The first half of David Copperfield, concerning the struggles of the young boy against repressive step-parents and draconian schoolmasters, is one of the greatest, most affecting novels ever written.

The second half, as the boy grows into a famous writer involved in the intrigues of his friends and lovers, is merely a good and affecting Dickens novel.

One would be less disappointed with the second half if the first were not such a masterpiece.

The novel starts very quickly with David's birth and the travails of his childhood. It follows—so honestly and naturally that the plot seems to write itself—through his various persecutions by elders to his adolescent introduction into the lower rungs of society amid the poor fishermen on the coast and the poverty-stricken Micawber family in the city. Dickens appears not be writing this at all but reporting it as it happens. The reader has no time to consider how well the story is told but is swept along on a tide of anxiety and hope.

This critical division of the novel into halves is perhaps too neat, as the shift occurs gradually. Traces of both Dickensian approaches are found in both parts. But the overall shift from demythologizing to enforcing new myths takes place nonetheless. In fact, you can find this in several of Dickens's works. It's what leads some people to acclaim Dickens as the hard-eyed social critic at the same time as others decry his unrealistic plots and excessive sentimentality, as if they were talking about two different writers.

The most astounding aspect of David Copperfield though is that it is just bursting with intriguing characters. David's lovable nurse Peggotty who fills in for his weak widowed mother. The stern brother and sister Murdstone who, as his step-parents, make the lad's life a misery. Creakle, the ignorant, vicious schoolmaster. David's eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood who takes him in. Her lodger Mr. Dick, an amiable lunatic whose thoughts are repeatedly commandeered by the decapitated King Charles. Mr. Micawber, a well-meaning, verbose ne'er-do-well who has become a bigger legend than Copperfield. Uriah Heep who pretends humility but whose name has become a watchword for a scheming villain. Many more. No wonder it's been joked that David Copperfield is the least interesting character in his own novel.

The creation and handling of so many memorable characters in a single cohesive novel is such an accomplishment that it seems niggling to complain about the seams of the novel sometimes showing.

I may wish that the moving reportage of human suffering in his society led Dickens and his characters to natural consequences in the novels, rather than to heart-warming panaceas. But if it did, Dickens's work might not have accommodated all the characters we've come to love. It might not have been as popular as it was and might not have endured to be read by us today. Who knows?

It has also been said that Dickens himself must have felt that in this supposedly autobiographical novel he did not get his own character right, making David too bland and too good as he grew older, for he was to take another crack at it a decade later with Great Expectations, a similar story but with the young lead turning out quite differently. This may or may not be true but it doesn't change the fact that the earlier novel, with all its flaws, provides one of the greatest literary experiences you can ever laugh, cry and sigh over.

So take what you can. Celebrate the genius in Dickens's David Copperfield and wink at the rest.  

— Eric