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Oct 06, 2011

Stephen rated it:

I looooooooved this book. Another Dickens...another favorite. 'Please, sir, I want some more.'

Jane Austen and Charles Dickens have been dueling inside my WOW center for some time in a titanic, see-saw struggle for the title of greatest word-smither/story-crafter in all of English literature. Ms Austen previously caused heart-palpitations and a slew of gasms with Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility which left me spent like a cheap nickel. However, Sir Dickens, More...

41 comments like (60 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2008

Mark rated it:

I have in my 37 years of life avoided reading Charles Dickens. My reason: after having suffered through trying to read the so-called English literature of his era--think Thomas Harding, Emile Bronte and Mary Shelly--I figured Dickens would be no better. For some reason I can’t now recollect, I decided to give Dickens a try. I chose Oliver Twist. And was immediately hooked. Far from the boring narrative one finds the works of the other English writers I've already mentioned, Dickens has a v More...

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Joe rated it:

Having seen the stage musical and two movie versions, I have wanted for a long time to read the original. It was interesting to see how much was changed from the book. Fagin is a much more loathsome creature in the book--more treacherous, more cunning, more quick to anger, and not the jolly old naughty elf that he is in the musical version. Nancy is also more of a wretch, and not the kindly, big sister figure to Fagin's gang as she is portrayed in the film; making her decision to act on Olive More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Mike rated it:

So I've finished it, but it was kind of a struggle. There are parts of the story that made me not want to go on (and surprisingly this was often because I didn't want any more bad things to happen to Oliver. Now I know why 'Dick' is in Dickens).

Several things jumped out at me while reading. The first was the elitist Victorian view of society where the poor are pitied but in the end it is really their fault. Though Dickens does poke fun at this a bit, and he does point out how th More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Nov 23, 2011

Peter rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Cait rated it:

I swear Dickens named one of his characters Master Bates on purpose.

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Kelly rated it:

Please sir, may I have less?

0 comments like (18 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2011

Alex rated it:

First of all, Oliver Twist is a hateful book. Dickens has created in Fagin an embodiment of bigotry; a leering, black-nailed, money-grubbing Jew who's nearly always referred to as The Jew, as though Dickens wasn't sure we'd get it.* Fagin is the most memorable character in Oliver Twist, and he's inexcusable. I've read me some Victorian novels; I'm familiar with the casual anti-Semitism that's nearly unavoidable in them; I understand the context of the time. Dickens is well beyond that context. F More...

15 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2011

Ardesia rated it:

Ciao, sono Oliver, l'orfanello sfigato immaginato da Dickens.
La mia storia è diventata un classico; un classico esempio di come la gente sia da sempre morbosamente attratta dalle sfortune altrui, dagli intrecci impossibili e dai finali improbabili. Sognare piace a tutti, ma quando i sogni diventano incubi l'importante è che ne sia protagonista qualcun'altro, anche un bimbetto ingenuo, tanto buono e con un faccino da tesorino come il mio può andare bene allo scopo. Anzi, così è pure meglio, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Malbadeen marked it as to-read

Before you judge my son let me tell you a few things about him: he surfs, he skateboards, he listens to music I disapprove of, he wants his hair much longer than I will allow and he doesn't pick up after himself. My point? He's not some handkerchief wearing, brief case carrying, Alex P. Keaton nerd. But he reads, a lot and it is reason 1,199 I love him so much!

The other day we were in a book store and I, being the shallow gal that I am, was admiring the new covers on a set of classic More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2007

Rafe rated it:

I hate Oliver Twist. AND I hate Oliver Twist. I can stand neither the character nor the book. One thing that one is taught over and over again in literature classes and in writing classes is that characters must change, that protagonists must be organic and developing, not round. So what's the deal with Oliver? He starts as a twit, and ends as a twit. I know that the point is how his purity is untouched by the gangrenous society in which he is enveloped, but... But books like this, and es More...

12 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Anthony rated it:

The biggest problem I have, when I try to read Dickens, is that he uses really long sentences, that start off merrily enough - though you wonder where he might be going - then meander like some ancient stream across the pages, complete with eddies and side currents - and occasionally random wildlife or characters - then, eventually, several lines later, somehow find their way back to whatever it was that he started talking about right back at the very beginning... :)

My second proble More...

10 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2010

Jen rated it:

We all know Oliver Twist somehow, either from pop allusions or musicals or BBC productions, but actually reading Oliver Twist and experiencing the story firsthand definitely gave me a special appreciation for Dickens’ sentence structure, imagery, and portrayals of Victorian London, plus I get to claim obnoxious bragging rights (and I’ll start off being a little haughty right now: Oliver never actually says “please, sir, may I have some more?” he says “please sir, I want some more.” Now you, to More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2011

Craig rated it:

"It is wonderful how Virtue turns from dirty stockings; and how Vice, married to ribbons and a little gay attire, changes her name, as wedded ladies do, and becomes Romance" In his preface to the third edition of Oliver Twist, Dickens seems to call out those who criticized his descriptions and characterizations of the criminal element. Before reading this work, I had entertained ideas that maybe Dickens dark worlds would have no impact on modern reader's minds. The dark, dank, neigh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

April the Cheshire Meow rated it:

Not Dicken's best, but yet worth reading. The cinematic possibilities jump off every page; I don't wonder this novel in particular has been turned into plays and movies. I found myself musing if the images depicted so vividly by Dicken's prose fired the mind's eye of the folks creating the silent movie technology. Not only is the timing right, but the scene action in the book actually appears to have been replicated in movies as standard action sequences. however if you are sensitive to literatu More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2009

Ross rated it:

