100TH POST! (Also, David Copperfield by Chas Dickens Part Two)

Oh look, I've read one hundred books! (Actually, it's probably either a little more or a little less, blogwise--in actuality wise, there were a lot more that never made it to a post.) Anyway, if you told me a month ago that I would be happy to honor my hundredth post with a Dickens book, I'd be all "NO CHAS SUCKS! Also, let me just see that time machine of you--yoink!" (Bzeeep.) But no, this I can live with. Because David Copperfield is awesome. Que!? Did you just read what you think you did??? Why yes, yes you did. Your eyesight isn't failing you (probably).

Let's see, we left off on page 578, David renouncing his friendship to Steerforth (though the reason why has yet to 'happen'). Let's see, the very first chapter chronicle's Peggotty's husband's death. I have mentioned (or implied) that David is older than 7 at this point, right? I seem to have trouble following time changing in this and pretty much any book, so I'm going to say he's probably maybe like eighteen at this point? Well, Mr Barkis was a cabby, in fact David had known him from childhood. If not for David, he and Peggotty never would have wed--you see, Peggotty had made David pastries for his trip away from home to school. David gave a pastry to Barkis, who loved it and was surprised to learn that Peggotty did all the cooking--good cooking!--other domestic matters as well, and enjoyed them, and had no man in her life. Barkis was too shy to explain to young David that he would like to marry her, so he told David to tell her that he was "'willin'", as in, "'Barkis is willin'". On his death bed, when he is told David is there, he manages to look up and say "'Barkis is willin'!'" (11) before he dies. I don't know, I thought it was kind of cute. Oh, and by the way, each parts are numbered as though they're two separate books. Just letting you know.

"'Money's of no use to me no more, except to live'" (38).

"If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might be wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in: and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence... I, the moonstruck slave of Dora... romantically calling on the night at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don't know exactly what from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection" (49). So. Damn. Adorable! Also, might I note what he says--"over head and ears in love" not "head over heels". Oh look, so once upon a time that saying made sense! (FYI, heads are always over heels unless you're in a Kurt Vonnegut story.) I can only assume the saying changed because someone heard it wrong. Or was dyslexic or something.

"'We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out'" (82).

"Mrs Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't a room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr Dick justly observed to me... 'You know, Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to me?'" (83). It's nice to know that even then people didn't know what the hell was up with that saying. Who came up with it? Who swings cats!?

David relates to us some incident of his going on and on about Dora to his childhood friend, Agnes. He finishes the paragraph with "Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards!--" (109). That of course made me jump, knowing that Dora is based on the girl Chas didn't marry. (Insert a "No, Chas, nooooooo!" here.)

Dora--well, like I said, Dickens is cute when he writes about love, even if the object of affection is someone that I would have trouble putting up with. She's not... really... uh, that bright. Being that Dora is based off an early love of Dickens', I'm not sure whether he portrayed her this way because that's how the real girl actually was, or it's kind of his 'sour grapes' attitude to her, because he and the real girl were never able to marry. I mean, I don't mean to sound cruel, it's just... uh. She's very... childish. Let me make something up on the spot and say that's just to show how puppy-love-ish this affection really is. She even insists on him to call her his "child-wife"! Humbert Humbert is going mad with desire over here. Anyway, a more legitimate sign that Dickens is saying that the love was immature is that no children come out of their union, and they're married for a time. Oh, and that part where I said "legitimate"? I am making up my own interpretations. I have no idea if anyone in their right mind would back me on this. But anywayyyy, why I was complaining about Dora--well, there are several situations that I could bring up for example, but this one sticks out because it reminds me of the lead female character--either lead female character--in a certain Irish author's most well-known play. "'My own! May I mention something?' 'Oh, please don't be practical!' said Dora coaxingly. 'Because it frightens me so!'" (138). HELP.

Also, Dora's pet name for David is 'Doady'. What the hell is that? That's even worse than Calvin O'Keefe's "Charlibus" for Charles Wallace. Where did 'Doady' even come from!? Oh and this is as good a time as any to mention that Dora has a small spaniel named Jip that I imagined as Dante (him being a cocker spaniel) which means Jip was pretty much a LOLcat for me. LOLdog. Whatever.

