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Title: Oliver Twist (Longman Classics, Stage 4) by Charles Dickens, Margaret Maison, D. K. Swan, Michael West ISBN: 0-582-52279-X Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 February, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.91 (90 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Well-constructed novel with important underlying message
Comment: Like so many of Dickens' novels, Oliver Twist is a fantastically crafted and engrossing novel. Dickens follows the life of a young orphan boy, Oliver, who grows up amidst desperate poverty in London in the early 19th Century. Dickens leads the reader on a delightful and engaging romp, as Oliver escapes his orphanage, gets mixed up in the wrong crowd, and ultimately comes out on top.

The story within Oliver Twist is very engrossing, replete with many twists, turns and surprises that are occasionally tragic but more often witty or flat out hilarious. The characters are all superbly developed, and the multiple story lines are intricately and cleverly woven together. Oliver Twist is an excellent introduction to Dickens, and patient readers will find this novel accessible. The intricate plotline does require some concentration, while some readers may be annoyed by Dickens' notoriously lengthy sentences.

This is an important book to read for it is heavily engrained in Anglo-American culture and most first-time readers will recognize many of the names (Fagin, Artful Dodger) and scenes from previous cultural references. While clearly enjoyable at the superficial level, the novel also makes a powerful statement about poverty and the power of the human spirit in the face of depravity.

Rating: 3
Summary: So much richer than the tale you knew as a child
Comment: Few works of adult literature are so well known that they become embedded in our cultural fabric the way that Oliver Twist has. Perhaps it is because the title character is a loveable, sympathetic, young boy that the story, over time, has come to be mistaken by some for a children's tale. And perhaps it is because I feel like I have known the story all my life that I only recently realized that I had never, in fact, read the novel. So as I sat down to (finally) read this book, it was with a sense that I was simply revisiting a cherished story from my youth. But as I quickly realized after a very few pages, this is adult literature in all respects - in its sophisticated, intelligent prose, its rich plot, its elaborate cast of characters, and, yes, the occasional depiction of gruesome violence.

Surely even those who have never read this Charles Dickens' classic could recite the basic elements of its plot. Who among us is unfamiliar with the story of the young orphan who musters up the courage to ask, "Please, sir, I want some more." And yet this novel is so much more than a mere rags-to-riches story. It is also the heartwarming story of the triumph of good versus evil and of the human spirit's ability to face down adversity. Dickens pits an innocent child against the dangers of an uncaring world, and the story's happy ending is at once a celebration of Oliver's innocence and an affirmation of all that is right and just in society.

Though the prose can be tedious at times, Dickens' mastery of the English language is difficult not to appreciate. And while some may find the plot cliché, there is sufficient tension throughout the novel to maintain the reader's interest. For myself, I was continually surprised, as the chapters unfolded, to realize how much more there was to this classic than simply a story about an orphan who falls in with a gang of unruly pickpockets. This is definitely worth reading, even if you feel like you have already read it as a child.

Rating: 5
Summary: POOR LITTLE TWIST
Comment: Right off the bat, I've never been a fan of Dickens. To me, there's always been something mercenary about his writing due to the fact that his novels were written to be serialized in magazines of his time. From one week to the next, he was just winging it, creating it as he went. While his improvisation is impressive, it lended itself to bloatedness and inefficency. I've read or tried to read about 5 of his works and never liked the writing. Despite that, I've tried to keep a positive outlook about the guy. I mean, with his status in the Western canon, maybe I just wasn't getting it. Thankfully, I really enjoyed Oliver Twist. Finally, a book of his that I liked.

Oliver Twist is an orphan whose father is unknown and whose mother died during childbirth. Consequently he is raised in the equivalent of the 19th century English welfare system. His raising by the state is despicable. The powers that be in the government of that time, much like our government, had to deal with the problem of indigents taking advantage of the welfare system. They made the homeless shelters and lunchlines so atrocious that the down-on-their luck would HAVE to look elsewhere for help. They went on the assumption that all the displaced were bums just looking for handouts. So the honest and dishonest were treated the same way.

Oliver Twist is a victim of this in that the daily meals he is served in the workhouse as a child are not enough to sustain a human being. Foolishly or bravely, one day he stands up and states the famous line, "Please sir, I want some more." In return for this he is bundled off to be an apprentice undertaker. After some trouble with another boy in the house, he runs away, in the process meeting The Artful Dodger, who indoctrinates him into a gang of pickpockets and thieves led by the Jew Fagin. The question is whether or not a boy who is basically good can escape from such an evil life, or whether he will fall victim to it.

This was a great book. The characters were great and the novel has a dark undertone that I wouldn't expect from Dickens. Unlike David Copperfield, this work does not exhaust itself through its very length. The ending tended to be a little too talky and clean.