[Comments] Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

[lostcheerio]

June and July Retelling Demon Copperhead is the story of an orphan boy in the Appalachian hills. Kingsolver said she wanted to write about Southwest Virginia, the place where she lives, what the opioid epidemic has done to it, and "the damage of structural poverty" and was inspired by Dickens to tackle such dark topics from the point of view of a child telling his own story. In fact, she wrote the first page of the novel in a notebook while sitting at Charles Dickens' actual desk! Many elements of David Copperfield are paralleled in this novel, from the names to the plot, but beyond exposing the ugly side of capitalism, Kingsolver seeks to break the stereotypes of Appalachian people "hillbilly dummies" or characters in a poverty documentary. In this thread, we can discuss Demon Copperhead and David Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver and Charles Dickens, the Appalachian ecosystem and Victorian England, and even other titles by these authors. Dickens' Copperfield was semi-autobiographical. Kingsolver has said that in Demon's story, she tried to write "The Great Appalachian Novel." Here's a video of Barbara Kingsolver in conversation with Ann Patchett from the Parnassus Books YouTube channel. She talks about her work being a conversation between the author and her readers, which I think is particularly interesting given that this project of "retelling" is kind of a conversation between authors separated by many years and miles. The lines drawn between these two stories -- legitimate? forced? Is this a proper retelling? She just won a Pulitzer Prize for it! Let's read. What do you think?

[Fillyjonk]

I love David Copperfield, tho I admit it has been a bit since I read it.

Dickens pleases me. The humor, the social conscience, the optimism that I never quite believe but want to believe. Barbara has set herself a high bar.

I downloaded DEMON and shall crack it as I travel, Mr. Jonk is reading it too, as soon as we finish the books we already started.

[Fillyjonk]

Okay I started!

First impressions no spoilers

This is a VOICEY book. And the voice is smart, personable, wry, colloquial, sympathetic, engaging and entertaining as all get out.

I am in!
If it is poverty porn apparently I like that. Shrug.

Anyone else start?

[ptwiddle]

I started but promptly got distracted by another book. But the voiceyness (so pleasantly like juiciness) caught my attention as well, and reminded me of my favourite author (and I don't wave this red flag around too much), David Foster Wallace.

I have read little Dickens, and not David Copperfield, and there's a dream a version of this where I read the two concurrently but I suspect it will stay a dream.

[Fillyjonk]

Okay well, as I continue, I still like it. I likes Maggot, the the matter-of-factness, and — ah I better spoiler. This about CooperFIELD-HEAD parallels.

 

FIELD V HEAD She is being very overt about it. David had a kind mild Peggoty, and Denton has Mrs. Peggot, who acts as his maw maw. This feels pretty “one for one” so far, in that the characters share a name (almost) and SO FAR share a function. When I see this, part of me REALLY wants to crack the dickens, because it reads like a statement of intent: THIS IS A RETELLING, A REINVENTION, as opposed to “inspired by” situation. I feel as if a side by side read is warranted,but like Ptwids, I doubt I will find the fortitude, ad shall just soldier on tryign to remember DC as I go.

[ptwiddle]

It might just read them both simultaneously -- I'm loving Copperhead, and industrial action means I won't be working for the next three weeks, so...

 

Very very much one-for-one; having read just the very start of David Copperfield there are so many little details that match -- both born in the caul/amniotic sac, a Betsy relative of the dead dad (Betsy Trotwood isn't the mother, like in Demon, but) visiting (or maybe visiting, in Demon's case) the day of the birth.

Favorite little one I noticed is the house David Copperfield is born in is called "The Rookery" but there aren't any rooks around, which Betsy Trotwood is derisive about, and there's a bit in Demon about the area of his birth having lots of Copperheads around but actually: no.

Made me curious about why we love re-tellings more generally. Shakespeare forever, or currently there seems to be a glut of retellings of greek myth / history at the moment (maybe largely from the perspective of a side character), but they've always been around, and it's interesting to think about why we love it, why do it, different ways to do it, drawbacks/pitfalls,...

