4 Comments

  1. Becca says:

    Oh man, I love Dickens, but Oliver Twist is like the MOST BORING Dickens. Because Oliver is so boring! He is exactly the kind of kid who is played by a boy soprano in a Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

    (Okay, I don’t think the musical of Oliver is actually Rogers and Hammerstein but I think my point stands.)

    1. R. H. Kanakia says:

      Yes, Oliver Twist (the character) royally sucks. But don’t worry, this has not at all soured me on Dickens. Bleak House was really good, and David Copperfield was pretty much mindblowing. I just need to figure out which one to read next. Maybe I will read the one that Dickens wrote which has nice jews, to erase the badness of Fagin from my mind.

      1. Becca says:

        The one with nice Jews is my favorite! Not because of its quality necessarily, mostly because it’s so hilarious to me how the whole book seems to be sheepishly saying ‘no seriously guys I REALLY AM SORRY about Fagin’.

        1. R. H. Kanakia says:

          I like the story I read once, about how Dickens received a fan letter from a Jewish person (while he was writing Oliver Twist) which was like, “Umm, what is up with the anti-semitism, here?” and he immediately went back and took out the word “Jew” as an epithet (or alternative name for Fagin) in the sections that were yet to be printed. I kept looking for the switchover point in Oliver Twist, but I never did (probably because I became too bored at some point). Not so many authors would have done that (although there are a great many authors who can and did have had the sense to refrain from using the epithet in the first place, but it’s not like Dickens is known for his sense)

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