Most of the readers of this review are likely to have read J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. If you are among this group you may remember that Holden Caulfield begins it, rather unconventionally, by saying: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield king of crap . . .” Remembering this opening line, as I browsed through thousands of titles at the annual used book sale in Winston-Salem, I was bemused by the serendipity of finding an aging copy of Catcher in the Rye right next to the genuine article: a complete and unabridged copy of David Copperfield itself! I took this as an indication that I should reread Catcher and make a run at Copperfield too.
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