Oliver Twist in Never too Late to Read Classics

Oct 27, 2021 Ashley W rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 0stand-alone, genre-classics, source-audible, 401-500-pages

Started on Kindle, then switched to Audible and OMG loved the audio so much more! Really brought the characters to life.

There were so many surprises in this book for me. I always anticipated Dickens would be boring and tedious with slow stories without much action. I was so wrong.

First, the humor was a shocker. So much, though not intentional, at least on part of the characters. For example, Mrs. Mann is so flip about the orphans dying. That in itself isn't funny. Mostly because kids died so muc Started on Kindle, then switched to Audible and OMG loved the audio so much more! Really brought the characters to life.

There were so many surprises in this book for me. I always anticipated Dickens would be boring and tedious with slow stories without much action. I was so wrong.

First, the humor was a shocker. So much, though not intentional, at least on part of the characters. For example, Mrs. Mann is so flip about the orphans dying. That in itself isn't funny. Mostly because kids died so much then. But it was the way that she was just so off the cuff with her comments. Or when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble argued. They were such a real couple. Almost like a 90s sitcom couple with their bickering. And to think just months before they were flirting. Badly, but flirting. The bit about not knowing if Mrs. Corney missed her husband or teapot was another lol.

There was a great deal of action that I wasn't expecting. So many chases and Oliver running away and the situations that happened around him. I could say that he got himself into, but really he just walked into them and everything went very wrong. Or criminal.

The characters fit into easy categories. Those who wanted to punish/torment Oliver and the ones that wanted to save him. Unfortunately his formative years were comprised primarily of the former. Also, there were the Have Alots, Have Enoughs, and Have Nots. The Have Alots either wanted to help or ignore while the Have Enoughs were brutal to the Have Nots. Again, this was so common that it's sad, especially since so many were children and had nowhere to go except the orphanages that never had enough unless someone came to take them and put them to work.

Nancy, I think, is something of a cautionary tale. She had chances to leave Sikes and refused. I felt so bad for her and how she ended up, though his ending was so satisfying.

I love how things ended for Oliver and how he was the same child he was at the beginning. He could have let everything that happened to him, change him. Make him cruel or forget the people who cared for him. Definitely one of my new favorite characters. ...more

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May 26, 2014 Neeria rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z_2014, litt-mondiale, vo, 1_langue-anglaise

LC Dickens du Mois Anglais

Oliver Twist est un orphelin. Devenu apprenti aux pompes funèbres, il s’enfuit pour échapper aux sévices qu’on lui inflige. Il arrive donc à Londres où il rencontre des jeunes voleur "The Artful Dodger" et le terrible Fagin, un Juif, chef de cette bande londonienne.

L’un des livres les plus connus de Dickens, adapté de nombreuses fois, j’étais impatiente de le découvrir. Bien que je reconnais le classique, je n’ai pas réussi à ressentir les émotions des personnages.

Dicke LC Dickens du Mois Anglais

Oliver Twist est un orphelin. Devenu apprenti aux pompes funèbres, il s’enfuit pour échapper aux sévices qu’on lui inflige. Il arrive donc à Londres où il rencontre des jeunes voleur "The Artful Dodger" et le terrible Fagin, un Juif, chef de cette bande londonienne.

L’un des livres les plus connus de Dickens, adapté de nombreuses fois, j’étais impatiente de le découvrir. Bien que je reconnais le classique, je n’ai pas réussi à ressentir les émotions des personnages.

Dickens décrit le Londres des bas-fonds où il y a peu de chances de s’échapper, une fois qu’on s’y trouve. Un Londres misérable dont les personnages sont enrôlés par Fagin ou Sykes, Nancy par exemple est une prostituée, les autres enfants vol pour le compte de Fagin. Un système qui fonctionne où la ruse enfantine permet le vol. Les événements sont bien noires, reflet de la réalité je suppose, on voit que peu de joie dans ce récit. Sans oublier l’hypocrisie de la société de l’époque, les employés de la paroisse mangent à leur faim et même au-delà, ils sont décrits clairement comme gros alors que les jeunes dont ils doivent s’occuper sont maigres et mangent trop peu.

Oliver Twist est un enfant qui à bout avoir vécu sous les coups, ne tombe pas dans la violence et le vol. Au contraire, il distingue le bien du mal. Nancy est une jeune fille qui m’a beaucoup touché par son dévoiement envers Oliver Twist, elle n’hésite pas à le défendre. Mais elle sent que pour elle, la vie est déjà fichue, une fatalité bien noire. J’ai eu en horreur Fagin, Sikes, l’un est machiavélique, c’est un calculateur hors pair et l’autre est d’une violence à faire peur (d’ailleurs les événements vont le confirmer). Je me suis moqué de Mr Bumble, employé de la paroisse, il est caricatural, d’ailleurs il finira bien malheureux dans son mariage où sa femme le tourne en ridicule.

Le style de Dickens m’a beaucoup plu : le narrateur est le biographe d’Oliver Twist qui joue avec les événements (il connaît déjà le dénouement), il s’adresse au lecteur, un jeu bien agréable !

Par compte, mon édition est en VO et ce qui m’a dérangé c’est que les caractères sont écrits en tout petits (rapidement fatiguant pour mes pauvres yeux).

Un classique tout de même. Je retenterai une prochaine fois ! ...more

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Oct 06, 2023 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics-500-plus-pages, published-1899-and-earlier, read-classics, to-read-in-2023, favorite-author-dickens-charles, group-read

Once again, I owe my great enjoyment of another Charles Dickens classic, Oliver Twist, to reading it with the Dickensians! Group, moderated by the generous and indefatigable Bionic Jean. The slower pace of these group reads makes for a richer appreciation and discussion of each novel. Thank you, Jean!

Having only ever heard the names of Oliver and Fagin and the famous “Please, Sir, I want some more” line from the movie, I was somehow under the impression that Oliver Twist was a children’s book. B Once again, I owe my great enjoyment of another Charles Dickens classic, Oliver Twist, to reading it with the Dickensians! Group, moderated by the generous and indefatigable Bionic Jean. The slower pace of these group reads makes for a richer appreciation and discussion of each novel. Thank you, Jean!

Having only ever heard the names of Oliver and Fagin and the famous “Please, Sir, I want some more” line from the movie, I was somehow under the impression that Oliver Twist was a children’s book. But with its dark message of the entrapment of poverty, and the introduction of vile creatures like Fagin and Bill Sikes, Oliver Twist was anything but a children’s story. It exposed what poverty does to people, even kind-hearted people like the young prostitute Nancy.

Even though the sweet, innocent Oliver is the central character of this book, it was the 17-year old thief and prostitute Nancy who stole my heart. Even though she had nothing to gain and everything to lose, she chose to protect Oliver and help him escape her fate. But tragically, she thought she had sinned too much to be redeemed herself.

As a contrast to Nancy, Dickens introduces the reader to another 17-year old girl, Rose Maylie, who was saved from a life of poverty and adopted by a rich widow. In contrast to Nancy, Rose escaped Nancy’s fate and was raised in love and comfort. “There but for the grace of God go I” would be an apt way to paraphrase what Nancy told Rose when they met:

”Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady, that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and—and—something worse than all—as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.”

Charles Dickens was such a compassionate Christian man whose novels attempted to enlighten his fellow Victorians that poverty drove people into a life of crime, and few avenues were available to lift them out of any other life. Dickens was such an important crusader for change in Victorian England. It’s impossible to walk away from his novels, including Oliver Twist, unchanged. ...more

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