The Chimes by Charles Dickens

Rating: WARTY!

I have heard the chimes, but not at midnight, and they were shallow in this audiobook! This was a short story by Dickens and it sounded vaguely interesting from the blurb, since the story is about how this character gets advice from goblins on the plight of the impoverished in Dickens's London, but in practice it quickly became tiresome.

The main character was not interesting to me and was tedious to listen to, and I lost all interest in it about a third of the way through. Rather than use a 'bell' motif to divide up the story, here Dickens used a clock motif, dividing it into 'quarters' as in quarter hours. It was really more like reading an essay than a novel. Can't commend.

Oliver Twist or The Parish Boy's Progress by Charles Dickens

Rating: WARTY!

This is actually my second attempt at this! I really did no better here than previously. I had much better luck with graphic novels: Fagin the Jew which I positively reviewed in October 2014, and Zombies Christmas carol which I favorably reviewed in December that same year, when I also posted negative results on a previous effort with this material!

A while ago I had an idea for a novel set in Oliver Twist's world, so I decided to go back to the source and listen in. Fortunately my excellent local library had this on audiobook format. The novel is also available for free from The Gutenberg Project as both downloadable text and audio books (but be warned, the audio version sounds like its read by Stephen Hawking. It's not - it just uses the same kind of text-to-speech engine. I think after this I'm just going to watch the movie!

I have to say that while the overall plot was convoluted, it was not awful, but the uninspired reading of Dickens's even more uninspired material was a deal-breaker for me, and I couldn't get past the first third of it. I know it was the style back then, but the incessant flowery speech and rambling diversions were too much. Plus, Dickens was rather preachy about conditions back then. This was commendable, but it was very intrusive, and it became annoying after a while.

Like the Sherlock Holmes stories, this novel was original published in installments which in this case ran monthly for a period of over two years starting in February 1837, so as an enterprise, it had more in common with our modern comic books than our modern novels. All the favorite characters were there of course, from the more commonly known Oliver, The Artful Dodger, and Fagin, to assorted prostitutes such as Bet, Charlotte, and Nancy, to the evil Monks and Sikes, to Mr Bumble, Old Sally, and the oddly-named Toby Crackit, right down to the even more unforgettably-named Master Bates (I kid you not).

Contrary to the story you might expect - of Oliver being a perennial down-and-out, he is actually a boy of extraordinarily good fortune. Ollie's mom died in childbirth and he ended-up at the parish poor house, where he was passively abused until he was of an age where they could get rid of him by pretty much literally selling him to an undertaker (Ol protested against being a sweep's assistant and got away with it!). There he was doing well until he ran afoul of the other boy who worked there, and he ran away. Right as he was heading into the territory of death and starvation, he was taken under the wing of Fagin's crew, but after a blundered robbery, Oliver ended up in jail.

His luck does not desert him however, and he's cleared of charges and semi-adopted by a book-seller where he flourishes (and blots!). For unexplained reasons, Fagin forcibly recruits him for a robbery, but once more it goes wrong, yet Ol's luck still does not desert him. Instead of being arrested, he's adopted by the family he tried to rob, who actually turn out to be related to him! This kid has four-leaf clovers growing out of his ass!

I know some people have down-graded this for racism, and by our standards it does sound a bit racist, but I don't believe we should judge a book written almost two hundred years ago by our standards. By all means comment on the standards in use, but judge them? What would be the point now? Let's consider this racism. From what I listened to, it consists entirely of identifying Fagin as "The Jew" throughout much of the book as opposed to simply naming him Fagin or, perhaps, "The Thief" (or "The Prig"!). The thing is that I got no sense that Dickens was actually using the term "The Jew" in a derogatory sense any more than he would have been had the character been Polish and he'd referred to him as "The Pole," or any more than Agatha Christie is abusing Poirot by referring to him as The Belgian. Yes it's derogatory to use today, but the way Dickens used it was simply a convenient (if inappropriate by our lights) short-hand and I don't think he saw it in any other light. At least I didn't get that impression.

Overall, the writing left a lot to be desired, and there were far too many fortunate coincidences. Plus, Ollie is a bit of a Mary Sue. I can't recommend this based on what I listened to. Hopefully my take on the life and times of this era will be better - assuming I ever do get down to cooking-up a decent plot and writing it!

Manga Classics Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Crystal Chan, Stacy King, Nokman Poon

Rating: WORTHY!

I've never read Great Expectations, and in a way I still haven't, since this is a necessarily expurgated graphic novel version, but I have to admit after reading this, I'm interested in the original - so this one did its job! I'd never been interested before, until this version came along. It was well-written (edited! The original story adaptation was by by Crystal S Chan, the English translation by Stacy King) and nicely drawn. The illustrations by Nokman Poon were black & white line drawings.

One thing I don't get about some manga is the backwards format. Yes, I get it that if we're taking a novel originally written for Japanese audiences, blanking out the speech balloons and so on, and filling then with English text, then it necessarily runs backwards, but when it's created for an English market it makes no sense. In this case this was a translation, but it was still odd, because at the back - where it begins - the header for chapter one appeared on the left, and the text 'following' it appeared on the right - completely contrary to the instructions that had appeared on the pages immediately before! After that, though, it followed the reverse format faithfully.

The story follows Pip, who despite being an apprentice for a blacksmith, has a chance to taste the high life at the manor of Miss Haversham, a twisted woman who wears her wedding dress - every day - so as not to forget how much she hates the man who left her at the altar having taken her money instead of her hand. She's raising her adopted daughter to hate men too - and to take revenge on them for the hurt Miss Haversham has suffered. Estella appears to be learning the lesson well.