Oh God I hate Uriah Heep. I revile him. Uriah is a scheming, plotting, obnoxious bastard, forever informing the world of how "umble" he is. I don't particularly want to go into details as to how he is a scheming bastard--it boils down to him eventually marrying Agnes and thus gaining the family fortune--but godammit he's a two-face and he enrages me. He's one of those fellows who turns things on their heads so he always always looks like the better man. One of my favorite scenes is when David slaps him so far he had to have a tooth out, which later, when he... Oh what the hell. Eventually he is found out and is sent to jail, where he is known to be one of the best and most obedient inmates or whatever. He brings this incident up to make David look bad for abusing such a great guy. Uriah, you were lucky all David did was slap you. If it was me, I would have invented curb-stomping to properly convey my rage towards you onto you. I don't care if the scene was inside. I would have built a curb indoors and made him bite it. He is so INFURIATING! So... much... rage in me... Ughhhh Uriah Heep! I'm going to draw and quarter you! RAGGGGGHHHHHHH---

(Ahem). Apparently Uriah is based physically upon Hans Christian Anderson, who up to this point I always believed for some reason was female. As for his personality and schemes, Dickens apparently had a servant who embezzled 10,000 pounds. Might .I mention that David has a lot of trouble with thieving servants when he is with Dora.

"There was another thing I could have wished; namely, that Jip had never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted-butter... and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate" (273). You began to think!? Dogs don't go on the table ever, David. That's just plain unsanitary.

"Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed up through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water" (406).

Ah yes, remember Steerforth? The reason why he is no longer a friend of David's is because he ran off with his young childhood friend, Eml'y, when she was to be married. (Eml'y is a cousin or niece to Peggotty; the relationships in the Peggotty home are hard to follow, at least for me.) Steerforth, however, is killed--and David must do the work of informing his infirm mother and insane servant of what has transpired. I call Rosa Dartle insane because--well, first of all, she has a scar going across her lips and chin because as a child Steerforth grew agitated with her and threw a hammer at her face. Now, you'd hate a kid that had done that to you, right? Apparently not. Rosa's rage turned into a twisted, obsessive and rather frightening love, or some strange perversion that could be mistaken for love. Rosa, yelling at Mrs Steerforth: "'No power on earth should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you loved him! ...I could have loved him, and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it better than I? ...My love would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering underfoot!'" (483). This builds for another page and a quarter (getting more and more frightening--I know unrequited love can be tough but jeez!), till David steps in and says basically he wasn't perfect and if you don't love his mother you couldn't have truly loved him (because they're flesh and blood). She flips out (more), bursts into hysterical tears, tears at her hair, and finally curses David and tells him to get out. Rosa Dartle really, really, really unnerves me.

Copperfield knew a boy named Traddles during his school years--if you'll recall, he was the boy who was caned for crying when Mr Mell was fired. Anyway, they keep on coming into contact with each other over the course of their lives, and at one point, upon reuniting, Traddles' delighted expression is as such: "'Dear me... What a delightful union this is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I am!'" (513). Where did that comment come from? If I was David Copperfield: Traddles: "You are so extremely brown!" Copperfield: "You are so extremely skinny!" (He was a chubby kid; his arms and legs sticking out of his ill-fitting suit are described as something akin to sausages.

Okay, I happened to overlook a passage about the Murdstones--after Mrs Copperfield, Mr Murdstone has continued to wed and ruin women. The 'current' one that is discussed on page 526 is broken by the time she is discussed, but it is mentioned that in the beginning she put up a violent fight--which I can totally respect her for. Okay, she's "'quite a shadow now'" (526), but at least she struggled around. Anyway, my theory on this--Mr and Ms Murdstone, the siblings, are secret incestuous lovers. They break women together, they reap the fiscal benefits, and they're always together. Always. They actually kind of remind me of... Oh God, I can't believe I'm about to reference this.... That 'High Voltage' video by Electric Six? Like them, only being gaunt unpleasant dastardly Brits.

