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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is high Victorian melodrama, Dickens shamelessly playing to his audience and throwing everything into the mix. Its different in style to the later novels I thought - shorter paragraphs, a more punchy plotline and the story rattles along at double quick speed. I found myself reading it to see what will happen next, which I don't normally do with Dickens' novels, much as I love them.
The cast of characters are strong too, the strongest of any Dickens novel (except A Christmas Carol) - as immortalized in countless film and TV adaptions. They are nastier than the film adaption, you have the sweet impression of lots of cheerful Cockneys dancing about in the film but Dickens portrays a thoroughly cruel deprived world. His anger is obvious, he's raging, fuming, at the cruelties of the Poor Laws, the treatment of the poor and the callousness of Industrialised England.
By modern standards the good characters are impossibly good and the bad ones impossibly bad. I mean Oliver Twist would have been brutalized by his upbringing and he certainly wouldn't have had that nice accent and manner of speaking, but still, that was what Victorians wanted. The thing I love, love about Dickens is his sense of place - the description of London's back-streets, the hawkers and street-sellers flooding into the city in the early morning, the filth and the crowds. He did that better than any other writer. You have the feeling he hated the depravity of London but immersed himself in it at the same time.
The cast of characters are strong too, the strongest of any Dickens novel (except A Christmas Carol) - as immortalized in countless film and TV adaptions. They are nastier than the film adaption, you have the sweet impression of lots of cheerful Cockneys dancing about in the film but Dickens portrays a thoroughly cruel deprived world. His anger is obvious, he's raging, fuming, at the cruelties of the Poor Laws, the treatment of the poor and the callousness of Industrialised England.
By modern standards the good characters are impossibly good and the bad ones impossibly bad. I mean Oliver Twist would have been brutalized by his upbringing and he certainly wouldn't have had that nice accent and manner of speaking, but still, that was what Victorians wanted. The thing I love, love about Dickens is his sense of place - the description of London's back-streets, the hawkers and street-sellers flooding into the city in the early morning, the filth and the crowds. He did that better than any other writer. You have the feeling he hated the depravity of London but immersed himself in it at the same time.
I find it really hard to rate classics like this which are fantastic for the most part, but have glaring racism or anti-Semitism embedded in the book. Do we dismiss these works given the issues? Or recognise that we can both appreciate the work and be disgusted by the anti-Semitism?
Narrator: 5 stars
Story:3.5
Very important tale for the time it was written. The story had strong distinct characters each having their message delivered effectively, but the writing was extra wordy and boring at times. I guess it's the old fashioned language making me feel that way. Fiona Hardingham told the tale really beautifully and kept me engaged despite the lulls.
Story:3.5
Very important tale for the time it was written. The story had strong distinct characters each having their message delivered effectively, but the writing was extra wordy and boring at times. I guess it's the old fashioned language making me feel that way. Fiona Hardingham told the tale really beautifully and kept me engaged despite the lulls.