oliver twist

[penny barrow]

The realsim in which Dickens wrote Oliver twist is almost frightening. Juxtaposing the two sides of Olivers short, yet very comprehensive life gives us a feeling of pure contrasts in the way we treat each other as a race of people. Exposing the work house system for what it was must have been quite radical in the Victorian times.<br>I loved the way Dickens was very much a part of the novel alongside all the wonderful and diverse characters. The way he stepped in when Oliver had fallen asleep was just thrilling.<br>I think Dickens writes with such ease and knowledge about his characters and his very discriptive manner gives thought provoking ideas about humanity.<br>The book is thrilling, full of period detail and we as his readers and audience are thrust back into a time and history which actually happened.<br>The musical version of Oliver Twist totally wraps the actual story in cotton wool and leaves out the main parts of the book. If you have only ever seen this film then please, do not think that you know the story of Oliver Twist. PLEASE, READ THE BOOK.<br>

[pauline_gangof4]

I have an idea that Oliver Twist was published at about the same time as the Andover Workhouse Scandal was uncovered (inmates were found starved to death, and some died from food poisoning caused when they chewed rotten meat from piles of decaying horse bones in a knacker's yard).
Dickens did help to bring social injustices to the fore, but it was a time of great social change and a period of tremendous contrasts, where greed and philanthropy wer at war. In addition to Dickens' somewhat sentimental exposure of the cruelties of the age, there were a number of social reformers (many of them Quakers, such as Elizabeth Fry) who worked tirelessly to improve the lot of the poor.

Dickens was not without his own prejudices - Fagin (an Irish name, as it happens, though attached to a Jew) was portrayed as a corrupter of youth, but without him, all of his boys would have died of starvation, disease or exposure on the streets..There was no benefits system then to keep the chidren of the poor - how was Fagin supposed to feed them if they weren't bringing something in? I am not saying that Fagin was a saint, only that by the standards of the time he provided those street boys with a home and sustenance without which they would have been even worse off than they were.

I've never quite understood why he was hanged - he hadn't committed a murder, like Sykes, and as far as I know, hanging for theft wasn't considered appropriate at this time in British history.

[Phangirl7]

I've read this, too, and I find it to be a very interesting work. Haven't read it in a while, though. (I think I need to go on a re-reading books spree.)
P.G.7.

[Lynne Fees]

I am finding this TV series does a great job until the end of the stories. They just can't leave the endings intact; they have to add touches of extra violence which I guess they think makes the story more interesting in this new millenium? As if a classic can't stand on its own 2 feet!
Now I need to find the book and reread it.
Your comments on the book illustrate that there is no substitute for life experience when you want to write.

[hoope]

Movies are to give us SOMETIMES another look towards books.. I have read Oliver Twist & its was a great book in fact , of social evils how children might be criminals & how they have to go through many harships .
Its been a time since i read the book & then i had seen the movie , its was okay but i rather reading novels before seeing them coz there area always alot of facts hidden & director of movies cannot put everything into picture.

I have read that the story of Oliver Twist was based on a true story of a young boy named Robert who was an orphan & has a lot of hardships as a child who worked in a cotton mill i guess ...

Anyway as an ecprience i loved the book alot & its was marvelous unlike the movie .

[Emil Miller]

Movies are to give us SOMETIMES another look towards books.. I have read Oliver Twist & its was a great book in fact , of social evils how children might be criminals & how they have to go through many harships .
Its been a time since i read the book & then i had seen the movie , its was okay but i rather reading novels before seeing them coz there area always alot of facts hidden & director of movies cannot put everything into picture.

I have read that the story of Oliver Twist was based on a true story of a young boy named Robert who was an orphan & has a lot of hardships as a child who worked in a cotton mill i guess ...

Anyway as an ecprience i loved the book alot & its was marvelous unlike the movie .

