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selenakAka a 2022 novel set in the Appalachians during the late 1990s and early 2000s with the euphemistically called "Opiod Crisis" very much a main theme, and simultanously a modern adaptation of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The last Copperfield adaptation I had seen or read was the Iannucci movie starring Dev Patel in the title role which emphasized the humor and vitality of the novel and succeeded splendidly, but had to cut down the darker elements in order to do so, with the breathneck speed of a two hours mvie based on a many hundred pages novel helping with that. Demon Copperhead took the reverse approach; it's all the darkness magnified - helped by the fact this is also a many hundred pages novel - but nearly no humor. Both adaptations emphasize the social injustice of the various systems they're depicting. Both had to do some considerable flashing out when it comes to Dickens's first person narrator. No one has ever argued that David is the most interesting character in David Copperfield. As long as he's still a child, this isn't noticable because David going from coddled and much beloved kid to abused and exploited kid makes for a powerful emotional arc. (BTW, I was fascinated to learn back when I was reading Claire Tomalin's Dickens biography that Dickens was influenced by Jane Eyre in this; Charlotte Bronte's novel convinced him to go for a first person narration - which he hadn't tried before - and the two abused and outraged child narrators who describe what scares and elates them incredibly vividly do have a lot on common.) But once he's an adult, it often feels like he's telling other people's stories (very well, I hasten to add) in which he's only on the periphery, except for his love life. The movie solved this by giving David - who is autobiographically inspired anyway - some more of Dickens`s on life and qualities. Demon Copperhead solves it by a) putting most of the part of the Dickens plot when David is already an adult to when Damon/Demon is still a teenager (he only becomes a legal adult near the end), b) by making Damon as a narrator a whole lot angrier than David, and c) by letting him fall to what is nearly everyone else's problem as well, addiction.
So the Damon/Dori marriage doesn't just suffer from our narrator's belated realisation that marrying his first crush who is hopelessly immature was a big mistake, it suffers from Damon and Dori both being teens who had to act as adults far too early and got hooked on medication while they were and are thus playing out a Jesse and Jane near the end of s2 of Breaking Bad plot, with Dori, like Damon's mother (whom she resembles as much as Dora does David's mother Clara), dying in the same way like Damon's mother did, on an overdose and pregnant.
There are some movies and tv shows and books where addiction plots annoy me to no end (cases in point, what Rome does with Cleopatra, or the other Borgias show suddenly giving Rodrigo and Giulia half a season of an addiction plot), but not in this novel, because the way the already poor and exploited inhabitants of Lee County are nearly all turned into addicts is a big part of the novel's J'Accuse . Describing pills left right and center is a go to solution not just because courtesy of the rotten US health system not covering anything else (Damon gets addicted when he suffers an injury during high school football), but also because it's one of the few ways for the doctors to make money in that area. It's paired up with a hopelessly overworked social care system where foster kids end up with exploitative foster parents despite the state knowing about it because there's literally no one else willing to take them in, and where the rare warning about tobacco or painkillers isn't believed because it's seen coming from cityfolks perceived as ridiculing and despising the population. And of course, death by drugs is a plausible modern day equivalent to death by childbirth (in the cases of Damon's mother and Dori).
