milesjmoran 's review for:

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

4.0

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This one isn't quite like the film version I know and love. Oliver isn't a cherub faced child with a golden halo of locks for hair. Fagin isn't the crusty yet warm-hearted old fellow who teaches the boys how to steal with a jolly old tune and Sykes definitely isn't a brooding shadow of a character that occasionally growls to provoke a slight gasp from our protagonists. Oliver Twist is a surprisingly dankly atmosphered book, with so much grime and bleakness to make you believe the soggy aired streets of 18th century London are right outside your door. There is so much in here to unsettle you, like Oliver assisting an undertaker and seeing a dead body strewn across a floor, and like the vicious row between Fagin and Sykes, where the softened characters from the musical pale drastically in comparison to these nasty, villainous creations. Dickens used to read extracts of his novels publicly and many audience members would faint due to his reading one particular scene in this book. It is that powerful.