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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. I hope you're cozy and warm wherever you are. If you're, especially if you're in the path of this snowstorm that we're having, I hope that you are inside and wrapped up warm and that you've got your cup of tea or your your hot drink of choice and that you're snuggled in and ready to listen to more of this book. I am ready to read you more of this book and to talk about this book with you. I'm so happy to be here always. I'm always so glad to be here and it feels like such a wonderful cozy place to be when it's gonna be as cold as it is outside right now. So thanks for being here. I'm glad you're here. We are going to keep reading. Today we're going to be reading chapter six of David Copperfield. Last time we read chapter five, it's a bit of a shorter chapter. We've had a couple of really long chapters lately, so a shorter chapter is in order and but we do have some questions to talk about before we do that and then we'll dive right in before we do that though, just a reminder that tomorrow, if you're listening in real time, tomorrow is tea time. So Tuesday, January 27th at 8pm Eastern. That's over in our online community which is called the Drawing Room because it's where we withdraw after the podcast to keep on talking about this book and books in general and life. I answer your questions. It's a really fun, cozy time. We chat for about an hour. You get to talk to me if you want. You can also just listen if you prefer not to talk. I get to talk to you and I always really, really enjoy it. I have lots of fun chatting with all my old friends and I hope that there will be some new friends to meet as well. This time. If you are not yet a member of the Drawing room, there is a link in the show notes to sign up you to be a member of the Landed Gentry membership tier to participate in tea time. So if you'd like to sign up or switch your membership level Go to the link in the show notes, follow that and you'll be able to do that. I hope that you will join us tomorrow, Tuesday 27th January at 8pm Eastern. I'm looking forward to talking to you there. Other than that, all the usual reminders. Please subscribe. If you're enjoying the show, please tap the five stars. Please consider leaving a positive review wherever you're listening. And of course tell a friend, tell everyone, tell people who aren't even friends. Just spread the word about the show because the more the merrier. And the more people reading these great books and talking about them together and thinking about them, the more we will be able to change the world. I really believe that reading these great books will change the world. So be a part of that and bring your friends. Okay, so we are going to be talking a bit about chapter five. I've got some great comments to read to you and to discuss and then we're going to be reading chapter six. So let's begin by reminding ourselves of what we read last time. Here is the recap. Alright, so where we left off on the way out of town, Peggy stops the carriage that Davey's riding in to give him one last hug and a bag with some food and some money in it. So then Davey travels with Mr. Barkis, the carrier, as far as Yarmouth, and on the way Mr. Barkis implies to Davy that he would like to marry Peggy, and he gets Davy to let Peggy know in a letter that Barkis is willing to. Davy doesn't know what this means, but he sends Peggotty a letter that says that at Yarmouth he is served a meal, but the waiter takes advantage of him and eats his food, drinks his ale and cheats him out of some of his money. Then he goes in a stagecoach as far as London where at first there's no one to pick him up, but then a strange man in ill fitting clothes shows up and says that he is a master at Salem House and he's here to take Davey to school. Davey explains he's had nothing to eat, so this man, whose name it turns out, is Mr. Mel, Mr. Mel takes him first to buy some food and then to the house of a poor, poor old woman who cooks the food that Davey bought. Davey eats and as Mr. Mel is playing his flute, Davey falls asleep. He's woken up eventually and taken with Mr. Mel in another carriage where they finally end up at the school. Davey is told that all the other boys are at home on vacation and that Davey has been sent here during the Vacation. As a punishment, he is given a sign to wear on his back that says that he bites and he's mortified to have to wear it. He's terrified of the time when all the boys will come back and discover that he is someone who bites. But for now, he's alone in the school with Mr. Mel, doing lessons and being very lonely. All right, so I'm going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Corinthia. She says, poor Davey. As I listened to you read the story of the waiter abusing his power, stealing Davey's food and tricking him out of his hard earned money, I was livid. It made me think about how many adults, both then and now, exploit and take advantage of innocent children. I appreciate how Dickens exposes the harsh realities of the world with such honesty. His work feels like half a story, half a social commentary on the brokenness of society. The second one comes from the drawing room, which is our online community, which I was just talking about. And this person goes by the handle Patty. She says, I thought it so hilarious that David wrote Barkis is willing twice in that letter to Peggy. If I didn't have a few notes along the way, I might have been just as confused as 8 year old dav it. And this last one also comes from the drawing