I watched another two movies with K today - "Oliver Twist" and "The Transporter 2". I initially wanted "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" but was afraid I would not have the guts to sit through even a quarter of the show. Horror movies are to be watched with a partner, not with just a friend, no matter how close.
"Oliver Twist" is a good show by itself, especially for the young lad acting as the main character. He really brought the character to life - the sufferings and misery the young Oliver experienced, his being saved by Fagin and his band of young vagabonds, his being adopted by the kind Mr Brownlow. The movie adaptation more or less followed the story pretty closely. Some say this is probably Charles Dicken's best work, but this is my third favourite of all Charles Dickens' novels.
I find the show better than the musical "Oliver!". It was supposed to be a rather tragic story, but the musical made it so light-hearted, especially with catchy tunes like "Food....Glorious Food", sung by the boys from the Parish Workhouse who had to work long hours and almost starving to death, and "I Would Do Anything....", sung by Nancy to Oliver.
Charles Dickens' novels are what William Shakespeare's plays are to England - great literary classics in their own right. Dickens' novels normally touched on poverty, starvation, the dark side of human society in eighteenth and nineteenth century London and Paris. A lot of his stories were drawn on his own experiences. It was said that "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield" were some sort of autobiography, although the two stories are completely different.
My favourite is still "A Tale Of Two Cities". The two cities referred to London and Paris, set during late-eighteenth century Paris where the poor revolutionised against the rich and started to guillotine all the rich land-owners. It was a story of political unrest, true love, sacrifice, true friendship. A real touching story indeed. There is hardly a story that has a man as the main character which I will cry over, but I really cried when I finished the book. The main character gave up his life just so the girl he loved could be with her husband - his best friend.
My second favourite is "Great Expectations". It is something like "Oliver Twist" in that the main character was also an orphan, brought up by his sister and brother-in-law. He went to work for an eccentric old woman and fell in love with her charge, the beautiful Estella. It was also on how an orphan with a poor life managed to struggle and found a little success and happiness in life.
Another one of his better books is "Nicholas Nickleby", which K commented is the best onscreen adaptation of a Dickens work ever. The main character, upon the death of his father, brought his mother and sister to London, where they met his nasty uncle. Again, the theme is on poverty and struggle, but in this case, where Oliver Twist was portrayed as being so innocent and angelic, Nicholas Nickleby was a more realistic character in the sense that he, too, could be bad. And that was what made him more human and believable.
Dickens' other more famous works, "A Christmas Carol" brought across the message that even a miserly old scrooge who hated everyone and the world around him, was still able to be influenced by the goodwill of Christmas and found meaning in it; and "The Pickwick Papers" was a little different from the rest of his novels as it was more on sporting life and the slow disappearance of coach travel in olden England, but centred around the Pickwick family.
England had produced some of the world's best writers, and best known classic novels. Almost every great writer came from England. Besides Charles Dickens, there was Thomas Hardy, David Herbert Lawrence, the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen (the greatest female writer of all time), Rudyard Kipling and Roald Dahl. Maybe that is why it is known as "English Literature".
What a pity the literature I studied was more on local, American and modern writers of English (be they African, Asian or European), besides Shakespeare. I would have given anything to study the books of any of the above writers. Somehow the modern writers do not seem to have the flair of writing as good stories as the olden writers.
"Oliver Twist" is a good show by itself, especially for the young lad acting as the main character. He really brought the character to life - the sufferings and misery the young Oliver experienced, his being saved by Fagin and his band of young vagabonds, his being adopted by the kind Mr Brownlow. The movie adaptation more or less followed the story pretty closely. Some say this is probably Charles Dicken's best work, but this is my third favourite of all Charles Dickens' novels.
I find the show better than the musical "Oliver!". It was supposed to be a rather tragic story, but the musical made it so light-hearted, especially with catchy tunes like "Food....Glorious Food", sung by the boys from the Parish Workhouse who had to work long hours and almost starving to death, and "I Would Do Anything....", sung by Nancy to Oliver.
Charles Dickens' novels are what William Shakespeare's plays are to England - great literary classics in their own right. Dickens' novels normally touched on poverty, starvation, the dark side of human society in eighteenth and nineteenth century London and Paris. A lot of his stories were drawn on his own experiences. It was said that "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield" were some sort of autobiography, although the two stories are completely different.
My favourite is still "A Tale Of Two Cities". The two cities referred to London and Paris, set during late-eighteenth century Paris where the poor revolutionised against the rich and started to guillotine all the rich land-owners. It was a story of political unrest, true love, sacrifice, true friendship. A real touching story indeed. There is hardly a story that has a man as the main character which I will cry over, but I really cried when I finished the book. The main character gave up his life just so the girl he loved could be with her husband - his best friend.
My second favourite is "Great Expectations". It is something like "Oliver Twist" in that the main character was also an orphan, brought up by his sister and brother-in-law. He went to work for an eccentric old woman and fell in love with her charge, the beautiful Estella. It was also on how an orphan with a poor life managed to struggle and found a little success and happiness in life.
Another one of his better books is "Nicholas Nickleby", which K commented is the best onscreen adaptation of a Dickens work ever. The main character, upon the death of his father, brought his mother and sister to London, where they met his nasty uncle. Again, the theme is on poverty and struggle, but in this case, where Oliver Twist was portrayed as being so innocent and angelic, Nicholas Nickleby was a more realistic character in the sense that he, too, could be bad. And that was what made him more human and believable.
Dickens' other more famous works, "A Christmas Carol" brought across the message that even a miserly old scrooge who hated everyone and the world around him, was still able to be influenced by the goodwill of Christmas and found meaning in it; and "The Pickwick Papers" was a little different from the rest of his novels as it was more on sporting life and the slow disappearance of coach travel in olden England, but centred around the Pickwick family.
England had produced some of the world's best writers, and best known classic novels. Almost every great writer came from England. Besides Charles Dickens, there was Thomas Hardy, David Herbert Lawrence, the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen (the greatest female writer of all time), Rudyard Kipling and Roald Dahl. Maybe that is why it is known as "English Literature".
What a pity the literature I studied was more on local, American and modern writers of English (be they African, Asian or European), besides Shakespeare. I would have given anything to study the books of any of the above writers. Somehow the modern writers do not seem to have the flair of writing as good stories as the olden writers.
2 comments:
Errr ... actually, I din say "Nickleby" was "the best onscreen adaptation of a Dickens work ever". Honestly, I haven't watched all of them, and many of those I have, I can't really recall anymore. I just said I liked "Nickleby" (the movie) more than "Twist" (the Polanski version).
Oh right. Ok, I misinterpreted then. But the story is still a great story in its own right.
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