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{"id":5302,"date":"2021-01-20T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T02:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rjgeib.com\/?p=5302"},"modified":"2021-12-14T20:58:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T04:58:04","slug":"david-copperfield-charles-dickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rjgeib.com\/david-copperfield-charles-dickens\/","title":{"rendered":"The Attention Span of a Gnat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Some Meditations on Reading a Long Book During Quarantine in 2021: Patience and Perseverance, Purpose and Fulfilment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
They say that a book should be only as long as it takes to tell the story. It should be neither longer nor shorter than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that is plenty vague, and leaves lots of room for different lengths of books!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think about this as I am half-way through David Copperfield. I have read every page carefully and am on chapter 30. I have been reading the books assiduously for over two weeks, and I am only halfway done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am tired. This is a long book!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The narrative is lengthy. This happens and then that. Another thing happens. Then another and another. It goes on and on. I grow weary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong: I am enjoying David Copperfield<\/em>. There are many indelible scenes already: The pupil \u201cMaster Copperfield\u201d showing up to boarding school and seeing the sign \u201cTake care of him. He bites.\u201d \u2014 and looks around for the dog it refers to and then realizes the sign is for him to wear. David desperately running away from the Murdstones and walking hungrily for several days with blisters on his feet to his aunt\u2019s \u2014 his terrible Aunt Betsy, whose defects of shortness of temper and rude bluntness turn out to be more than balanced out by loyalty to kin and generosity to David. You think her a disagreeable crank at first but come to see her in a more complicated and better light over time. It reminds me how our vices are so often interwoven with our virtues; you cannot separate the one from the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is good stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a mark of high-quality literature that the characters and actions in the story stay with you over time. Will I ever forget the baroque and ruined Miss Havisham, jilted at the altar, and her adopted daughter Estelle and revenge against the male sex? Pip terrorized by the escaped convict at the beginning? Sidney Carton and his dissipated lifestyle in A Tale of Two Cities<\/em>, and his unforgettable redemption at the end? The first few lines of David Copperfield <\/em>or A Tale of Two Cities<\/em> are famous almost to the point of caricature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n