I ran into some books I didn’t want to read on my list of Great American Novel contenders—Absalom, Absalom (I read the first couple of pages and decided I couldn’t handle a book without punctuation), The Grapes of Wrath (already read it and not a fan), The Catcher in the Rye (also not worth re-reading)—so I decided to take a detour to read an example of great British literature, from one of my all-time favorite authors who has inspired some of my writing (Shadows in the Pleasure Gardens, pre-order here), Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.
Now, my all time favorite Charles Dickens book—perhaps even my all time favorite book in general—is David Copperfield. I don’t think Oliver Twist is quite as good, perhaps only because it overwhelmed my delicate taste for anything dark in books. To be sure, it had all the right elements: entirely noble characters, truly evil characters, and several flawed but redeemable characters; action; adventure; and a route of evil and happy ending. I think there just were too many extremes and too many caricatures for my liking. Dickens is like that, though. He writes long, winding, storybook tales with virtue and a whole lot of character and style, and, though my patriotic heart hates to say it, I do think Oliver Twist is better than anything I’ve read on my list of American classics thus far.