that of all his books, Dickens likes this the best.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary; May Be the Best Classic of All Time
Review: This is such a masterpiece; words do not do it justice. David Copperfield is a favorite of many famous authors; it's easy to see why. Everyone should read David Copperfield, period! Regardless of your gender, ethnicity, nationality, religious perspective, or personality, there is something here for you. Little Davy suffers, but then gains what we all want: deep, lifelong friendships, unconditional acceptance, and true love. David Copperfield is worth reading just to be introduced to Ham (a selfless hero) and Betsy Trotwood (a strong, fantastic, funny woman)! You will never forget this great classic. Read it to your children; buy it for your friends. Read it just for yourself. It beats years of therapy. You will be a better person for it, and isn't that why we read the great works?
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