Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist is the second novel of Charles Dickens and was written at the precocious age of twenty five. It is perhaps the best known of all his works, having spawned a massive range of adaptations for theatre, film, television and even a Broadway musical. The book began as a humble serial of monthly instalments in the nineteenth century literary magazine Bentley's Miscellany before exploding into mainstream popularity. This familiar tale of the orphaned Oliver born into an oppressive workhouse, deprived of his inheritance and thrust into the criminal underworld of London hardly requires my obligatory plot overview. It is a story littered with some of Dickens' most memorable scenes and characters; the parochial Mr Bumble, the Artful Dodger, the sinister Fagin and Bill Sikes, and the tragic prostitute Nancy being all long established household names. But does Oliver Twist really deserve such high acclaim and has the well worn classic stood the test of time?

I began Oliver Twist with high expectations but soon observed it to be a lot rougher about the edges than Dickens' later, more polished novels. The juvenility of his early writing shows in some sloppy plotting, notably the seemingly haphazard way in which  key events unfold and an over reliance upon extraordinary coincidences to bring characters together at pivotal moments in the narrative. In true Fielding fashion (of which Dickens was a self confessed fan), some of the chapters appear to be complete deviations from the main plot. Whilst fun and humorous within themselves, they do often leave poor Oliver hanging for pages on end as we are made privy to the various intricacies of supporting characters. Despite my belief that every page of a book should drive the plot forward in some way, I personally quite enjoyed these colourful departures. One subplot which I did not enjoy was the yawn inducing romance between Harry and Rose Maylie, a hackneyed filler that would have improved the book greatly by being left out. 

The true star of the show, far from being sickly little Oliver himself, is London. Presented as a dreary, filthy expanse of crumbling and dilapidated buildings with narrow dirty streets populated by rattling coaches and crowds of ragged personages, Dickens' hellish vision of the capital succeeds in striking a chord of perfect revulsion in the reader. It is the haunt of petty pickpockets and hardened criminals, but also of a law system just as predatory as the felons it condemns. The hangman's noose returns again and again to haunt the text, tightening over the necks of Fagin's gang as their actions grow more desperate. I found the plight of young Twist and the mystery surrounding his identity to be less interesting than the fate of the more villainous characters. Whilst some are disposed of rather disappointingly, the main culprits are given gleefully sadistic send offs. It is a classic tale of good triumphing over evil, of innocence enduring in the face of overwhelming corruption and justice prevailing against all the odds. As with the majority of Dickens' novels, the reader instinctively knows that there will be a happy ending, but not before the protagonist is made to undergo a series of trials fit to deflate the staunchest of souls.

Dickens balances the grittier aspects of the novel with a playful, heavily sarcastic style of writing constantly ridiculing the absurdities of his characters and exposing the hypocrisies of various institutions such as the English Poor Law and the Criminal Justice System. His scathing social critique would become a staple of his subsequent novels in an ongoing battle to improve the appalling living conditions of London's poverty stricken. We see in Oliver Twist a sordid society in all its darkest, grimiest shades; a cruel and uncompromising legal system where the wealthy prosper and the dregs devolve into infamy and wretchedness. Although I found the book an enjoyable read with plenty of lively banter and some truly incredibly written passages, I could not bring myself to rate it on the same level as Great Expectations. No matter how much Oliver Twist excels in its depiction of depravity, it falls just short of hitting the mark with regards to plot. I felt a tad frustrated when a few loose ends were left dangling at the novel's conclusion. However, these are but minor gripes. I recommend this classic to everyone.

Rating: 3/5