Miscellaneous
Any shorter paths through "David Copperfield"?
I picked this up at a going out of business sale and would really like to read a good chunk of it just not in entirety. I haven't read much Dickens except a weird short story and I'm coming off another coming of age tale so I think this one could capture his essence, since I like to skip around a lot. I'm sorry if this offends any Dickenites but the book is 900 pages and I feel drawn to this tale yet have a short attention span and would like to just read essential sequences. Besides ch. 5, the beg. and end I don't know where to go. Thanks for any help with this one.
Replies (3)
Posted by
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I'm not sure about Dickenites, but it's a bit of a discredit to the author,...My belief is that any well written book contains no passages which can be deemed more or less essential to any other.
For what I think you're trying to do, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article first to get a sense of the characters and history of the book. I found this site which has a fairly good summary of the book: http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides6/Copperfield.html Otherwise, you can pick up a students' guide (e.g. Coles notes), or movie, both of which would highlight essential sequences for you. Afterwards, you can head towards the real thing and read whatever you want at random. This way you can read as much or as little as you like while already understanding the story, to get a feel for the writing style.Jun 30, 2009 12:16 am
by flightless -
Although it is long, David Copperfield is one of my favorite books, so I can't recommend any shorter ways to get through it--it's wonderful.
Jun 30, 2009 9:31 am
by MaggieH (admin) -
thanks for the replies. I think I shall do something unconventional with this book, unless I get visited by a spirit in the night
by Class