The only Dickens book I have ever been able to stomach

This book is, as the title says, the only work by Dickens I have ever been able to stomach, and one of the few I have had the determination to sit through. I have heard many compare this book to Great Expectations, and while I admit that the two have the same motif, (a fictional biography of the life and times of a struggling orphan), there is something about this book that draws the reader into the plot, makes the reader feel more for the characters. Indeed, this is one of many fictional biographies about an orphan by Dickens--Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and another one whose name I cannot think of at the time. There is, of course, the flaw that is found in most Dickens books: too many characters. And while this flaw does tend to make the biography more realistic, (few among us can name all the people we have met in our lifetimes), the characters reappear too frequently for my taste, although some do re-enter at an oppertune time.

Also, the characters of this novel are better structured and more unique than those in the GE and OT, with small quirky mannerisms and ideosycracies that make them all the more real to the reader. Also, turn-arounds occur in the characters. For example, while reading the chapter entitled "My First Half at Salem House," I wrongly interpreted the character Steerforth to be a mean bully who would take advantage of the smaller Copperfield. In fact, this character watches out for David's interests throughout their school years together, and becomes one of the boy's best friends throughout a good part of his life.

However, my favorite character by far would have to be the good-hearted, cheery-spirited Mr. Peggotty, brother to David's childhood nurse-maid and life-long friend known simply as Peggotty. Mr. Peggotty lives in what was once a boat, but it now a house near the shore of some major body of water (I never could tell which one). Living with him is his niece Em'ly (why she is never referred to as "Emily" I'll never know), his nephew Ham, and an old widow named Mrs. Gummidge. I could never figure out how this widow was related to the rest of the family, but its probably somewhere in the over 700 pages. Em'ly is shy and dimminutive, Ham much like his uncle, and Mrs. Gummidge forlorn and melancholy over the loss of her long-departed husband.

Copperfield is married twice. The first time is to his childhood love, a lovely and child-like woman named Dora. He dotes upon his wife, and loves her with all her heart, but she tragically dies about 4/5 of the way through the book. Near the end, he marries another of his childhood friends, one he had come to think of as a sister, but is later attracted to as much more than a friend.

Among the other major characters is the unlucky and long-winded Mr. Micawber, the self-serving Uriah Heep, the humble and likeable Traddles, the grumpy but eventually Betsy Trotwood, Mrs. Steerforth, (Steerforth's mother, not wife), and the never-likeable Rose Dartle. If it seems like all I have written about in this review is characters, its because that is the only thing the book is about. No wars or major events occur outside the lives of David Copperfield and his circle of companions; therefore the book is all characters. I usually detest books like this, but as I said, this book has a strange way of drawing the reader into it. I can't think of any other books to recommend by Dickens, but I can advise the reader not to read any of the ones I have completed: Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and A Tale of Two Cities.

Finally, as an exhibit of Dickens' poetic side, I would like to close with the closing lines of the book itself:

"O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!"