I am starting to realize that I don’t like to read 19th century authors. Dickens is a giant in English literature. Oliver Twist is the first Dickens book I tried to read. I got about 40% into it and it just fizzled out. I found myself turning pages unread, just to get on with it more and more as I worked my way into the book. I realized I wasn’t reading, I was pretending to be reading.
Occasionally, when there was actually something happening, I got pulled into the story. But then Dickens would start another chapter, change the view-point, and promptly lose me.
His flowery language bothered me. I am more direct, I like the modern prose and I find myself annoyed when I see a simple thought expressed in a whole paragraph when Hemingway would have put it into eight words.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the filth of old London, the insight into the corrupt system of the haves and have-nots, where the haves brutally exploit the weaker and, of course, the children.
I don’t know how Oliver will fare in the hands of Sikes, and at this point, I don’t give a damn.