Is this the real thing or only a fling?

 

Praying Mantis

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Lo and behold, I am in love, which I never thought could happen again at this late date, and I cannot help myself. When the love bug bites, there is no swatting it. May this love affair continue until the fire dies down, until the embers are stone cold, and all that remains is a pile of ashes to be swept into a pail and scattered in the woods, strewn upon the dead leaves and twigs that no one cares about, and stepped on by heavy boots. I beg you though, that before passing judgement and forcing me to wear a scarlet letter A, like Hester Prynne, to hear me out.

    

    The backstory begins when my beloved and I watched the 1946 Great Expectations movie, based, of course, on the book by Charles Dickens. Up until that time, my only exposure to Charles Dickens had been in English class in high school, when we read about the young boy and Miss Havisham. I remembered little from the story aside from those two characters' names, but I could recall the gleam in my teacher's adoring eye for the author and his narrative. After that introduction to Dickens in the tenth grade, his literature and I went our separate ways, until the Great Expectations movie spurred my interest, and I realized I had never read him. It embarrasses me to admit such an oversight.

    

    The movie and its endearing story whetted my appetite for the book, which was not visible on any of my shelves, but I did have David Copperfield, and I knew right where to find it -- on an etagere in the powder room among some other aging, neglected hardbacks. I picked up David Copperfield and dusted him off. It is a weighty book of more than nine hundred pages, and while I usually shy away from lengthy reads, because time is so fleeting, Mr. Dickens, or Mr. Copperfield, called to me, and I gave in. Within a few days, I had read Chapter One. 

    Oh my. 

    Now, I am head over heels in love with Mr. Dickens' writing, and I admit to being fairly well smitten, in a way I have never been smitten by a writer's prose. No book in my memory has captured me and held me prisoner the way Mr. Dickens is holding me prisoner, and I have no desire to pry open the bars of my cell and escape. Tantamount to Dickens' mastery of words is the storyline of the main character, and I wonder if fragments of my affection might be related to associating myself with little Davy Copperfield's misery in his unfortunate childhood. Either way, I am in awe of Dickens' talent.

    As I am reading the pages of this poignant book, particular passages pull me closer, and I read them again, and mark them with a paper marker. Sentences like these:

Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my eyes; but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars.

No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship ...

I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.

That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I.

When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things.

    Those are heartfelt, beautiful arrangements of words, and one can also suspect that Dickens grins as he writes, which carries over to his readers:

    I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and run away.

    I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee.

    There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office.

    I wish I had read Dickens sooner, although, I believe that every book finds us when and where every book is meant to find us. How I came to own a hardback copy of David Copperfield is anyone's guess. It has been on my shelf for years. A few of the pages are loose, and as I read, little bits of brown paper fall out of the spine and onto my lap. There is no copyright page. I found a clue to its history between pages 220 and 221, in the form of a receipt dated September 30, 1942, from Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia. On that day, someone purchased this book for one dollar. The small piece of paper, tucked in the book for so long, leaves a dusty tan imprint behind it. 

    I should save wear and tear on this copy by buying a Kindle version. My hesitation is that swiping the screen of a Kindle, versus turning the vintage pages of a falling-apart book, would be like eating a Twinkie when you could savor a slice of homemade coconut cake, where the baker cracked the coconut with a hammer and grated the white lusciousness into a bowl. 

 

    While I try not to praise a book until I have read the last page, I cannot imagine me regretting this premature reveal, but you know how life is; even the ones we love can sometimes tingle our nerves. All flames eventually burn out. I am only about four hundred pages in and have more than that to go, and I have read enough books to know that the middle can muddle a book's luster and that books, like people, are not perfect, but I will continue on, for as long as there are pages to turn. If I reach the end, and the author breaks my heart, it won't be the first time my heart has been broken.

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