Mr. Dickens is a master wordsmith with an extraordinary sense of plot, which is keen on display in Oliver Twist. The novel is also populated with remarkable characters; alas (and the reason for four, rather than five stars) the novel's namesake is not one of them. Poor Oliver remains a naive bourgeois little boy for the entirety of the novel, although he survives horrid abuse and undergoes vigorous adventures. There is nothing to suggest that his mind is filled with anything but piety and pro More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 14, 2008

Anh rated it:

If I could ask Oliver Twist a question, I would ask him "why he did not change his characteristic even though he was forced to be a thief in a gangster group?". And I would asked Charles Dickens the reason why he decided to build Oliver Twist's characteristic like that? In my opinion, a person who grew up without parents, lived in a housework with many disadvantages, and jointed in a gangster group was difficult to keep his personality to be a good person like Oliver Twist. Therefore, More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2008

Nicole rated it:

Reading this novel was a delight. Perhaps, it was so wonderfully moving because of some personal dilemmas occurring in my life at the time. My good friend, Christina deJong had just passed away from a horribly debilitating disease, cancer, and I was having problems grieving. And then I read this moving passage:

'but this should give us comfort in our sorrow; for Heaven is just; and such things teach

impressively, that there is a brighter world than this; and that the passag More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2010

Paul rated it:

Oliver Twist THE BOOK is crap and has NO songs in it, I couldn't believe it. So I googled and get this, it turns out they put those in the movie and Dickens had nothing to do with it! But since they were the best bit of the film, you can understand my bereft sense of disappointment when I finally came to pick up the book.

How could Dickens NOT have thought of having little Oliver sing Where Is Love when chucked into the cellar or Who Will Buy This Loverly Morning when he wakes up in More...

5 comments like (17 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2007

Jwala rated it:

While a bit entertaining, the book feels much longer than necessary. Though there aren't any descriptions of the flowers and trees and buildings but there are a long series of events which seem to take a long time which are equally boring.
Most of the characters in Oliver Twist are one dimensional i.e they are either pure good or pure evil. There are those individual storylines that lead to nowhere.I did not care much for Oliver, either. There is too much melodrama and the sentimental scene More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Tara rated it:

I have started re-reading some of my antique books, and have found the language and expressions amazing. I honestly have to wonder though, if Dickens even knew what a period was. For example, this passage from the first chapter of Oliver Twist:

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhou More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 27, 2008

Terence rated it:

This is the book that began my loathe affair with Dickens. I tried at least four times, as I recall, to read this but was never able to get past the first few chapters.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2009

Carol added it

Another Dickens read in high school. This one brought
home the cruel treatment given to children in England
during this time.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Barbara added it

I avoided writing a review of "Oliver Twist" until I read a few critical analyses of it vis-a-vis the character of Fagin and in particular, how scholars view Dickens' obvious anti-semitism. Without citing any of these scholarly essays in particular, generally it is acknowledged that while Dickens, for all of his progressive campaigning through his art for social reforms, the standard stereotypes of Jews especially as were evidently accepted in Victorian Society were part of his mindse More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Alun added it

Since Charles Dickens has an unassailable position in the canon of English literature, it is perhaps hard to remember that he was first and foremost a popular author of his time, and that Oliver Twist was the work of a very young author. Nowadays, if an author has a successful first novel he or she would be under strict instructions to produce a second that was as nearly as possible the same, but Dickens consistently had enough faith in his readers and his own powers to try completely new appr More...

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Jul 02, 2010

Anh added it

Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens
1. Sometimes we are pulled toward one or two characters I the story. We identify with them of feel sympathy for them. With which characters do you identify in the book, and why do you believe you identify with them?
When reading the Oliver Twist I saw that there many characters, but one of them made me pay more attention. That is Nancy, one of the women in the Fagin’s room. She must always obey to Sikes like “a lamp”. She saw that Oliver was badly trea More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Ben rated it:

And so we come to Charles Dickens’s most famous work. Oliver Twist was serialised in Bentley’s Miscellany beginning in February 1837 and ending in April 1839 and it introduced some of Dickens’s best loved and known characters, from the titular Oliver, to Fagin, Bill Sikes, Nancy, and The Artful Dodger. It is impossible to approach this work without knowledge of it – whether through one of the innumerable screen adaptations, the stage musical or simple osmosis from public knowledge. I approached More...

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Jan 29, 2012

Ollie rated it:

I heard a critic once compare Stephen King and Jackie Collins to Charles Dickens. This critic wondered which of today's current popular authors would survive the centuries and still be read in the future. I didn't understand the comparison at the time because in my mind Jackie and Stephen appeal to people who want a quick thrill without the danger of having to think too hard. I thought Dickens' novels were classic because there was more to them than their soap opera plot lines. But this was b More...

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Oct 07, 2011

Johanna is currently reading it

While in college, I took a Victorian/British literature class which I was unsuccessful in. I ended up withdrawing from the course because the reading required was WAY TOO extensive and I just could not keep up. However, as I always do, I did save all of the books that I purchased for this course, Oliver Twist being one of them.

I am not too far into the book, but I will say this-- thus far, it seems as though Oliver, the main character (protagonist), has had a very rough life. As a read More...

0 comments like

Aug 25, 2011

Dallas added it

Their was a boy named Oliver Twist and when he was born his mother died and his father was already dead, so he had to go to a warehouse for orphans and when he asked for more food he was sent to a dungeon for 4 days and when he got out he was sent to the director if the board for the warehouse and they did the same thing when he asked for more food, but this time he had the shortest string so he had to ask. Then they decided to put a flyer up saying they will give money if anyone will take him a More...

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