room, from the handle pinelikethetree. I think the sign is exceptionally cruel. So she's talking about the sign that David has to wear at the school that says, take care of him. He bites. That was meant to just humiliate him. And it's so sad that it works. Davey stresses about it so much. It's a horrible mind game. So sad. Okay, so yeah, things aren't looking great for Davey, are they? We had really hoped that heading off to school might be good for him, right? That the school might be a nice place with kind teachers and new friends where Davey can find some community and some kindness, which he is clearly sorely in need of. And it actually might still be that we don't actually know yet because the kids are all away and most of the teachers are away too, except for Mr. Mel. So it may actually turn out that Davey's fears aren't founded, so there is still hope. But so far, Davey is still in a pretty bad place. I mean, Mr. Mel actually doesn't seem that bad. He seems sort of distracted by his own problems and kind of strange. He's clearly very poor. He's obviously one of the lowest members of the faculty since he had to stay behind for the holidays. And Everyone else got to go on vacation. So he's kind of this like sad, distracted, weird guy, but he's not cruel. He's actually fairly kind to Davey. So that's hopeful too. But this thing with the sign is ominous, as is the guy with the wooden leg who seems intent on making sure that everyone's sitting sees the sign, even if they're just like a delivery person or something. And I think it's important to remember that it was Mr. Murdstone who requested that Davey wear the sign. It wasn't necessarily something that the school would have done on its own, so that's potentially hopeful too. And Mr. Mel says that he's very sorry that Davey has to wear it. But like as Pine Licked Tree points out, it's really very cruel to make Davey wear this sign. And it's an awful way to start because if the other boys and the teachers believe that he really is this kind of wild boy who bites people, then he'll have to fight against that in order to be part of the community. But we don't know yet what the reaction of the other boys and teachers is going to be, so we don't need to despair yet on that front. But we can be angry on Davey's behalf. I think that Mr. Murdstone has kind of extended his negative influence and his misunderstanding of who. Who David is into what was meant to be like a new start for David. And like Corinthia says in her letter, I think we've had a lot of opportunities to feel a kind of righteous anger on Davey's part and anger that's made even more poignant because a lot of the time Davey doesn't even understand that he's being taken advantage of or that people are treating him badly. And that's really hard to watch from an adult perspective, I think. Which actually brings me to something that I want to just quickly address for a moment before we talk more about this chapter specifically, which is that I have been getting a lot of letters lately from people who are worried that this book is just going to be like an 800 page slog of terrible things happening to David, one after the other after the other. In other words, many of you are writing in to totally understandably say it's hard to listen to these descriptions of all these horrible things that are happening to David and you're not sure that you can make it for 800 pages if that is all that that book is going to be. And you guys know how I feel about spoilers. And if you don't it's that I absolutely hate them. So I feel conflicted when I get these questions because answering them does sort of feel like giving you spoilers. But I do want to just say that I wouldn't choose a book that was just like a total depressing slog. Right? That. That's not me. That's not the kind of book that I want to share with you. So I can tell you that this book is not a total depressing slog. Okay? Bad things are going to happen to David in this book. They already have. They will. But good things are going to happen to him, too. Good follows bad. Sometimes bad follows good, and then good happens again. It's a life. It's the story of David's life. Right? We talked about that at the very beginning in the intro. So it's going to be funny, it's going to be sad, it's going to be poignant and beautiful and uplifting. I'm really not in the business of reading you things that are just depressing for no reason, I promise. So I hope that you will stick with this even when hard things are happening to David, because the other thing that I want to say about this, and then I will move on. But the truth is that bad things actually do happen in life. Terrible things and also good things. Right? But a story that's only ever, like, rainbows and flowers and stuff, it's not going to feel real. The things that make classics classic is that they offer us some kind of universal truth about the actual real world, even if they take place in, like, a fantasy world or something. They talk to us about life and the world, and they help us to live our own lives better or with more understanding, or they give us hope in the darkness or whatever it is. So good books don't sugarcoat the world, but they don't depress us for no reason either. Okay? So this book is an absolute classic. So it does what I'm talking about. It talks to us about the real world as it is, and it teaches us about how we can live in it. It'll teach different people different things. It'll speak to us in different ways, because that's how the classics work. But a story about a boy who has an idyllic childhood and then goes on to have an