I've been planning this re-read for a while, and the release of Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead was my spur. It was every bit as witty, as addictive and as pointed as I remembered, even if it was slightly less poignant.
I was struck by just how modern so many of Dickens' views are. While his characters inhabit a world in which women are brutally punished for stepping out of turn, Copperfield's aunt stands as the towering hero of the book and his mother as a terrifying sharp portrait of coercive control can do. Even flighty Dora is more of a creation of her circumstance, and Em'ly's capacity to reject social expectations enables her salvation as well as her fall. Frankly, all these women seem more vital than Copperfield himself, and give much of the life to the book.
Sure some of it is just a bit much - particularly the events of one stormy night - but so much is simply wonderfully written, with such sweet fun with the voices, the situations and the descriptions set against the sour fury at so much avoidable suffering. All great stuff.