Monday, February 26, 2007

Oliver Twist: The Nauseatingly Good, The Abominably Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly

Warranted or no, it was a subject of some embarrassment to me that I had never, not once in my life, read Dickens. Not in high school, not in college, not ever. The following was the summation of all of my knowledge of Charles Dickens' wide corpus:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

"Please Sir, I want some more."

That, sadly, was all. Both of which have probably appeared in dozens of credit card and/or soup commercials which really eradicates, in full, any possible modicum of respect I might derive from knowing those two lines. Now at least I can say that I've read one novel in its entirety, modest an accomplishment as that may be. Oliver Twist is much more than an overdone scene about an absence of slop, it's a surprisingly biting comment on British society in the 19th century. The characters sway from the cavity-inducing saintliness of Rose Maylie and Oliver himself, to the out-and-out vicious stylings of Sikes and Co., who all help to convince the reader that there was something seriously wrong in the city of London in the late 1830's. Perhaps this is obvious to all of you Dickensian experts, but hey, I thought it was going to be boring. 500 pages later, I see the error of my ways.

I think what I loved most about Dickensian style is his underwriting. He says one thing, but his cleverly crafted diction says another. It's that current of sarcasm, flowing just under the surface of his ever-polite and respectable voice, that really kept me in this novel. Without that, it merely would have been another Cinderella story.


So yes, I can finally understand all the references to the Artful Dodger; finally, I can offer up my own opinions of the queer Mr. Bumble and the dastardly murderer Bill
Sikes. Thank goodness. However, I do have one point of contention with this hearty literary dish. As noted in an article by Norman Lebrecht, the villain Fagin is referred to as "the Jew" over 250 times in the first 38 chapters of the book. He is properly conniving, money-grubbing, and back-stabbing, as anti-Semitic characters are wont to be. This only bothered me on the surface as I was reading, like a bug crawling across my arm every hundred pages or so. Mostly, I ignored it. It wasn't until after I had finished that it began to bug me. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that some people do consider Dickens to have been an anti-Semite because of this novel, but most people just think that he was either commenting on religion in general or simply made a bad satirical decision. Apparently when confronted with the accusation of being a Jew-hater, Dickens said something like, "What? I thought all boy-thief gang leaders were Jewish." Huh. So, a jewess named Eliza Davies wrote to Dickens and scolded him for this affront. I mean, jeez. Kick a people while they're down why don't you. Dickens' response was this:

"I must take leave to say that if there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent Jewish people that I have done to them what you describe as a great wrong, they are a far less sensible, a far less just and a far less good tempered people than I have always supposed them to be."
To which the Jewish people responded, "Um....thanks....I guess." Oh Dickens, what a smooth talker you are.

Tastiness: Hearty! Like a mug of ale and a shepherd's pie. Followed by a nap.
Special Sauce: A hint of sarcasm. Spicy.
Recommend? Indeed, my dear chap! Indeed!


Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Flowers for Algernon: Charly Talk Pretty One Day


last wek i ate a buk caled flowers for algernon and it was not hard too reed becus the man in the buk talked wit smal wurds lik i do. i red it reely fast and it was very intresting the tings they did to charly to make him smart. at furst charly was not even as smart as the mous algernon and the mous cud do tings fastr then charly cud lik run in a mayz to find the chees at the end. and charly had frends at the bakery who laffed and made joks with him. but aftr they did the operashun to charly to his brane he started to get smarter and smarter. furst they tauwt him to spel rite by looking at a dikshunary. pretty soon he started to write better and not misspell too many wurds. after that, he began to understand puncuation. Capitalizing words came quickly to him. He realized he was getting smarter. The sad thing was that he also began to realize that the people around him who he thought were his friends were actually just making fun of him and his retardation, and this hurt him. He started feeling emotions he couldn't understand. He began consuming books and information (like me!) and after only a short while, he went from being someone with average intelligence to a genius, and then a super-genius, with intellectual capabilities beyond any normal human being. Il a appris comment parler beaucoup de langues. Realmente, ha imparato parlare tutti. Er war ein ernsthaft intelligenter Mann. But as he surpassed all those around him, he was alone again, different, as he was before the operation. The only one who truly understood him was Algernon, the white mouse who endured the same brilliance as he. And suddenly, as he was contemplating the secrets of existence, he realized that there was a flaw in the science that had made him a genius. A serious flaw. Algernon died, so Charley buried him in his backyard. He wouldn't let the scientists keep him. And he knew that it was just a matter of time before his enlightenment would ebb, and pull away from him like the ocean from the shore. Leaving him with only remnants; scatterings of broken shells that once held cosmic perfection. And somehow he made peace with this, and all his past wounds that went unhealed for so long, and all he held on to were the books, the words that he wished would not leave him. But inevitably, understanding began to draw away, the words became muddled in his mind. He would walk down the streets of new york city and watch the people around him who paid him no attention and looked at the bright lights. he got lost once, but a kind policeman led him home. and sometimes he would forget about the opershun and wonder why things were so different now. but then he rememberd and thought how nice it was too be so smart and got his job at the bakery back and his frends were there and hapy to see him. so it was all OK and evry nite at home charly would lay sum flowers on algernons grave to remembur his frend the mous who was the smartist mous ther evr was. i reely likd the buk very much and i think evryboddy shud reed it too.

Tastiness: tastes lik beootifull
Special Sauce: An ever-changing voice, brilliant insight and character development.
Recommend? charly says yes.