** spoiler alert ** The character of Oliver is a bland and tedious milquetoast as are the Maylies but the villains are broad grotesques of pure genius. Mr Bumble, Bill Sikes, Fagin, Nancy, Dodger and even Master Bates ( I wondered if this was a purposeful joke or not?) are such memorable characters. The story is a rags to riches tale about a pure hearted orphan who escapes both the drudgery of the workhouse and a life of crime, by the lucky coincidence of being related to some good hearted toffs (and one evil one, who tries to thwart him.) The writing style seems much broader than Copperfield or Great Expectations and I think this is an earlier book? The book is very antisemitic with Fagin referred to in very derogatory terms and always called The Jew rather than his name. The few other Jewish characters that appear are also villainous criminals and their ethnicity is always specifically referenced unlike the other characters.

The parts that I thought were amazing were - the sequence where Bill Sykes takes Oliver to do the Robbery, The scenes between Fagin, Bill and Nancy. The scene between the Bumbles and Monks. The ending where Bill commits the murder and goes on the run, plus his Frankenstein style end. During all these scenes there is so much juicy, grotty, rotten description of the scenery, speech and characters of the London underworld that you can almost smell the air and feel the ambience of the places.

Not so good are the scenes with Oliver and the Maylies. These are tedious in the extreme and you can tell that Dickens relishes writing the villains more than he does the heroes. A (near) end chapter which reads like the explanation of a detective novel I also found rather weak and unconvincing. Particularly Monks sudden need to confess all to Mr Brownlow and co when he is not even in court or being taken down by the crushers! Also Fagin's court appearance where we switch to his internal monologue for a chapter jarred against the style of the rest of the story.