I have several times heard that if Charles Dickens were alive today he would be writing for the soaps. David Copperfield is the soapiest of his books I have read so far. There are so many strands and characters that keep disappearing and reappearing. One chapter would have some comedy, then the next would have some melodrama or tragedy. The other Dickens books I've read had interleaving themes, but they mostly had one or two overarching themes or backdrops. In this book, the only link is David Copperfield himself. To me this is a weakness.