I love Barbara Kingsolver. So when I heard about her newest book, Demon Copperhead—a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, I rushed right out and bought…David Copperfield. Because I hadn’t read it yet and I wanted to be perfectly primed for all the inside nods happening in Kingsolver’s book.
And of course it was excellent (David Copperfield, I mean). One of my favorite reads of last year! With all the classic character absurdities and heart wrenching human foibles and satisfying plot arcs one comes to expect with Dickens.
And then I started in on Demon Copperhead. Kingsolver’s characterization is excellent. And her writing is exquisite. I delighted in all her parallels—who was meant to be Peggerty and who was being set up to be Little Em’ly, etc. Still, a person in no way would have had to read David to enjoy Demon.
There was only one problem. I hated it.
This came as a real conundrum, because, as I’ve said, objectively it is an excellent book. And I’m a huge Kingsolver fan! But I kept not reading it. Maybe because I already knew—essentially—the way it would go1. Still, I pressed on, lamely reading a few pages each night. I took it with me on a flight to visit my sister last week, determined to push through in airplane isolation, but I read one page and knew: DNF status.
And then I stole my sister’s copy of Elizabeth Strout’s latest book, Tell Me Everything, and I’m already finished with it. Even though her prose in that book is less exquisite than Kingsolver’s. And the plot is less epic and complex. Arguably, it’s less masterful. But I absolutely liked it more.
My point? I should have abandoned Demon Copperhead sooner. Because life is too short to not enjoy what you read. For whatever inexplicable reason.
And now for a comic I wrote about writing:
In classic leap-before-you’re-ready mode, I’ve committed to drawing comics on StampFans, a subscription service that sends out physical letters each month. Mine is called Microco[s]mic: Illustrated Essays. Sign up to receive the whole story in the mail! And to make my day in the process :-) Because mail is awesome.
Cheers,
Lacy
I had this same problem with Wolf Hall, TBH.
In his lifetime, as famous as he was, he was outsold by the now-unreadable Bulwer-Lytton. So bizarre!