Some of the "translations" into the modern Appalachian context I thought were very clever, like Damon's talent being drawing and his eventual ticket to survival and success becoming a comic book artist (as opposed to his talent being storytelling and him becoming a novelist, like David and Charles Dickens himself). Some, otoh, worked within the novel itself but inevitably lost something of the Victorian novel's layers and themes. Since the novel is exclusively set in Lee County, Virginia, and Damon meets the equivalent of Steerforth, Fast Forward, while both are in foster care (in a "school" ), Fast Forward can't have the class difference to the rest of the cast Steerforth has in David Copperfield. He's not a rich aristocrat (though at one point he bluffs about having a farm). And because extra marital relations (especially between classes) aren't the certified social ruin for a girl they were in Victorian England, he has to do more to Emmy (aka Emily in Dickens) than simply hook up with her, travel with her around for a while and eventually dump her. In Demon Copperhead, he actually pimps her out. Which removes any moral ambiguity in Fast Forward (not that what Steerforth does with Emily is great, but there is a difference, and she does not go into this blindly, plus she has reasons for it beyond "he's just that charming"); rereading the novel forstory about Emily a few Yuletides back left me with Emily and Steerforth opinions) and makes him a straightforward villain. It also removes any ambiguity in Damon's response to him (as, well, it would). The homoerotic subtext from Dickens is still there, but mostly one sided and before the Emmy/Emily event; significantly, there was no equivalent to the "think well of me" scene (or if there was I utterly missed it), and none of the occasional self loathing remarks Steerforth utters between the dazzle. (Just compare the way he tells David about the reason for Rosa Dartle's scar with the way Damon learns the reason for Rose's scar.) (BTW, the movie removed Rosa Dartle, though it gave some of her traits to Steerforth's mother; Kingsolver's novel removes the mother but maintains Rose as Fast Forward's foster sister instead.)
Not just no more ambiguos, but going from the light side of the force to the dark side: the McCobbs, the modern day equivalent of the Micawbers. As I mentioned when talking about Dickens before, you can make a case that in David Copperfield, he split up his real life parents into the lovable Micawbers and the hateable Murdstones. Thus Mr. Micawber is eternally in debt and a Victorian con man and fantasist whose every scheme falls through (like Dickens's real life father), but he's essentially kind and well meaning, and while young David lives with the Micawbers while having to work at the bottle factory, they are not the reason why he has to work, and they do their best to treat him as a family member. It's not their fault that he has to work in the factory to begin with, it's the fault of David's evil stepfather Mr. Murdstone. Damon also has an evil stepfather, called Stoner, but Stoner doesn't get custody of him after his mother's death, and thus Damon ends up with the McCobbs because of the foster system, and it's their idea and fault to make him work at a hellish garbabe disposal unit while cashing in the cheques they get for him. They also put him into the former dog's place instead of an actual room and nearly starve him as if they were the Dursleys in Harry Potter. So when Mr. McCobb and Mrs. McCobb have the same kind of speeches the Micawbers do in David Copperfield, it's no longer funny or endearing, it's infuriating. (Unsurprisingly, Mr. McCobb is not involved in any way in the downfaul of U-Haul, the equivalent of Uriah Heep.)
Where Kingsolver gains instead of loses: the female characters, especially the younger ones. (Dickens is fine with women past middle age or the occasional excentric like Rosa Dartle, but young women between 17 and their mid 20s, err....) Not only are there more - for example, instead of Dan Peggoty, foster father, uncle and family patriarch extraordinaire, we get June Peggot, aunt and foster mother extraordinaire and also the sole decent and ethical medical worker in the county - but also those who came across as rather one dimensional in the original, like Annie Armstrong, here have an actual purpose and personalities (she's the teacher recognising Damon's drawing talent). Agnes, who in Kingsolver's novel was originally nicknamed Angus by wannabe bullies and adopted the nickname for herself with a vengeance, turning the joke on the bullies, performs the same function she does in David Copperfield as the source of good advice (often not taken) and good ethics but doesn't have to be a symbol of female purity as well (though she's nearly the sole character who never popped a single pill), and gets to swear a mile and have a tomboy personalitiy instead. (Since her father is no longer a lawyer but a football coach who temporarily mentors Damon, it feels plausible.) Dori, unlike Dora, doesn't live in a society where women behaving childlishly is seen as great and adorable, nor is she a rich man's coddled daughter; the reason why she's doomed to fail is that her father was sick through all her teens and no one thought it strange that the teenage daughter had to care for him unaided - because everyone is dirt poor - which gave her complete access to his medication, which made her an addict. I do regret the quivalent of Betsy Trotwood (here Damon's grandmother instead of David's grand-aunt) doesn't get her big confronting and downdressing the Murdstones scene since that was already adapted out the Iannucci movie and is her big moment of glory, but she maintains the quality of having Mr. Dick around and treating him like a person instead of a joke which is another great Betsey Trotwood trait.
