Penguin Classics Oliver Twist

so touchy..a story of forgiveness

Without a doubt Dickens worst book in my humble opinion. With the excpeption of Sykes and Fagin, the characters are cardboard cut outs, there's not much of a plot...just an incredibly pedestrian novel. Avoid

I still have the hardbook copy that my granddad gave me when I was a child! I just love this book.

Waddaya want from me, it's Dickens. If you can be patient with the author's inability to get the hell on with it, if you can overlook certain common but unenlightened racial attitudes of the time, if you can swallow astronomically improbable coincidences, then you'll probably dig this. If you can't put up with Dickens' flaws as a writer, then move on. Every time I read a...more

Waddaya want from me, it's Dickens. If you can be patient with the author's inability to get the hell on with it, if you can overlook certain common but unenlightened racial attitudes of the time, if you can swallow astronomically improbable coincidences, then you'll probably dig this. If you can't put up with Dickens' flaws as a writer, then move on. Every time I read a Dickens novel, there comes a point hundreds of pages in when fatigue and annoyance kick in and I wish I could kick HIM and yell, "ENOUGH!!!! Punch it into gear, Chester, I have a limited amount of years left to me in this life, and I can't spend the rest of them waiting around while you dither and dilly dally. Spit it out!!!" But by the end, I always feel enriched by the experience and glad I persevered. As for Oliver Twist, that boy needs some toughening up. He spends way too much of the novel bawling. Cowboy up, kid, believe me, it'll all work out in the end. It always does in Dickens.   hide