Hi Hoope,

I was interested to read the other posts and yours about Oliver Twist. Yes you are quite right about the difficulty in making films of famous novels, and I have just checked in my film catalogue to see how many times Oliver Twist has been filmed. It has ben made 4 times the first in 1922 the last in 2005.
The only one to get five stars is the version made in 1948 by the greatest English director ever: David Lean. I have seen this film and it is exactly like the book; absolutely brilliant. It has been put onto DVD so you must try to get hold of a copy of it. It is in black and white but that only improves the atmosphere of Victorian London because colour is out of place in a story like that.
Here's what my film catalogue has to say about it:

David Lean's masterley adaptation of the Dicken's novel brims with unforgetable scenes and performances, notably Alec Guinness's Fagin and Robert Newton's genuinely frightening Bill Sykes. From the opening,with Oliver's mother struggling in the workhouse to give birth, to the climax on the roof of Docklands, the picture brings the novel vividly to life.

[hoope]

Hi Hoope,

I was interested to read the other posts and yours about Oliver Twist. Yes you are quite right about the difficulty in making films of famous novels, and I have just checked in my film catalogue to see how many times Oliver Twist has been filmed. It has ben made 4 times the first in 1922 the last in 2005.
The only one to get five stars is the version made in 1948 by the greatest English director ever: David Lean. I have seen this film and it is exactly like the book; absolutely brilliant. It has been put onto DVD so you must try to get hold of a copy of it. It is in black and white but that only improves the atmosphere of Victorian London because colour is out of place in a story like that.
Here's what my film catalogue has to say about it:

David Lean's masterley adaptation of the Dicken's novel brims with unforgetable scenes and performances, notably Alec Guinness's Fagin and Robert Newton's genuinely frightening Bill Sykes. From the opening,with Oliver's mother struggling in the workhouse to give birth, to the climax on the roof of Docklands, the picture brings the novel vividly to life.

Hey Brian,
I liked it; the way you reviewed it .. its great.. i have seen that movie..
& in matter of fact it was a good one & I agree with you in that point..
I wanted to mention that but hesistated coz i dnt like when books r put into movies.
That is why i said SOMETIMES .. coz not all movies are the same & am sure that it also depends on the director too.

[Imaginarium]

I have an idea that Oliver Twist was published at about the same time as the Andover Workhouse Scandal was uncovered (inmates were found starved to death, and some died from food poisoning caused when they chewed rotten meat from piles of decaying horse bones in a knacker's yard).
Dickens did help to bring social injustices to the fore, but it was a time of great social change and a period of tremendous contrasts, where greed and philanthropy wer at war. In addition to Dickens' somewhat sentimental exposure of the cruelties of the age, there were a number of social reformers (many of them Quakers, such as Elizabeth Fry) who worked tirelessly to improve the lot of the poor.

Dickens was not without his own prejudices - Fagin (an Irish name, as it happens, though attached to a Jew) was portrayed as a corrupter of youth, but without him, all of his boys would have died of starvation, disease or exposure on the streets..There was no benefits system then to keep the chidren of the poor - how was Fagin supposed to feed them if they weren't bringing something in? I am not saying that Fagin was a saint, only that by the standards of the time he provided those street boys with a home and sustenance without which they would have been even worse off than they were.

I've never quite understood why he was hanged - he hadn't committed a murder, like Sykes, and as far as I know, hanging for theft wasn't considered appropriate at this time in British history.

On the contrary, to the bit about hanging for theft not being appropriate in this time period, death by hanging was the punishment for larceny of items worth than a shilling of the time (around $50). And I'm 100% positive that what Fagin kept stashed in his treasurebox was worth more than fifty modern dollars.

[johnw1]

I'm surprised people enjoy Oliver Twist so much. I read it for the first time a few years ago and was really shocked at how poor it was. The characters are all flat and uninteresting (except Nancy - but even she is hardly that remarkable). Oliver himself is unbelievable, passive, and without any kind of individuality. The plot is incredibly far fetched even for Dickens (who loves to indulge in lucky 'coincidences') and there are numerous plot lines that start and then tail off into nothing. And then there's the sentimentality.

This isn't to say the book is without its good points - the stinging sarcastic depiction of the workhouse for example it good. Also, the characters of Fagin etc (leaving aside the antisemitism) are memorably grotesque. But overall I found it too annoying to really enjoy it at all.

By the way, I'm not looking to slate Dickens as a writer - I know he wrote this off the cuff alongside a ton of other work and this was very early in his career - and there are some signs here of the qualities that would come through in his later work.