Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: BBC audiobooks
Rating: WARTY!
Read in an okay manner by Martin Jarvis
So, if it's December fifteenth, then it must be time for a novel with a title starting with 'O'! Here 'tis!
Oliver Twist: The Parish Boy's Progress was a diartibe against the abuses of the poor and orphaned, and it was the second novel published by Charles Dickens. I have to say I was disappointed in this. The reading of the audiobook was okay - nothing spectacular, nothing atrocious - but the story itself was annoyingly preachy, its attempts at humor ill-conceived and flat, and it was, in the end, really boring. I was unable to finish listening to it.
The basic story is rags to riches - almost literally in this case. Oliver's mom dies in childbirth, and Oliver is raised in the poor house where he was born. He's treated abominably by our standards, but no worse than any child (or woman for that matter) of impoverished circumstances was treated back then. Eventually even he rebels against his circumstances and runs away, ending-up in the "employ" of Fagin, who fences whatever the boys steal, and takes care of them (after a fashion) in return. Eventually the boy grows up and discovers he's really from a wealthy family, whereupon he abandons and forgets everything and everyone from his past, and lives the life of luxury.
Highly, highly improbable, contrived, and above all else, boring.
