Great Introduction to Dickens
Oliver Twist is the first Dickensian title I have read. Of course, when I was in school, I had read a few of his works (Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities), but they were the abridged, illustrated editions for a younger audience.
What captivated me to read the book was its opening page. “Among other public buildings in a certain town…”. That is one of the distinctive traits of any work by Dickens. The opening page itself is able to have such a hold on the reader, that it gets difficult for him not to venture to the next page. Whether it is “Now, what I want is facts…” of Hard Times or, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” of A Tale of Two Cities.
In Oliver Twist, Dickens chronicles the circumstances of a child, Oliver, and traces his life right from his birth, whence he becomes an orphan, to his encounters with some of the worst (as also the best) aspects of human society, and human nature. How he manages to weave so perfectly the opposing streams in Oliver’s life, is something to be noted.
Oliver is innocent and naïve, living in constant fear of how easily things in his life can turn for the worse. He never fails to show his gratitude for his benefactors, whether Mr. Brownlow or Mrs. Maylie and Rose, in thoughts and in action. He is always eager to help them, in his own small way, and it is during one of these very expeditions, when Mr. Brownlow and Mr. “I’ll eat my head” Grimwig have placed a bet on whether Oliver would return or not, the latter believing that he won’t, that he is captured by his old gang, on the orders of Fagin.
Dickens must be commended for creating such memorable characters by skillfully sketching their personalities. That of the principal antagonist, Fagin, deserves special mention.
Fagin, referred often as simply “the Jew”, is painted as the most grotesque, diabolical and scheming person one can imagine. He is not really evil per se, but his irrepressible motivations to take advantage of the people around him, especially the group of children he has trained in ‘pickpocketry’, for his own needs is nothing short of evil. He is constantly on the lookout for new opportunities to further his interests.
Fagin, and his shady associates, paint a picture of Victorian London where child labour and trafficking are the order of the day – to the extent that it makes one feel that a child living with his parents, away from the prying eyes of the gang, is nothing short of fortunate, for the gang is capable of ensnaring virtually any child from any strata of society, if only Fagin is sure of his safety.
The book is replete with dark humour. For it is well known, and well-accepted, that to speak the unspeakable, humour is the best weapon one can have.
Dickens never directly criticizes the workings of the gang, or even the fact that something like this was very common in England at the time. But he skillfully uses black humour, sarcasm and irony to get his message through. And it works. As much as the book is about the life of Oliver, it is also a scathing criticism on the Victorian society, and how easily innocent children are misled, trapped and forced to do things they would otherwise never have done.
But on the whole, the book is about the eventual triumph of good over evil. There are bad people in the world, no doubt. But if the good people choose to keep doing good things, and vow to teach the other half a lesson for all their misdeeds, all evil can be uprooted from its very roots.
It was but obvious from the beginning that the charm of such a beautiful opening could not reasonably be expected to be maintained for any appreciable duration during the rest of the book and, indeed, the story meandered a bit, as if trying to pick up the strands it would require in its denouement. In fact, for a considerable part of the first hundred pages, I wasn’t really sure whether I was really enjoying the book at all.
However, once the plot got into its groove, there was simply no turning back. Each passing chapter gave me something more to relish than the previous one, and by the end of it, I was more than satisfied.
At 350 pages, it is not a long novel. And it just may be the perfect window for any person who might want to get a taste of Dickens before going for some of his lengthier works.