Pip become involved with escaped convict Magwitch and helps to smuggle him out of the country. Later, he finds himself the beneficiary of a stipend which pays for him to get a higher education. He becomes friends with a guy he earlier did not hit it off with (so to speak) and learns to be a real gentlemen, but there are undercurrents pulling very which way in Pip's life and he has no handle on them. All is revealed over the course of the story, and he is surprised by how much his life is entwined with the lives of others whom he had no idea he was connected.

I really liked this, and I recommend it for people like me, who had no interest in the original novel, or were maybe nervous about taking it on.

Zombies Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Title: Zombies Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Marvel
Rating: WORTHY!

Adaptation by Jim McCann
Penciling David Baldeon and Jeremy Treece
Inking Jordi Tarragona and Roger Bonet
Coloring Ferran Daniel and Jorge Gonzalez
Lettering Jeff Eckleberry

This is exactly what the title says (for once!) - a straight adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol into graphic novel format, with a dash (or more accurately, a stagger) of zombies tossed in, and I have to say that it worked!

I'm not a fan at all of zombie stories (or vampire or werewolf as long as we're covering certain animistic supernatural plots), but this one actually wasn't repulsive to me at all.

The novel carries a parental advisory, FYI, but there really isn't anything in it that need be kept from any well-adjusted, everyday teen - nothing that they wouldn't see, for example, on your average gaming card. In fact, by zombie story standards, this one was relatively tame.

The beauty of it lies in the way it was adapted, and Jim McCann did a sterling job there, bringing the zombies in and making them threatening without any really overt violence or gore. They're not overwhelming, either - just a background, really, to Scrooge's story, which largely follows the original, but which is adjusted here and there to fit the zombie story into it.

Zombies and Christmas might not seem like a natural fit, but what the heck? Sometimes you want to down-shift at Christmas and try something new, or at least, different instead of blindly following all those same old traditions again this year like you did every other year. This story fits the bill, and I recommend it.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Title: Oliver Twist
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.

Fagin the Jew by Will Eisner

Title: Fagin the Jew
Author: Will Eisner
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Rating: WORTHY!

This is a great graphic novel which takes a look at the story of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist from the PoV of Fagin. Note that I come into this having never read Olvier Twist - an omission I shall now have to make good, I guess!

Will Eisner, who actually has a book award named after him, was disturbed by how 'dishonest Jew' bigotry had grown from roots in stories like this and Shakespeare's Shylock character from The Merchant of Venice. Dickens was not anti-Semitic, and he was aware that his novel had caused issues. He sought to correct the erroneous view he'd created, but he was too late. It had already taken root in society.

We're introduced to Moses Fagin (why Eisner chose to refer to him as 'Moses' rather than 'Moishe', I don't know) as a youth and follow his sorry life, seeing his ambitions and dreams fall apart in the face of a harsh reality made worse by Fagin's own bad choices. Eisner draws a distinction between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazim Diaspora in England, the former coming from Portugal and Spain, the latter from Germany and Poland. Both groups migrated to escape anti-Semitic pogroms, but while the former were in general, a rather well-off and elite society, the Ashkenazim were people of the land, much poorer than the Sephardics.

Fagin falls into one problem after another and ends-up serving ten years hard labor in 'the colonies'. He returns to England with an entirely different outlook on life, and finds that he can make a pretty penny by employing children as thieves, and then fencing the stolen property. This is where the story joins up with the Dickens original.

This is illustrated as a sepia-tone novel, and it's well written, and well thought-out. The artwork is really good and very endearing, and the story makes for engaging reading. I recommend this graphic novel.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Title: A Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Recorded Books (originally Chapman & Hall).
Rating: worthy!

Well this took much longer than I anticipated (it's only three disks), interrupted as it was with falling asleep on the couch (very comfortable), Doctor Who (slightly disappointing), Man of Steel (much less than entertaining) and kid assaults demanding attention over one thing or another, but I eventually got it done, and I recommend this one.

Dickens (whose face could have readily passed for that of a woman's in 1843, when he wrote this) divides up this book into five "staves", matching the musical tone he set by naming the story a "carol". These staves substitute for chapters, and he wastes no time in impressing upon us that Jacob Marley is "dead as a doornail". Dickens's writing is sharp, descriptive, humorous, and very accessible. Scrooge begins to be haunted the moment he puts his key to his door as he heads indoors one chill Christmas Eve, seeing his old partner Marley's face in the door, and shortly afterwards being visited by Marley's ghost, about whom there's "more of the gravy than the grave", Scrooge observes humorously. He's warned that he must change his ways unless he wants to end up like Marley, forced to drag with him the weighty chains he forged in his own life, made from one mean or thoughtless act after another.

The ghosts of past, present, and future appear on after another, each presenting a more dire picture than the last, with the first's images actually not being dire at all, but being a rather pleasant, if somewhat saddening, trip down memory lane for Scrooge. The last visit is horrible because it depicts Scrooge's own lonely, miserable funeral. It's rather sad that the name 'Scrooge' has come to carry such negative connotations these days, because although he was every inch as his name suggests when the story begins, by the end he has completely reformed, and become the very antithesis of his popular defamatory epitaph. I recommend this strongly, and I recommend visiting wikipedia's page on the novel for some interesting details about this story, including a picture of Dickens from right around the time this novella was written.