Literature and Writing Quotes - Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist - Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

"There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?" said Mr. Brownlow. […] 

"A great number, sir," replied Oliver; "I never saw so many."

"You shall read them if you behave well," said the old gentleman kindly; "and you will like that, better than looking at the outsides,– that is, in some cases, because there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."

"I suppose they are those heavy ones, sir," said Oliver[…]

[…] Oliver considered a little while, and at last said he should think it would be much better thing to be a bookseller. (14.13-20)

Whenever a novelist starts talking about books, and writing books, and reading books, it’s time to pay attention, because he’s really just talking about himself. What are the books Mr. Brownlow is referring to, here, when he says that some books might look nice, but actually suck? Is he talking about bad novels in general (there were plenty of them then, just like now)? He might be.

Another possibility is that Dickens is trying to suggest that his own book (Oliver Twist) is better than the other Newgate novels that it was being compared to. In any case, we’re reading a book right now – Dickens was in the middle of writing it. Surely Oliver Twist won’t fall into the category of the books "of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts"?

The last part of the passage, when Oliver says that he’d rather be a bookseller than an author, is a deliberate jab at Mr. Bentley, the publisher of Oliver Twist (see the "Intro" section again). Dickens wasn’t making much money off of the book, and Bentley was making money hand over fist. Eventually Dickens wised up and started his own magazines so that he’d be the one making the money, but that wasn’t not until later.

If it did not come strictly within the scope and bearing of my long-considered intentions and plans regarding this prose epic […] to leave the two old gentlemen sitting with the watch between them long after it grew too dark to see it […] I might take occasion to entertain the reader with many wise reflections on the obvious impolicy of ever attempting to do good to our fellow-creatures where there is no hope of earthly reward.

[…] But, as Mr. Brownlow was not one of these […] I shall not enter into any such digression in this place: and, if this be not a sufficient reason for this determination, I have a better, and indeed, a wholly unanswerable on, already stated; which is, that it forms no part of my original intention to do so. (15.1-2)

Oh, Dickens, you sly dog—you say you’re not going to do something even as you’re doing it. Dickens uses this rhetorical strategy in this long digression to imitate some earlier novelists that he admired, like Henry Fielding and Lawrence Sterne.

So, what’s the effect of that strategy? Is it just a way for him to sneak in his moralizing digression while pretending he’s not? Or is it his way of winking at the readers, saying, "look guys, we all know people like this, and although it’s not strictly part of my story to talk about it, I’ll throw in this totally absurd digression while pretending not to, which is a silly strategy that you, intelligent reader, will see right through."

We’re inclined to believe it’s the second option, because Dickens likes to nudge his reader every now and then and be playful, but we’re willing to entertain other options. Because remember: any time a writer steps back and tells you what he or she is doing and why is a moment that you should pay close attention to – especially if it’s someone like Dickens. It’s like if Manny Ramirez suddenly started giving a lecture on how to hit the other way: you should probably listen, because he knows what he’s talking about.

[…] overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders that he was really the hardened little wretch he was described to be, what could one poor child do? (15.63)

Oliver, once again, is misrepresented, and, once again, everyone around him believes the false story. What’s the deal with all these fake stories floating around? Will Oliver ever get to tell his own story?

It is the custom on the stage in all good, murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes in as regular alternation as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky, well-cured bacon […] Such changes appear absurd, but they are by no means unnatural. The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling, only there we are busy actors instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference. (17.1-2)

This is the digression opening Chapter Seventeen, and it’s a pretty famous one. First of all, the analogy is hilarious – Dickens compares the switching back and forth between comedy and tragedy to the stripes in bacon (mmm, bacon).

That analogy seems absurd to us, but then, it’s supposed to – Dickens is showing us just how absurd and mechanical the shifts are, but then turns around and tells us that the shifts happen in real life, too – one day you’re at a party, the next day you’re at a funeral. That’s life.

And good authorship, Dickens tells us, is to make the shifts seem natural. Is it working? The digression to tell us about all of this isn’t "natural," maybe, but why else might it be there? Another cool thing about this passage is that Oliver Twist was, in fact, turned into the same kind of "good, murderous melodrama" that Dickens is making fun of – it got produced in at least eight different versions in the nineteenth century (well before the musical Oliver! came out).

Is it possible that Dickens was writing Oliver Twist in the hopes that it would be turned into a play so that he could make more money on it? Maybe that’s why he swaps back and forth between comedy and tragedy – to make it easier to turn it into "murderous melodrama."

[…] I have no room for digressions, even if I possessed the inclination; and I merely make this one in order to set myself quite right with the reader, between whom and the historian it is essentially necessary that perfect faith should be kept, and a good understanding preserved. (17.3)

This is the tail end of the digression that opens Chapter Seventeen. Dickens says that he wants everything he does to be totally transparent and obvious to the reader – no secrets between friends, and all that. Is it working? He’s going out of his way to show us what he’s thinking as he writes – do we believe him? Or is it just another strategy to get us to go along with what he’s doing? And if so, do we feel manipulated, or are we okay with it? Do we feel like we have a "good understanding" with the author?

Mr. Bumble […] after a few moments’ reflection, commenced his story.

It would be tedious if given in the beadle’s words, occupying as it did some twenty minutes in the telling; but the sum and substance of it was, that Oliver was a foundling […] who had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and then running away in the night-time from his master’s house. (17.82-3)

Here’s yet another instance of someone else getting to tell Oliver’s story for him – and it’s an awfully complete version, if not an altogether accurate one. Oliver didn’t have a chance to tell Brownlow his story before Mr. Grimwig arrived, so Mr. Bumble’s doing it for him. The story of Oliver Twist seems to be a story that just has to be told – everyone’s interested in it (including us), and Brownlow’s even willing to pay good money for it (as are we all, unless you’re reading it online).

Oliver, quite elated and honoured by a sense of his importance, faithfully promised to be secret and explicit in his communications, and Mr. Maylie took leave of him with many warm assurances of his regard and protection. (36.18)

Oliver knows how to write at this point, and his promise to write to Harry and relate to him all that they’ve been up to is a mark of how far he’s come – he’s now not only able to tell his own story, but to tell other peoples’, as well. He’s become a writer of stories, just as Mr. Brownlow predicted.

The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed, and what little remains to their historian to relate is told in few and simple words. (53.1)

The word that stands out here is "historian" – a historian is someone who writes about real people right? And Oliver Twist is a novel, and has never been anything else, even if a lot of it is very realistic, so that it could be real. In this final chapter, it’s as though Dickens is saying goodbye to these (fictional) characters that he (and we) have spent so much time with, and momentarily forgets (or wants us to forget) that they’re fictional.

And now the hand that traces these words falters as it approaches the conclusion of its task. (53.13)

Dickens has, on just a few occasions, thrust himself into the novel to make us conscious of him as the author – just look at the "digressions" quoted above, in which he stops to explain what he’s doing and why. But this is the first (and only) time that he makes himself a physical presence in the novel – he mentions his hand as it’s writing. It’s kind of weird and Addams Family-ish, isn’t it?

I would fain linger yet with a few of those among whom I have so long moved. (53.14)

Here, the narrator talks about the figures he has "moved" – is he talking about the characters as though they were chess pieces that he’s been moving around the board, or is he talking about wanting to spend more time with the readers, whom he has "moved" emotionally? It’s ambiguous.