Something Old

 

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.    

“OLIVER TWIST” by Charles Dickens (First published as a serial 1837-1838; published in book form 1838)

 

Please do not reel back in consternation that I am now burdening you with a review about a book that does not need any explaining. Surely everybody knows the story of Oliver Twist? Didn’t you read it when you were a kid?  Or, more likely, didn’t you see a movie or TV version of it? But as always, I have a reason for writing about it. You see, I did read Oliver Twist [complete and unabridged] when I was a teenager, but I had never re-read it since then, even though as an adult I had read every novel by Dickens except one [Barnaby Rudge… which I believe is the least read of all Dickens’s novels]. Some months ago my wife and I took a long journey around the South Island, and as we drove, she and I taking turns at the wheel, we listened to podcasts, some good jazz and other things as we looked at the interesting scenery. Then we hit on one podcast – a complete and unabridged Oliver Twist, read by a man with an authentic Cockney accent. OK, he missed a few marks by saying “two penny” [as Americans mis-pronounce it] instead of the English “tuppeny” and also pronounced “gibbet” with a hard “g”. He also, when reading, stuck with the Cockney voice even when he was reading the words of clearly middle-class characters. But this is just me picking nits. It was a good and thorough reading that kept us on our way.

By this stage you are ready to tell me that you know the general story of Oliver Twist. Oliver is an orphan who does not know who his parents were. Oliver is put in a workhouse. The little boys put to work there are mistreated and underfed under the supervision of the pompous beadle Mr Bumble. Oliver asks for more. There is a commotion. Oliver is put out to work. He almost becomes a chimney-sweep, but instead he is apprenticed to an undertaker. He is horribly bullied by the young thug Noah Claypole. Little Oliver runs away, heading for a better life in London. En route he does meet some helpful people who are ready to look after him. But when he reaches London the first person he meets is the young pick-pocket nicknamed “The Artful Dodger” who introduces Oliver to the criminal Fagin. In his rookery, Fagin's forte is training boys to be thieves as well learning to commit other felonies. One of Fagin’s henchmen is the adult thug Bill Sykes. Also Fagin knows the prostitute Nancy [okay – she’s never called a prostitute in the novel, but grown-up readers will be aware that that is who she is]. There follow a number of complicated events. Oliver is rescued for a while by the benevolent Mr. Brownlow and looked after. He [by one of those miraculous chances that happen in some novels] gradually suspects that Oliver’s deceased mother was a relative he knew and Oliver might be worthy of a legacy… but Oliver is kidnapped back by the Fagin gang. Little Oliver is forced to take part in a burglary, in the midst of which he is almost killed. The gang run away. Meanwhile Nancy, her heart now changing, wants to protect Oliver. But because she has spoken to Mr Brownlow and told him what she knew of Oliver’s origins, she is beaten to death by Bill Sykes. The happy ending? Bill Sykes is now a murderer on the run. Cornered, he accidentally hangs himself. Fagin is in jail and waiting to be executed. The gang of boys is broken up [Dickens suggests that the best of then will end up as good farmers etc.] and Oliver, thanks in part to a lovely lady called Rose Maylie who looks after him, lives ever after. Yes, I’ve not mentioned many other things - such as the comlpcated dealing with a certain Mr. Monks -  but you didn’t want me to go into laborious specifics did you?

Now be honest. You all already knew all that, didn’t you?

Before I get into the serious stuff, allow me to say a few rude things. Naughty Charlie Dickens did insert a schoolboy-ish joke. One of “The Artful Dodger’s” mates is called Charlie Bates, but every so often Dickens just happens to call him Master Bates… and if you don’t get the joke you have a very pure mind. Then, though Mr. Bumble is an obnoxious character, he does utter one profound truth when he says “The law is a ass.” The situation is that his wife committed a felony, but the law in England in the early 19^th century said that a husband could be prosecuted for what a wife had done, even if the husband had nothing to do with it. In some ways, I can’t help believing that sometimes, for various reasons, the law could still be a ass.

So much for the synopsis.

What did I take away, while listening to the podcast, about things in Oliver Twist that I had not noticed when I first read the novel.

First, I noticed that little Oliver always spoke in a perfectly polite and middle-class voice, while all the other boys in the workhouse spoke raw cockney just as Fagan’s crew did. Reality would say that a real Oliver would speak just like the uncouth kids in the workhouse or with Fagin’s bunch. My guess is that Dickens wrote for a middle-class audience and understood that such an audience would therefore have more sympathy for a nicely-spoken little boy than for a roughly-spoken little boy.

Second, following the whole narrative again after so many years, I am more aware of Dickens’s severe irony, coming close to outright sarcasm, especially in the early chapters where he describes the sheer hypocrisy of the parochial system – lead by the likes of Bumble -  which lets underfed children almost starve in the workhouse while the official wardens eat heartily; and money intended for charitable works are squandered on thing that have nothing to do with the children. In some ways, Dickens was a radical in his days. It should also be made clear that, though he makes much use of comical characters, he is most often showing them up to be either sordid or disgusting. In fact, an atmosphere of sordor dominates much of the novel, in spite of the too-good-to-be-true characters who come to Oliver’s rescue.

