Beams of BrillanceLet’s start off with a confession: Oliver Twist is boring. Good…we got that out of the way.While the plot is tolerable, it can be very slow paced. For example, in one vignette, a dying woman has a confession to make. But it took an entire chapter to get there. Come on! Just spit it out already!So don’t bother reading this book, right?Well, don’t be hasty, my friend.It is important to note that Oliver Twist was only Charles Dickens’s second novel so Dickens had not yet fully tun...

welcome to...OCTOBER TWIST.this is project long classics, in which i read intimidating books over a whole month and my little treat is i get to come up with a title + time-based pun as i do so.charles dickens books are some of the scariest of all, so only a truly irresistible (read: terrible) pun could convince me.this has 53 chapters (ugh, it's almost like dickens didn't think about a 26 year old annoying person centuries in the future trying to divide evenly), so i'll read 2-ish per day.CHAPTE...

Born to a single mother who gave birth secretly, Oliver Twist seemed to have a dim future. The charities that cared for him, convinced that sooner or later he would end up on the gallows like all the beings of his generation, barely gave him enough to survive (and were indignant as it should be at the lack of gratitude for their sacrifices).We then try to get rid of his bulky stomach when he reaches the apprentice's age. If he escapes an unscrupulous chimney sweep, he eventually ends up with an ...

In recent years, I have become bewitched by all things gothic, and I was curious to discover to what extent gothic tropes and examplars may have influenced the imagery and structure of Dicken's first serious novel. Specifically, I was interested in how gothic elements might be expressed in "Oliver Twist"'s urban atmosphere. Had Hugo's Paris thieves' guild left its mark upon Fagin and his charges? Had Scott's Highland robbers' caves influenced Dickens' lowlife dens? Were these dirty London street...

Oliver Twist is one of Charles Dickens's best known stories. Characters such as the evil Fagin, with his band of thieves and villains, the Artful Dodger with "all the airs and manners of a man," the house-breaker Sikes and his dog, the conscience-stricken but flawed Nancy, the frail but determined Oliver, and the arrogant and hypocritical beadle Mr Bumble have taken on a life of their own and passed into our culture. Who does not recognise the sentence,"Please sir, I want some more!" or"If the l...

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, being a slick, wily d...

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 horror and 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 h...

3.5

The dawn of the use of social criticism as main plot element while overusing the modern readers' tolerance for suspension of disbelief by making the whole story a bit too unrealistic optimistic and too full of coincidences, a kind of trademark of Dickens work as he didn´t MacGuffined and Chekhoved enough or mixed different plotlines to make it look more compelling. It would also help if it would be a bit less wooden, stiff, and more dynamic, but not everybody can be a Jane Austen or Mark Twain a...

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