Blog #1

Title: Oliver Twist

Author: Charles Dickens

Genre: Classic
Pages: 360

Plot:

This book that I have been reading is called Oliver Twist and it is written by Charles Dickens. I needed to keep up with my mom while reading this so I haven't got far yet. For now I have read only 2 chapters, the first 2. Oliver Twist is born a sickly infant in a workhouse. The parish surgeon and a drunken nurse attend his birth. His mother kisses his forehead and dies, and the nurse announces that Oliver’s mother was found lying in the streets the night before. The surgeon notices that she is not wearing a wedding ring. "So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative . . . of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it." I think that this quote means that always, poor people are treated as worse than the richer ones. Authorities at the workhouse send Oliver to a branch-workhouse for “juvenile offenders against the poor-laws.” The overseer, Mrs. Mann, receives an adequate sum for each child’s upkeep, but she keeps most of the money and lets the children go hungry, sometimes even letting them die. On Oliver’s ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a minor church official known as the parish beadle, informs Mrs. Mann that Oliver is too old to stay at her establishment. Since no one has been able to discover his mother’s or father’s identity, he must return to the workhouse. Mrs. Mann asks how the boy came to have any name at all. Mr. Bumble tells her that he keeps a list of names in alphabetical order, naming the orphans from the list as they are born. Mrs. Mann fetches Oliver. When Mr. Bumble is not looking, she glowers and shakes her fist at the boy, so he stays silent about the miserable conditions at her establishment. Before Oliver departs, Mrs. Mann gives him some bread and butter so that he will not seem too hungry at the workhouse.The workhouse offers the poor the opportunity to starve slowly as opposed to quick starvation on the streets. For the workhouse, the undertaker’s bill is a major budget item due to the large number of deaths. Oliver and his young companions suffer the “tortures of slow starvation.” One night at dinner, one child tells the others that if he does not have another bowl of gruel he might eat one of them. Terrified, the children at the workhouse cast lots, determining that whoever loses shall be required to ask for more food for the boy. Oliver loses, and after dinner, the other children insist that Oliver ask for more food at supper. His request so shocks the authorities that they offer five pounds as a reward to anyone who will take Oliver off of their hands.

Blog #1:

Discuss and describe your interview. Whom did you select and why? What did your chosen person express about reading and literature? What was interesting to you about the interview?

I chose to read with my mother. I chose her because she loves to read and her hobby is basically reading. She is so into literature and I thought she would love to read a book with me, I was right, she does. I found it interesting that my mom wanted me to read about love over war and history. She said that she would love for me to read a book about love, not a real event over a book about war. 

Interview:

1) What do you love most about reading:

My mom loves every book that excites her during the climax.

2)How has reading changed your life:

By reading she learned more than she ever did and different points of views inspired her to think differently than what she thought before.

3) If you had to choose, which novel is your all-time favorite and why?

The book "Lagum" by Svetlana Velmar Jankovic because it describes the lives of famous Serbian families and their tragedies during the World War 2.

4) If you had to choose, which book has had the most importnant influence on your life and why?

The book "Na Drini Cuprija" by Ivo Andric laft the most important influence on her because it describes the life and history of Serbs.

5) Knowing me as you do, which novel have you always wanted me to read and why?

"Ana Karenjina" by Tolstoj because its about love, and its very descriptive langiage.