Third, there is a real problem when you read this novel. Fagin is Jewish. Throughout the novel, Dickens most often calls him just “the Jew”. Fagin in the novel is depicted as crafty, heartless, a coward, a liar and a corrupter of children. In many ways, Dickens is giving us what could really be seen as a stereotypical anti-Semite rant. Some modern critics have also noticed that in the last chapter, Dickens almost gloats over Fagin’s impending execution as he sits in the jail, even though we are not told what exactly he is guilty of. Indeed some have said that Fagin is about to be lynched. After the novel was first published, a Jewish woman wrote to Dickens protesting that his character Fagin was a cruel caricature of Jewish men. Dickens was able to respond that the character of Fagin was based on a real person – a Jewish criminal who had been the leader of a boys’ gang working a decade or so before Dickens wrote his novel. But Dickens was essentially a humane and decent man [despite the fact that years later he deserted the wife who had given him ten children, and took up with a teenaged actress] and he was worried about his Fagin. Years later, in his novel “Our Mutual Friend”, he went out of his way to create a good and gentle Jewish character, Riah the generous money-lender. But Riah was only a small character in a long and complex novel; and  “Our Mutual Friend” is one of the least read of Dickens’s novels by the general public. But at least Dickens had a conscience.

So much for the critique. Among other things we have to salute Dickens for writing his first real novel when he was quite young, aged 26. (Coming before Oliver Twist was the very jolly The Pickwick Papers, but they were basically a series of sketches loosely put together in a picaresque way.) Note too that, though Dickens’s works are often said to be Victorian, most of Oliver Twist was written before Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1838.

And now for a melancholy fact. Nowadays, most people who claim to know about Oliver Twist are likely to have never read the novel itself but know the story only as they’ve seen it in movie or TV versions of it [which is of course also true of many illustrious books.] Oliver Twist has been turned into many films and TV adaptations, but only two of them are really worth consideration. 

 

                         Alec Guinness as the evil Fagin in "Oliver Twist"

The first: In 1946, the director David Lean and his crew scored a hit with a film version of Dickens’s Great Expectations, in which Alec Guinness had his film debut as the hero Pip’s friend Herbert Pocket. Having done so well, in 1948 David Lean directed his version of Oliver Twist. It is an outstanding work of cinematic art – in black and white, of course, using darkness like a film noir and suggesting the horrors of slummy London in the 1830’s. Naturally, as in the case of all films that adapt lengthy novels, this Oliver Twist leaves out some of the novel’s characters, and it made up the idea of having Bill Sykes running away with Oliver when Sykes is being chased by the police for murder. In the novel, Sykes is on his own when, with a crowd beneath him, he tries to use a rope to get to another building, putting the rope around his neck. He slips and accidentally strangles himself. In David Lean’s version, Bill Sykes dies like this, but Oliver is right next to him and he is rescued by good people who climb up and retrieve him. Also in this film, Alec Guinness did an excellent and frightening version of Fagin… but again there is this problem. Equipped with a large artificial nose, virtually signalling a stereotypical Jew, Fagin was a ruthless criminal. The film gained a large audience – but under pressure it was banned in New York and – given that the film was made shortly after the Second World War - the film was completely banned in Germany.

 

                                   Ron Moody as the jolly Fagin in "Oliver!"

The second: In 1969, Carol Reed directed  the film “Oliver!” Written by Lionel Bart [original name Lionel Begieter], “Oliver!” performed very well on stage. It played for years in London, did well in New York and became a hit in much of the rest of the world. [May I add that as a teenager, in a school performance, I played one of the starving boys singing “Food, Glorious Food”… not that I’ve ever been starving.] As a musical play, it included some catchy songs… but they made characters whom Dickens would not have recognised. Nancy [who gets to sing the torch-song “As Long As He Needs Me”] is a jolly good girl, apparently deeply in love with Bill Sykes [in the novel their connection is brief and fleeting].  The pick-pocket boys were presented as a jolly lot of happy lads, singing such ditties as “Consider Yourself Well In” and later [with Nancy] “I’d Do Anything [For You Dear Anything]”. Most important though, Fagin was presented as a jolly rogue, not a heartless criminal, who gets to sing such witty songs as “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” “Reviewing the Situation” and “Be Back Soon”… and of course all this ends with Bill Sykes dead, Oliver saved, and Fagin and the Artful Dodger walking away to a happy sunset. The film version of “Oliver” has a London which is bright and sunny in technicolor. It copies David Lean’s Oliver Twist by having Bill Sykes being with Oliver when Sykes hangs himself. As a film, “Oliver!”  is very entertaining, won Academy Awards and won a huge audience. - but if you see “Oliver!”  on either stage or on screen, you are not really seeing Dickens’s narrative at all. Many, many viewers of “Oliver!” believe “Oliver!” is “Oliver Twist”, which is why I say it is the second most important film based in “Oliver Twist”.

P.S. Lionel Bart was Jewish, which in part explains why he took most of the nastiness out of Fagin - as well as knowing that a musical play and film had to have cheerful things in it. 

Concerning Dickens note that on this blog you can see reviews of Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit,   Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, The Old Curiosity Shop and Dickens's collection of Chistmas Books.