So, I feel like most Charles Dickens stories that I’ve heard of have an overall meaning to them, right? Like, A Christmas Carol: don’t be a Scrooge and appreciate what you have and always do good. But this book….

I feel like Charles Dickens has some buried trauma that he uncovered while writing this, and that’s the only way I can explain it. He also loves, just, bullying the heck out of these characters.

Oliver Twist is this kid who is an orphan, right? He’s called unlovable multiple times IN THE SAME CHAPTER and he’s so used to it that he doesn’t even care anymore. Well, Mr. Bumble, the Beadle - whatever’s that means, but I can assure you he’s not in a band - practically sells Oliver to this morgue dude who also treats him horribly.

Then Oliver beats the absolute heck out of this skinny guy Noah Claypole (more like Noah Beanpole but whatever) and then he runs away, knowing that some up there in the government guy is gonna hang him for his crimes.

I feel like I should say now that Oliver is ten right now. Like, what kind of evil dude with a white wig is like “Ah yes, not only did he ask for more, but he destroyed a kid who was talking badly about his mother. Obviously we have to hang him!”

Anyways, Oliver runs away and meets this guy, Jack Dawkins, a.k.a the Artful Dodger. And let me just say, whoever coined the name the Artful Dodger needs a sticker. Like, that is somehow the most hilarious yet handsome thing I have ever heard.

Dodger introduces him to this old Jew named Fagin, who literally just teaches kids to steal stuff and at this point the cops are like “welp, we just don’t stop crime anymore.” Like seriously, reading this entire book I was like where are the cops? They’re only shown a few times, but jeez!

I won’t say much more because I’ve spoiled enough, but this story was amazing. The chapters were easily digestible and I loved getting to read about all of the characters and their adventures (even if those adventure involved near death scenarios) and the twists were amazing. I mean, the plot twists, not Oliver Twist.

You can tell this book was published a chapter or two at a time in serial form. The plot meanders around and characters appear and disappear for no apparent reason. Oliver himself is offstage for long portions of the book. Fagin is referred to as "the Jew" for the first part of the book and then Dickens seemed to realize it was offensive and for the rest he was just Fagin. In other words, a good editor could have focused the story and made it better. Among the meanderings there are some intriguing characters, and the language paints vivid word pictures throughout, and that helps redeem the flaws.

i've been wanting to read this for ages, my copy was horrible and had tiny print, i was making a lot of excuses, and then i found a nicer copy with big print and fun facts at the back, and i watched oliver and company and wanted to know what similarities there were, you know, past the differences between cat, dogs, and humans.

this was unexpectedly easy to read? i'm still a little stunned i read it so quickly. i THINK this in an abridged version so maybe that's why? either way, it was a pleasant surprise. i was also surprised at how interested i was in seeing what was happening next -- despite loving oliver and company, watching the musical, going to a school show of it, and doing the play in english, i have no idea what actually happens in this. i was sort of confused with all the characters, found the list at the back after i'd finished, but it was good -- it had action, it had sad bits, it didn't really have any funny bits, but that's okay. dodger was only in it for a few pages? but i found my other copy and i think it's just because i have a slightly shorter version.

too much time was probably spent comparing it with the cat version and another large amount was spent trying to get oomp-pa-pa, a song i haven't heard in years but has pushed its way back into my brain.

i read a dickens. an abridged version. but, still, an achievement.

I haven't read this since I was in grade school, and I was so surprised by how unremittingly grim it is. In Dickens (as in Shakespeare), the reader can almost always count on a comic character or situation to relieve the tragedy that is unfolding. I found nothing like that here. It's clear from the author's foreword that Dickens was enraged by the treatment of indigent orphans, and his anger is evident throughout. The psychological portraits, especially of Fagin (although oddly not of Oliver himself, who is fairly one-dimensional), are deeply textured.

Multimedia note: A high-school production of "Oliver!" that I saw as an elementary-school kid led me to read this the first time. After my second reading this year, I watched the 1968 film version and was appalled by its happy-go-lucky vibe: a complete misreading of the original.

I didn’t like Dickens’ style. It was so tedious and nothing ever seemed to happen. And all the tragedy all the time. It’s just too tiring to be enjoyable for me.

The antisemitism deployed by Charles Dickens in creating the character Fagin completely ruins this novel.

Apologists will point to the time period of the writing or a literary apology made in subsequent books, however the ugliness of the original act thwarts any attempt to lessen the gravity of the original act.

The authors goal was to increase popularity allowing him to make more money. He made the decision to be a populist and appeal to the nativist and bigoted beliefs of some readers. This act, motivated by greed and self aggrandizement, is as repulsive in the 1880s as it is today,

Dickens agreed to his publisher’s, Chapman and Hall, suggestion to remove the antisemitism within Oliver Twist in the 1867 publication of his collected works. Modern publishers would be wise to follow in the footsteps of Chapman and Hall.

I have such a bloody hard time getting through Dickens. I would never even have bothered were it not for school.