In conclusion: this was a compelling novel but tough to read due to the subject and the unrelenting grimness. I'm not saying you should treat the horrible neglect and exploitation of children and the way a rotten health system allowed half the population to become addicts irreverently, but tone wise, this is more Hard Times than David Copperfield, and sometimes I wished for some breathing space in between the horrors. But I am glad to have read it.
So the Damon/Dori marriage doesn't just suffer from our narrator's belated realisation that marrying his first crush who is hopelessly immature was a big mistake, it suffers from Damon and Dori both being teens who had to act as adults far too early and got hooked on medication while they were and are thus playing out a Jesse and Jane near the end of s2 of Breaking Bad plot, with Dori, like Damon's mother (whom she resembles as much as Dora does David's mother Clara), dying in the same way like Damon's mother did, on an overdose and pregnant.
There are some movies and tv shows and books where addiction plots annoy me to no end (cases in point, what Rome does with Cleopatra, or the other Borgias show suddenly giving Rodrigo and Giulia half a season of an addiction plot), but not in this novel, because the way the already poor and exploited inhabitants of Lee County are nearly all turned into addicts is a big part of the novel's J'Accuse . Describing pills left right and center is a go to solution not just because courtesy of the rotten US health system not covering anything else (Damon gets addicted when he suffers an injury during high school football), but also because it's one of the few ways for the doctors to make money in that area. It's paired up with a hopelessly overworked social care system where foster kids end up with exploitative foster parents despite the state knowing about it because there's literally no one else willing to take them in, and where the rare warning about tobacco or painkillers isn't believed because it's seen coming from cityfolks perceived as ridiculing and despising the population. And of course, death by drugs is a plausible modern day equivalent to death by childbirth (in the cases of Damon's mother and Dori).
Some of the "translations" into the modern Appalachian context I thought were very clever, like Damon's talent being drawing and his eventual ticket to survival and success becoming a comic book artist (as opposed to his talent being storytelling and him becoming a novelist, like David and Charles Dickens himself). Some, otoh, worked within the novel itself but inevitably lost something of the Victorian novel's layers and themes. Since the novel is exclusively set in Lee County, Virginia, and Damon meets the equivalent of Steerforth, Fast Forward, while both are in foster care (in a "school" ), Fast Forward can't have the class difference to the rest of the cast Steerforth has in David Copperfield. He's not a rich aristocrat (though at one point he bluffs about having a farm). And because extra marital relations (especially between classes) aren't the certified social ruin for a girl they were in Victorian England, he has to do more to Emmy (aka Emily in Dickens) than simply hook up with her, travel with her around for a while and eventually dump her. In Demon Copperhead, he actually pimps her out. Which removes any moral ambiguity in Fast Forward (not that what Steerforth does with Emily is great, but there is a difference, and she does not go into this blindly, plus she has reasons for it beyond "he's just that charming"); rereading the novel forstory about Emily a few Yuletides back left me with Emily and Steerforth opinions) and makes him a straightforward villain. It also removes any ambiguity in Damon's response to him (as, well, it would). The homoerotic subtext from Dickens is still there, but mostly one sided and before the Emmy/Emily event; significantly, there was no equivalent to the "think well of me" scene (or if there was I utterly missed it), and none of the occasional self loathing remarks Steerforth utters between the dazzle. (Just compare the way he tells David about the reason for Rosa Dartle's scar with the way Damon learns the reason for Rose's scar.) (BTW, the movie removed Rosa Dartle, though it gave some of her traits to Steerforth's mother; Kingsolver's novel removes the mother but maintains Rose as Fast Forward's foster sister instead.)
