Reviews - Oliver Twist | The StoryGraph

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2.46k reviews for:

Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

3.64 AVERAGE

sof00's review against another edition

1.0

informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

jordantanguay's review against another edition

4.0

Another Dickens classic, we see the famous author oscillating between the warm and loving whimsy of The Pickwick Papers and the themes of cyclical poverty he confronts in his later works. The novel reads best in the more sarcastic passages and when Dickens writes scenes of poverty. However, I find the novel at its worst in the characterization of Oliver. His main character, born in the gutter of Victorian society without a prayer in the world, remains truthful, honest and pitiful throughout the entire novel. Dickens does not take the opportunity to give Oliver a moral depth in a novel which concerns itself with the morality of poverty and crime. While I know Dickens explores this much further in later novels, Oliver's treacly and sentimental attitudes despite his completely horrific life story and situations seems unrealistic and would make Oliver Twist a very one dimensional morality tale if it weren't for Dickens excellent characterizations of the adults surrounding him. (On Fagin - I found the controversial character deeply fascinating and very well developed and written. That he is portrayed as a Jew and the reader is constantly reminded of this must lead us to believe that Dickens was anti-semitic at the time of writing. The proof is in the pudding.) These portrayals of adults, as always with Dickens, give a sense of depth through their comedy, and act as the conduit through which he examines the institutions in Britain that perpetuate and profit off of the laboring classes, and most horrifically, the children of those classes. All in all, another wonderful Dickens story, but this one wants for a main character with more to say than "Please sir, may I have some more?"