There are times when the To Be Read pile is toppling over, books are dropping through the letterbox and you have so much to read and you think I don't want to read any of them. This happens to me periodically and the only way to get out of this slump is to turn to something old and loved. This time I checked all my shelves and decided Charles Dickens was what I needed and I had a think and picked up David Copperfield.
I had not read it for years. It has always been one of my favourite, if not my most favourite, of all the Dickens that I have read but I was so familiar with it I left it for a long time. I am glad I did as when I started to read it again it was alive and fresh and gosh, simply wonderful. Dickens can be sentimental, sometimes overley so, and some of his characters can irritate. Little Nell from the Old Curiousity Shop and Esther from Bleak House being top of the list. David Copperfield is home to Dora Spenlow who I used to find a real pain but on reading this time I found myself feeling a great affection for her.
The story of how David's mother married Mr Murdstone and was on the receiving end of what would now be called mental abuse is a familiar one. When I first read this book when I was about twelve I wept buckets. On re-reading I was again reduced to floods of tears. How does Dickens do it?
"On the last night in the evening she kissed me and said 'if my baby should die too Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms and bury us together…..and tell him that his mother when she lay there blessed him not once but a thousand times….
Peggotty my dear put me nearer you, lay your good arm underneath my neck and turn me to you for your face is going far off and I want it to be neaer'
I put it as she asked and Oh Davy the time had come when my first parting words to you were true – when she was glad to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm and she died like a child that had gone to sleep"
Parts of David Copperfield are autobiographical, particularly the part where he was put out to work in the blacking factory and the misery and suffering he underwent. It pervades his books and affected him for the rest of his life. I will not go into this here but recommend that you get hold of the wonderful biography written by Clare Harman.
There are parrallels later in the book when he falls in love with Dora Spenlow, the daughter of his employer, when he is in chambers and this part when he is totally besotted is very funny indeed and shows Dickens at this best. They marry. And it is clear that Dora is like his mother, her gentleness, naivety and, to be plain, her silliness. And when I reread this book when I was in my twenties it struck me then, and does so now, that David began to behave towards her the way Mr Murdstone had towards his mother. It is not unkind, he loves her very much, but he decides her 'mind needs forming'.
"The formation went on very slowly….I persevered for months and it began to occur to me that Dora's mind was already formed"
Fortunately he draws back from the brink when he realises that he has made Dora unhappy and just has to accept the way she is. On re-reading this now I have discovered that there is an underlying strength of character in Dora that I had not noticed before. She does have wisdom and realises how David feels:
"I loved my wife dearly and I was happy but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated was not the happiness I enjoyed and there was always something wanting"
We now know that this was Dickens own feelings regarding his marriage to Catherine, They married young, had many children and he became rich and famous and then found that he had nothing in common with her any more. In the book David behaves better than Charles did who treated his wife abominably and curelly and even tried to have her committed to a lunatic asylum. A letter discussing this has recently come to light and it beggers belief how he tried to manipulate public opinion by traducing her and telling lies.
Dora loses a baby and becomes ill. We are not told what her illness is merely that she gradually weakens and fades. And this is where I truly loved Dora. She knows she is dying and accepts it with a maturity that belies her character.
"I am going to speak to you Doady. I am going to say somethng I have often thought of saying lately. You won’t mind?"
"Mind my darling?"
'Doady dear I am afraid I was too young. I don't mean in years only but in experience and thoughts and everything…..I think it would have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl and forgotten It. I have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife…you are very clever and I never was'
"We have been very happy my sweet Dora"
'I was very happy but as the years went on my dear boy would have wearied of his child wife. She would have been less and less a companion to him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as it is"
By this stage I was sitting in my arm chair with tears pouring down my face. And this is why I now love Dora.
I loved reading this again and also because it contains my favourite Dickens character – Aunt Betsy Trotwood.
I have to forgive Dickens. He was cruel and vile to his wife and yet I feel in this death bed scene with Dora when he is totally grief stricken he realises the truth of his real life marriage and knows he behaved badly.
Just a thought…
This has sent me back to my Dickens shelf and I am now thinking of Dombey and Son which I have never read. It is time I did.
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