Sort of example close at hand, since this is an RPG site: I love the Eberron DnD setting, in part for how it retells the takes many familiar existing DnD things and twists them -- halflings ride dinosaurs, dragons are a secret prophecy studying cabal, goblins are the remnants of a grand previous civilization... there's just something really pleasing about familiar territory being twisted around so it's new and different but still like home.

Or: fan-fiction. There's some fundamental thing about fandoms in generally that I just don't get, on some level. Is this Demon Copperhead "just" pretentious Dickens fan-fiction?

[Leviticus]

I'm just getting into the audio book for Demon Copperhead and it is awesome. The southern accent and lilt of the reader is so much fun and quite the performance, especially paired with the many lovely southern phrases. Of the many that which of course I can't remember right nowstood out, one of them was something about the smell of dog's breath something-or-another. So much fun!

[Black Jim]

I'm a big Dickens fan. I'm heading into Southern Missouri's Ozark Mountains in late July. I expect it will give me some context to the characters in this novel. I'll take your advice, Leviticus, and listen to the audio book on my commute in July.

[NoZuul]

I'm not sure that I have it in me right now to tackle a retelling of David Copperfield set in the contours of Appalachian poverty. Light summer reading, I am certain it wouldn't be!

I did mostly enjoy one of Kingsolver's previous works, though, The Lacuna. It's a novel about artistic freedom, more or less, set against the specter of McCarthyism, and featuring Frida Kahlo as a main character. I won't pretend that it isn't a bit soapboxy at times, but it was a good enough read that I remembered her name to recognize it here.

[Fillyjonk]

If you go with the crowd that says, there are only 3 stories. Or only ten stories. Or only 100 stories. Depending on how they parse it. Every telling of a story is a retelling. There are stories I LOVE. I love the Odyssey And have read it in 1 million forms, my favorite being Watership Down.

David Copperfield is a RAGS TO RICHES (with some rollercoaster dips into NO WAIT, more RAGS but oh look MORE RICHES, but still, you can make a case for, Oh it is THAT story.) So in some big spiritual CHAOS MATH ALL IS CONNECTED THERE IS NO RANDOM WHAT CAN THAT TALL GUY FROM THE DINOSAUR MOVIE SAY IT AGAIN SLOWER? way, it is a retelling of every rags to riches that came before and all that came after owe it.

But to retell a particular one using names and event sin an order, yeah I agree with Ptwids that it often feels like fan fiction, or worse, I can dismiss it as selling me CHARMIN instead of toilet paper. To have a mom figure named Betsy is like calling your chocolate-with-white-filling whoopie pies OREO FLAVOR to associate with a brand and sell more; I kinda resent this. See: so much of the THE JANE AUSTEN spin offs.

I also feel plain tired of, “I retell because character X didn’t have a voice.” Ahab’s Wife and Wide Sargasso Sea sold so much, so now we have books about every underheard human in the classics. It was very selling for a decade to pitch an agent or pub house with: CLASSIC BOOK TITLE, but from DIFFERENT CHARACTER’S PERSPECTIVE. The thing I HATE that grew out of this is a whole genre of, A FAMOUS PERSON’S LIFE NOVELIZED and told from the perspective of SOME NON FAMOUS PERSON WHO WAS NEAR THEM. It just got done and done and done like Meryl Streep explaining to Andy why she has a teal sweater on. It trickled from lit fic into book club fic into commercial fic into MMP — I am tired of it.

I don’t think Demon is (only) doing these things. I think what is attempted here is more ambitious. The idea that history repeats is present. The idea that the human problems of oppression and poverty remain unsolved. The parallels between this country and time and that one are smart and sad and shocking, and it makes the book bigger IMO.

[Fillyjonk]

Hi book clubbers.

Your August title is UP A DAY EARLY, and the theme for SEPTEMEBER is The Future, which opens up speculative and sci fi and apocalyptic options, so please feel free to make some suggests and let me know if you have read this month's pick before or if it is new to you!

[Dworin]

A bit late but I finished DC today. I was really gripped by the first half of the book; when the drugs started, not so. I know it's parallel to the other DC (which I read too long ago to anything sensible about) but the happy ending seemed not fitting.

[Hotshot lasgun]

i loved pride and prejudice and zombies, if only because i was on a zombie kick