Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Cruel Deception with a Twist of Fate, 10 Jun 2003
Dickens writes with authority in ‘Oliver Twist’. The preface to the book outlines clearly how Dickens has grown tired of the glamorising of criminals, and sets off in pursuit of putting the record straight.
All his characters and settings are drawn on using his own experiences from his own life, as well as purposefully bringing into his story characters to whom he familiarised himself with at first hand, such as the obnoxious and arrogantly rude character, ‘Mr Fang’the Police Magistrate. What is so amazing about this and many of Dickens’ books, is the authors ability to draw the reader into each character, as you read Sikes’s part, you feel like the nasty criminal, you can’t help hunching your shoulders and wanting to rub the back of your hands as you read the words of ‘Fagin,’ even the pompous and outrageous ‘Mr Bumble’ commands the readers attempts at the recognition of his character.
Throughout the book your emotions are tested at the unbelievable cruelty bestowed on the innocence of ‘Oliver Twist’ by the worst criminal elements, and their attempts at ruining the life of a child, denied of his true identity, an identity that would free him from a life of degradation, poverty and enforced crime.
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6 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
A good book, 18 Dec 2002
Novel Report for Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 353/353 pagesOliver Twist is a little boy living in a workhouse as an orphan child, this is because his mother died when she gave birth to him and no father was to be found. One day Oliver is selected by the other boys in the workhouse to ask for some more gruel since the boys are almost starving. The leaders of the workhouse become outrageous and a note is set up outside the building saying anyone taking care of Oliver will receive an 5£ note. This is the beginning of Oliver's life in this book that also is the plot of the story, he is taken by an undertaker to become an apprentice but runs away when he is mistreated. He decides to go for London and comes to a man called Fagin, a jew who seems to have a very big interest in both jewellery and neckerchiefs! The book then tells us the rest of Oliver's adventures and various subplots that makes the plot go forward. The end of the book is unfortunately quite bad and if I'm right I think that Dickens wrote this as chapters in a paper who came out once in a while. As the story goes on I think he got more readers and tried to make the book better for a bigger audiene, that is very sad because the book's best parts are the first 100-150 pages. In the end there are for example a bad love-history and the ending of the book were the real plot of the book (it's about Oliver having inherited a big amount of money and his brother trying to make him not have them) was quite boring unfortunately. The setting of the novel is in the poor parts of London in the end of the 19:th century and that is very well written by Dickens, it is very good critic of the society too and I really think Dickens made a difference by the book. Both Oliver and the thief-master Fagin are very well written by Dickens and clearly the best characters in this story.
Oliver is the perfect human, the innocent child who wants nothing bad to anyone and is as helpful, generous and loving as any human can be. Dickens tries to make some adults this way too but they are not as well written as Oliver as their characteristics are similar to Oliver but don't fit for a adult, it's hard to make an adult person seem innocent and good as an angel.
Fagin is even better described then Oliver, he reminds me very much of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings with his fondness of glittering things and when he speaks to himself in third person and repeats words, for example when Fagin looks at a gold watch, "Clever Dogs! Clever dogs! Stanch to the last! Never peached upon old Fagin! And why should they? It wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept the drop a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows! Fine fellows!", to be honest it's very similar to Gollum.
Fagin is a most interesting man, apart from being very greedy and as an result of that also very selfish I don't think he's all evil as some people think though (for example the backside of the book calls him diabolical), after all the only thing he does is to make kids who otherwise perhaps would have starved to death steal things of people who are so rich that they clearly can afford to be pick-pocketed of their neckerchiefs.
There are some other characters in the story to but they are not that very interesting. The writing style of Dickens is not so old-fashioned as it might have been, there are some old words but it was quite easy to understand. The worst part of the whole book has to do with the writing-style though and it is the dialogues, they are very stiff and boring and very unnatural, much similar to Shakespeare or American soap-operas. Some of the dialogues are better, as those between the thieves, while some are really bad as the one between Rose and her lover.
I liked the beginning and middle part of the book but the ending was to bad. 3/5 it gets.
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1 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Along with Great Expectations, the best Dickens novel, 12 Jan 2007
The other day, quite by chance, I happened upon the pub into which Bill Sikes goes (a pedlar offers to clean the blood off his hat), after he has murdered Nancy and wanders north out of London, through the 'village' of Islington and out into deepest Hertfordshire. The pub is really there, it's called the Eight Bells, it's in Hatfield, and it has a plaque on the wall. It reminded me of how good this book is. With the possible exception of Great Expectations, it's the best novel Dickens wrote.
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