Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

It’s Giving Tuesday and it’s Dickens Tuesday! 

If you’re looking for a great charity to support this holiday season, I recommend clicking on the link at the end of this book review and checking out my Reading is Fundamental page! 

And if you want to learn my thoughts on silly orphan kids, read on….

Here’s why Oliver Twist isn’t my favorite Dickens book:

First, the lack of super powers. This is the rare book about an orphan in which the orphan doesn’t get super powers, or wishes, or, like, some shoes that let you communicate with bees…or something. Their existence is not prophesied. They don’t have a mysterious connection to ancient alien races. Nope. He’s just a kid without parents. His super power is poverty. 

The second reason I didn’t love this is the ol’ fashioned anti-semetism. The main antagonist, Fagen, is a jewish caricature, and is often called The Jew in the book. I’m half-Jewish but it takes a lot to offend me. I was never clutching my pearls in disgust while reading this, but you come along some lines in this book and…well.. it’s not cool that this villain is so closely associated with that specific religion/culture. 

That said, Dickens didn’t think he was being anti-semtic when he wrote it. In fact, the legend goes that as the serialized chapters were being published, a friend took him aside and said, “Charley, my dude! This is really offensive!” And Charles was shocked and sad and felt bad.

He revised the story and softened the language as the book went along. So…yay? I guess? 

It still isn’t cool, my dude. 

But perhaps the biggest reason this book didn’t connect with me is that the titular Oliver doesn’t do a lot. A lot of things happen, sure, but Ollie does nothing – things just happen to him. Granted, he’s a kid and so it makes sense that he’s not running around making big choices and taking great agency with his life (something David Copperfield is better at, IMHO). So you have a story about a poor orphan (sans magic shoes) in which the supporting (culturally insensitive) characters are really the stars of the show. 

I didn’t hate the book. I’m glad I read it. But it’s not my favorite Dickens work.

If you haven’t read it, but really want to read Dickens’ take on kids who don’t have parents, I’d recommend picking up Copperfield or Bleak House or Great Expectations instead. 

I just really wish he had magic shoes…

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