I was right.  I just needed to give Mr. Dickens another chance, to bring older and (hopefully) wiser eyes to his words.  In other words, I'm really digging David Copperfield.  It's rather slower going than, say, Anne of Green Gables, and decidedly longer, but I feel like I've set a good pace.  More importantly, I'm becoming more and more engrossed by the story.  I think David himself is quite charming and I adore Peggoty.  Mr. Barkis makes me laugh out loud.  The Murdstones are properly horrifying step-relations and the thought of Mr. Creakle's whisper makes me shiver when I think about it.  And I know this only scratches the surface when it comes to the characters that David will meet in his travels - just now, he's been packed off with Mr. Quinion to London.

I also love that David is a reader, and that he takes solace in his books during hard times.  I adore books about readers, and I've had the pleasure just this summer of spending time with David, Anne Shirley, Catherine Morland, and Roland Michell - their love of reading, described so eloquently by their creators, makes me feel a deep connection with each of them, separated though we may be by years and continents and, of course, the fact that they are fictional and I, last I checked, am not.  So, though reading may often be a lonely business (and that loneliness be the inspiration for this particular blog), I find myself slightly less lonely when I am reading with these characters.