In case you wondered …

… 'It's full of one-liners': Armando Iannucci on why we should all read David Copperfield | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

To read the book … is to be taken by surprise. Micawber, for example, is often thought of as a jovial roly-poly character, played in film versions by such actors as WC Fields or Ralph Richardson, rotund and full of bonhomie despite a life continually on the run from creditors owed a slag-heap of debts. Dickens writes something far more stark, though: a desperate, hungry man going through erratic mood swings linked to his financial state, smiling one minute, talking and acting out very graphic suicidal thoughts the next. He’s good company, but also a leech on others, infecting with debt all those who befriend him.