My Book Year 2026 - Gifted Reads and More ... Take Two!

It's year SIXTEEN of my reading challenge blog, and this year I'm continuing to focus on reading those books that people have gifted to me that have been saved "for a rainy day" ... well, the rainy days are here! No longer will they languish in the gathering dust, but instead, they'll be given the priority they deserve! Oh, and I'm really, REALLY going to try and read more in general after a few years of struggling to muster up more than 5-10 minutes at the end of a day. Wish me luck!

Sunday, 8 July 2012

Oliver Twist - not nearly as jolly as the musical!

Continuing my foray into Dickens this year, I have been reading Oliver Twist on my Kindle. I thought I knew this story pretty well - after all, I've seen Oliver! the musical a few times (Consider yourself, at home!) and I even studied it in English literature for one year at school. But how wrong I was. The main events and characters are all there - the orphan (Oliver), his life at the workhouse, then the undertaker's, followed by his escape to London and falling into the company of the Artful Dodger and Fagin - petty thieves and pickpockets. However, we also have a range of other characters and events that I had absolutely no recollection of at all. I was not displeased by this turn of events as it meant that I was surprised by a book I thought I knew pretty well! You can't help but root for Oliver who is definitely not suited to a life of crime. The looming threat of one of London's most notorious criminals - Bill Sikes - who decides to find a use for Oliver - is balanced by the tenderness of his girlfriend Nancy, who knows Oliver could have a better life and wants to help him get it. I have to say that Mr Dickens has redeemed himself with this book. The characterisations are excellent and the story bowls along. Not completely bereft of the descriptive passages of the previous stories I've read, the balance between action and atmosphere is almost perfect. Particular highlights are the relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy, which is spiky to say the least, and violence never seems far away. I was a bit shocked at how dark a character Fagin is, with apparently no redeeming features (maybe this was a sign of the attitudes of the times - hard for me to say - but there were repeated references to his ethnicity). When he gets it right, Dickens does transport you to a different time and place where the sights and smells really come alive. Highly recommended.

My START rating: FOUR

Length: 400 print pages.
Price I paid: free.
Format available: print; audio CD; audio download; ebook.

1 comment:

Jonathan Read-Bone8 July 2012 at 13:59
Great to see such classics going for £0 as an eBook these days. No excuses for me not giving it a read then!
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