Showing posts with label David Copperfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Copperfield. Show all posts

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Les Incompletes

Most people I know finish one book and only then pick up another. And this is so even if they do not like the book for one reason or the other. Till a few years ago I was like that too, labouring through books I did not like because of a self-imposed rule that the book in hand must be read cover to cover before any other book is taken up. 

But what with so many compulsions in our lives from which we cannot get away, where you must willy-nilly do the bidding of others, I felt that in this matter at least I will discard that rule. I will read a book only until it holds my interest, no later. My point is that if I feel like picking up a book from where I left it, I will do it anyway, naturally and without the stress of constraints I place on myself. This practice has resulted in a vast collection of incompletely read books (I took care not to say half-read). 

Mind you, these books I left unfinished are by no means badly written. In fact some of them are classics. It is just that my eyes lit up at the sight of better goodies. To name a few of these unfortunates in recent times - Dickens' David Copperfield,  Marion Zimmer-Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, and a few volumes of Ashis Nandy and Sudhir Kakar. 

But the point is, will I go back to them? Will I recommend them to a friend? Yes and yes. Maybe that's why I take them for granted.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

David Copperfield

I had read 'David Copperfield' years ago. So long ago in fact that I had forgotten the story. At the Strand Book Shop's annual sale (Chinnaswamy Stadium, Dec 2008) I picked up a Dover Giant Thrift Edition of the classic. I must confess I was attracted by the beautiful cover illustration - Vassily Tropinin's 1818 portrait of his son. I don't know anything about Tropinin. 

I also didn't know the longer title of the book: The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the Younger. 

This was Dickens' seventh novel and was published in 1850. From his preface I understand he took two years to write it.

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