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elementarymydear 's review for:
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My two overwhelming impressions of this book are:
1. Every politician currently in power could do with reading this, and maybe I should send them a copy with highlighted passages
and
2. The musical was better
We are all familiar with the basic plot and the characters in Oliver Twist, of whom Oliver is the least interesting. A good-hearted, incorruptible orphan, through his story we meet some of London’s criminal underworld and some of its most benevolent rich folk. Even if you aren’t familiar with the story going in, the characters have become so prominent in our collective consciousness that their archetypes are familiar (for better or – in Fagin’s case – for worse).
Find this and other reviews on my blog!
I’ve had mixed experience with Dickens in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much of a page-turner this was. Being published serially does mean that Dickens has a vested interest in getting you back for the next chapter in a week’s time, so it’s understandable, but does make for a much more pleasant reading experience than some of his later works. That being said, he’s not exactly concise in his story-telling. What we think of as the story (that is, the plot of the musical) is actually the exposition. What follows is an increasingly drawn-out account of literally everyone scrambling to find out about Oliver’s past, revealing hidden motives, and adding a whole load of other crimes to get Oliver involved in. This culminates in a whodunnit style chapter where everyone (well, everyone still alive) is gathered together for the reveal of Oliver’s true parentage.
The crowning achievement of the novel, though, is its scathing attack on what passed for social care in the early 19th Century. For many of us today the story is how we first learned about workhouses, and is inseparable from them in our minds, and I’m sure that has been the case for a long time before now. Dickens does not hold back on criticising ‘philosophers’ who claim to know what poor people really need. After the past year of the poorest families in our country being given handfuls of tuna in coin bags to eat, it’s particularly sobering. Oliver Twist, in that regard at least, remains as relevant as ever.
1. Every politician currently in power could do with reading this, and maybe I should send them a copy with highlighted passages
and
2. The musical was better
We are all familiar with the basic plot and the characters in Oliver Twist, of whom Oliver is the least interesting. A good-hearted, incorruptible orphan, through his story we meet some of London’s criminal underworld and some of its most benevolent rich folk. Even if you aren’t familiar with the story going in, the characters have become so prominent in our collective consciousness that their archetypes are familiar (for better or – in Fagin’s case – for worse).
Find this and other reviews on my blog!
I’ve had mixed experience with Dickens in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much of a page-turner this was. Being published serially does mean that Dickens has a vested interest in getting you back for the next chapter in a week’s time, so it’s understandable, but does make for a much more pleasant reading experience than some of his later works. That being said, he’s not exactly concise in his story-telling. What we think of as the story (that is, the plot of the musical) is actually the exposition. What follows is an increasingly drawn-out account of literally everyone scrambling to find out about Oliver’s past, revealing hidden motives, and adding a whole load of other crimes to get Oliver involved in. This culminates in a whodunnit style chapter where everyone (well, everyone still alive) is gathered together for the reveal of Oliver’s true parentage.
The crowning achievement of the novel, though, is its scathing attack on what passed for social care in the early 19th Century. For many of us today the story is how we first learned about workhouses, and is inseparable from them in our minds, and I’m sure that has been the case for a long time before now. Dickens does not hold back on criticising ‘philosophers’ who claim to know what poor people really need. After the past year of the poorest families in our country being given handfuls of tuna in coin bags to eat, it’s particularly sobering. Oliver Twist, in that regard at least, remains as relevant as ever.