Not just no more ambiguos, but going from the light side of the force to the dark side: the McCobbs, the modern day equivalent of the Micawbers. As I mentioned when talking about Dickens before, you can make a case that in David Copperfield, he split up his real life parents into the lovable Micawbers and the hateable Murdstones. Thus Mr. Micawber is eternally in debt and a Victorian con man and fantasist whose every scheme falls through (like Dickens's real life father), but he's essentially kind and well meaning, and while young David lives with the Micawbers while having to work at the bottle factory, they are not the reason why he has to work, and they do their best to treat him as a family member. It's not their fault that he has to work in the factory to begin with, it's the fault of David's evil stepfather Mr. Murdstone. Damon also has an evil stepfather, called Stoner, but Stoner doesn't get custody of him after his mother's death, and thus Damon ends up with the McCobbs because of the foster system, and it's their idea and fault to make him work at a hellish garbabe disposal unit while cashing in the cheques they get for him. They also put him into the former dog's place instead of an actual room and nearly starve him as if they were the Dursleys in Harry Potter. So when Mr. McCobb and Mrs. McCobb have the same kind of speeches the Micawbers do in David Copperfield, it's no longer funny or endearing, it's infuriating. (Unsurprisingly, Mr. McCobb is not involved in any way in the downfaul of U-Haul, the equivalent of Uriah Heep.)
Where Kingsolver gains instead of loses: the female characters, especially the younger ones. (Dickens is fine with women past middle age or the occasional excentric like Rosa Dartle, but young women between 17 and their mid 20s, err....) Not only are there more - for example, instead of Dan Peggoty, foster father, uncle and family patriarch extraordinaire, we get June Peggot, aunt and foster mother extraordinaire and also the sole decent and ethical medical worker in the county - but also those who came across as rather one dimensional in the original, like Annie Armstrong, here have an actual purpose and personalities (she's the teacher recognising Damon's drawing talent). Agnes, who in Kingsolver's novel was originally nicknamed Angus by wannabe bullies and adopted the nickname for herself with a vengeance, turning the joke on the bullies, performs the same function she does in David Copperfield as the source of good advice (often not taken) and good ethics but doesn't have to be a symbol of female purity as well (though she's nearly the sole character who never popped a single pill), and gets to swear a mile and have a tomboy personalitiy instead. (Since her father is no longer a lawyer but a football coach who temporarily mentors Damon, it feels plausible.) Dori, unlike Dora, doesn't live in a society where women behaving childlishly is seen as great and adorable, nor is she a rich man's coddled daughter; the reason why she's doomed to fail is that her father was sick through all her teens and no one thought it strange that the teenage daughter had to care for him unaided - because everyone is dirt poor - which gave her complete access to his medication, which made her an addict. I do regret the quivalent of Betsy Trotwood (here Damon's grandmother instead of David's grand-aunt) doesn't get her big confronting and downdressing the Murdstones scene since that was already adapted out the Iannucci movie and is her big moment of glory, but she maintains the quality of having Mr. Dick around and treating him like a person instead of a joke which is another great Betsey Trotwood trait.
In conclusion: this was a compelling novel but tough to read due to the subject and the unrelenting grimness. I'm not saying you should treat the horrible neglect and exploitation of children and the way a rotten health system allowed half the population to become addicts irreverently, but tone wise, this is more Hard Times than David Copperfield, and sometimes I wished for some breathing space in between the horrors. But I am glad to have read it.
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Date: 2025-07-05 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-06 01:22 pm (UTC)Oh, me too. And I certainly wouldn't be able to reconcile her depictions and themes with the occasional lighter note, either.
I thought Iannucci did a great job in that one moment where David goes back to the Peggottys' boat house and we see, through adult David's eyes, that it's not the charming Technicolor paradise he remembered it as; it reminds us that he's an unreliable narrator and (imo) makes the extremely lighthearted tone of the rest of the movie work as a commentary on storytelling rather than a literal depiction of childhood trauma.
True enough; more thoughts I had on the movie are here.