idyllic adulthood is actually not a very good story. And remember, it's true that awful things have happened to Davy recently. But already in the book, we have had descriptions of his wonderful childhood. Before Mr. Murdstone showed up, we had his really Wonderful visit to the Peggotty family. There have already been bright lights amongst the darkness and I swear there will be more bright lights. Lots more. So I did just want to mention that, that this is not like the world's most depressing book or anything. It's actually an uplifting book. But also bad things are going to happen to Davy too sometimes because it's a story about life, his life. And Corinthia's point is really valid as well that there's social commentary here too. Dickens was a huge supporter of children's welfare. We talked about this before and later I will tell you which parts of David's childhood are modeled on Dickens childhood, but want to do that yet because it would give away a few things that are still coming up. But that is all to say that Dickens is writing from a real place of experience and definitely has an agenda in the sense that he believes that children should not be treated the way that Davy is being treated at this point in the story. But like all great writers, he doesn't preach at us. He just tells us a story that causes us to feel the truth of what is right and what is wrong. So the writers among you take note. That's how you do that. Okay, but anyway, back to the chapter. Okay, so to my mind, chapter five marks a kind of transition point for Davie. It's the end of something and the beginning of something else. We had that a little when Davy returned home and found that his mother was married and everything was different, but he was still living at home and he was still trying to be part of the family and all of this. But now he's essentially on his own in the world. And that marks a real shift, I think his, his kind of very young childhood is now over and a new phase of his childhood has begun. And as Corinthia and Patty point out in their comments, Davey really isn't ready for it. And I mean, what 8 year old would be, right? Because even though I'm saying a new phase of his childhood is beginning, what's actually happening is that he's being asked to act much more like an adult way before he's ready to do that. And it, it builds sort of gradually throughout the course of chapter five. The first instance of this is actually really funny. This is what Patti was talking about in her letter. This thing with Mr. Barkis, the carrier and Dickens writing is so wonderful here. And in all of these instances, actually, because he narrates the whole thing through Davey's eyes. And Davey has no clue what's going on. But he gives us enough details so that we can piece together what's happening from an adult perspective. So this thing with barking is the first and really kind of harmless one of these instances. You know, Peggy shows up with the cakes and the money. And again, we just love Peggy. She's the best, right? But she shows up and she hugs Davey and runs off again. And the minute Barkis tastes one of these cakes that she has brought, he decides that Peggy is the woman for him when he wants to marry her, which is funny in and of itself. And then he tries to get Davey to alert Peggy to this by having Davey write to her that Barkis is willing. David has no idea what this means, but he passes it on anyway. And his letter is so sweet and innocent because he has no idea what he's talking about, but he is diligently passing on this message. Here is what he My dear Peggy, I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama, yours affectionately, P.S. he says he particularly wants you to know Barkis is willing. And if you're not reading along that second Barkis is willing is in all caps, right? So he's got no clue what he's talking about. And it's hilarious. But it is the first instance of David out in the world by himself being totally out of his depth. And he goes from this harmless version of that to the much more insidious version of the waiter at the inn who, as Corinthia says, completely takes advantage of him. On the one hand, Davy is being treated by the innkeeper, for example, as a much older person, right? He has been provided for by Mr. Murdstone with a good dinner in a private room, which is how a gentleman on a journey would have been treated at an inn. And he feels this. He's aware that he's suddenly being treated like an adult. Okay, here is what he. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down with my cap in my hand on the corner of the chair nearest the door. And when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me and put a set of casters on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty. So on the one hand he's suddenly being treated like an adult, but on the other hand, this waiter can see right away that he's really still a child. And instead of being kind and helping him, which he might do if he was a kind person, he actually just takes advantage of him by tricking him into giving away his food and his drink. Overcharging him for the paper and ink and for the tip. And this is the worst one, I think, at least in my opinion. He also scares him for no reason at all about the school that he's going to. He says, here's a quote. He says, oh, Lord, that's the school where they broke the boy's ribs. Two ribs. A little boy. He was. I should say he was. Let me see. How old are you? About right. Obviously, he has no idea what school David is going to. There's tons of schools near London. So he's just messing with him, which I think is the worst one, because he doesn't even get anything out of it. He doesn't get any money. He's just being cruel. So again, here is David completely out of his depth, but this is a much more harmful example of that. And then he shows up at the station at the end of his journey and there's no one there to pick him up. And he starts to wonder whether he's actually going to starve to death there because he's. He's totally alone in the world. Here's what he Supposing nobody should ever fetch me. How long would they consent to keep me there? Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? Should I sleep at night in one of those wooden bins with the other luggage and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning? Or should I be turned out every night and expected to come again, to be left till called for when the office opened next day? Supposing there was no mistake in the case and Mr. Murdstone had devised the. This plan to get rid of me. What should I do? Okay, so first he's just sort of harmlessly confused about adult things like courtship and marriage. Then he's taken advantage of by someone who sees how innocent he is and decides to use that to his own advantage. Then he's just completely left all alone and has no resources for figuring out what to do about it. And so it's kind of like this very rude awakening from childhood into an adulthood that is happening to him far too soon. And he's aware of this transition because the life he used to live now seems to be kind of like fading away from him. Here's what he. Sometimes I remember I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggy and to endeavoring in a confused, blind way to recall how I had felt and what sort of boy I used to be before I bit Mr. Murdstone, which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means. Means I seem to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity, which is really realistic, I think. Like, have you ever had like a super eventful week or something and realized that something or other only happened on Monday of this same week when now it's Friday or whatever. It's like a super extreme example of that. He's been tossed out into the world and it feels like his old life was some kind of dream. But I do think that even though at the end of this chapter he has to face that awful placard sent by the awful Mr. Murdstone, and even though he's there at Holland time and therefore very lonely, I do think that there is a little bit of hope. At the end of this chapter, someone does come to collect him at the station, right? That person is Mr. Mel. And he takes his hand and he helps him get food and he lets him sleep. And he's fairly kind to him at the school. And even though he's nervous about the boys coming back, they may not hate him because of the placard. I mean, they may actually like him more for it. They might have sympathy for him often that's the case, right? Kids have sympathy for each other when. When they're in trouble, often. So maybe they'll like him even more because he's had to start off this way. Who knows? So it's not a total disaster, but it's not great. And it's clear that David is not at all ready for this sort of forced adulthood that he's embarked on. And so hopefully being at school will allow him to be more of a child again, even though he doesn't have his mother or his beloved Peggy with him. So now let's find out. Okay, let's see if the other boys are going to come back in this chapter. Let's. Let's see if the headmaster, Mr. Kriequel, comes back. And let's see what happens when they do. And of course, please don't forget to write to me. It's faithkmore.com and then click on Contact. Or you can scroll into the show notes and click the link that's there. It's the same link. And get in touch. Tell me all the things that you're thinking when you hear this chapter. Your questions, your thoughts, the feelings that come up for you. I love to get your responses and your reactions. So please, please do write in. And I hope that I will see you tomorrow at tea time at 8pm Eastern. I hope that we will get to chat with each other there. All right, let's get started with chapter six of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter six. I enlarge my circle of acquaintance. I had led this life about a month when the man with the wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the boys. Okay, so it's time for the headmaster and the other students to come back from their vacation. I was not mistaken, for the mop came into the schoolroom before long and turned out Mr. Mel and me, who lived where we could and got on how we could for some days, during which we were always in the way of two or three young women who had rarely shown themselves before and were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great snuff box. One day I was informed by Mr. Mel that Mr. Creakle would be home that evening. In the evening after tea I heard that he was come before bedtime. I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before him. Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature that I thought no one but a camel or a dromedary could have felt at home in. Seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable as I went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle's presence, which so abashed me when I was ushered into it that I hardly saw Mrs. Creel or Ms. Cre. Creakle, who were both there in the parlour or anything, but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch, chain and seals, meaning he's got a lot of fancy chains on his clothing, in an armchair with a tumbler and bottle beside him.