So, as you may or may have gathered--actually, I guess I didn't bring it up, but welcome spoilers: Dora eventually takes ill and dies. I find this curious because Dora is supposed to be based on a girl Dickens was engaged to, but the family broke off the marriage because they believed nothing would ever come of him. Anyway, with that in mind, pushing the story aside completely--why would he have done that? Well, I suppose it was a fantasy he must have entertained, but he couldn't have imagined where it would have gone in real life because clearly it did not go anywhere, so he just... killed... her? Wow, that sounds mean. But, you see what I'm trying to get at? Of course, I don't know much about the woman Dickens actually did marry, so I can't say how much David's second marriage and relationship with Agnes (his second wife) is in relation with Dickens' actual wife. David and Agnes were close childhood friends, always confided in one another, practically family--so, Emma? Does this sound familiar? Well, anyway, his confession of love to Agnes is super cute. Not quite Mr Darcy material, but it's pretty damn hard to ascend to that level. "'I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I returned home, loving you!'" (564). So! Ugh, David Copperfield, marry me. Anyway, more happiness: Agnes reveals to David that Dora asked her, on her deathbed, that only she would be the one to "'occupy this vacant place'" (567)--a double-meaning, I suppose--David's home, and David's heart. The ending, the very very ending, also regards Agnes and also is just as sweet. David Copperfield, two-penny post me!

My only qualm really with the book was going to be that we never learn of what happened to Mr Mell, the poor school teacher horribly abused by Steerforth. I'm near the end thinking, "There are fifteen, twenty pages left. I guess that's it then; I guess I should assume he died penniless in the streets." And I was planning on writing a long section complaining about it. Well! Less then ten pages from the book's conclusion, David is given a newspaper article about Mr Mell and the Micawbers--so things worked out for them, eh? I was glad for that, especially for poor Mr Mell. (Though it seems like hardly anyone else cares about him--after checking out Wikipedia's sparse summary of him, I went to see what SparkNotes said about him--in their summary of this second-to-last chapter, they don't even mention him!) Yes, I was worried about him all the way from page 132 to page 1,157. Anyway, yeah, was really relieved that his end was closed--there were literally zero loose ends in this book, which was pretty neat.

Well! This book, although it had a strange numbering system, was graciously edited by a reader's hand so that on the final page it informs you that on the whole it is 1,161 pages. Wow. Also, a particular note on this edition: there's no publication date, but there's a stamp-mark on the back that says 'Sep 22 1970'. However, there's also a pocket in there--a pocket with a card in it, a card with dates and numbers on it... The earliest date is from '67. Oh, and that pocket and card bit? Yeah, it's a library card. There's no 'Discarded' stamp in here or anything either, so... Yeah. Well, that explains why I can't recall a single time of ever going to the North Haven library, I suppose. (Though most likely the records were lost when the system switched to computers--still, I wouldn't like to take this back and risk it.) This edition was pretty nice. The only thing that really disappointed me was that this copy doesn't have all of Hablot Knight Browne's (AKA 'Phiz) illustrations. If you buy this book, you're kind of doing yourself a disservice if you don't get one with his illustrations, even if it's only a few. They're really nice. (Though publishers in 1895 apparently don't agree with me!)

As for the book itself: I admit it, Dickens. I loved it. Fine. There. Happy, Emma? (I've actually already chided her for not having read this yet, if you can believe that!) I was actually quite sad I wouldn't be able to put this into my 'Classics' shelf, as it certainly deserves a spot there--the only reason I can't is because I already lifted my mother's copy of this book from the nineties--eighteen-nineties--to put with my antique books. I feel guilty about taking both of her copies, even though she said I could take whatever book I wanted out of the secretary shelf. Actually, speaking of my mom, this is her favorite book. (Way to steal from the library, mom!) The reason why she owns two copies is just because of aesthetics--the antique copy is burgundy, her second favorite color. I was going to say something else here, something more interesting, but I can't remember now. Oh well, you should read this book right now. This book is awesome. Great expectations for this book won't go unfounded, unlike those had for another book...

Publishing MLA information stuff: Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. New York: Walter J Black, Inc, ?. Print. (Note--This is the information copied from whatever copy they copied this edition off of. Copy that? I assume it's the 'Charles Dickens' edition, which my other copy is clearly not. Yes, I am going to brag about that copy all the time. Heck, I was proud of it before I read it--it's the oldest book I own, after all. It's just convenient as hell that it was a good book, too! [Ahem]. Anyway...)

Because the cryptic song lyrics last post regard the same book, you'll have to check the last post to see them so you can have a go at them. Go!