04-19-2020, 08:23 PM
I sort of knew the start of the story probably from the musical that I saw on TV years ago. Oliver is born in the workhouse, falls in among thieves, then has ups and downs before a happy ending where the bad people get their comeuppance. Lots of big coincidences and some characters are sort of caricatures. He is intent on showing the cruelty of poverty and the workhouse system, and the officials are all callous.
The big pleasure is really his language. Plus he is good with pacing and great with character names. The more I read him, the more I'm convinced he's a big influence on J.K. Rowling, not just with her way with names. The unpleasant surprise was the anti-semitism: Fagin is almost always called "The Jew" and the two Jewish characters are criminals and described as very ugly, reflecting their evil character.
Trivia: at one point Dickens uses the term "Jack Ketch" to refer to the gallows or the executioner. Ketch was a famous executioner, and a noose is also called Jack Ketch's Knot. I happened to have looked at a knot tying book the day before I saw that or I would have had no idea what he meant.
The big pleasure is really his language. Plus he is good with pacing and great with character names. The more I read him, the more I'm convinced he's a big influence on J.K. Rowling, not just with her way with names. The unpleasant surprise was the anti-semitism: Fagin is almost always called "The Jew" and the two Jewish characters are criminals and described as very ugly, reflecting their evil character.
Trivia: at one point Dickens uses the term "Jack Ketch" to refer to the gallows or the executioner. Ketch was a famous executioner, and a noose is also called Jack Ketch's Knot. I happened to have looked at a knot tying book the day before I saw that or I would have had no idea what he meant.
the hands that guide me are invisible