霧都孤兒：Oliver twist（英文版）

非常喜歡狄更斯的語言藝術，把每個人物、場景都刻畫的栩栩如生，中間許多片段的描寫都令我身臨其境。他的語言同樣十分詼諧，例如在描寫英國法律的部分、以及更高階級對於貧民的壓迫時，用到了許多反諷藝術。最後，相較於《雙城記》，《霧都孤兒》更多地刻畫了底層民衆的生活，有那些在貧窮之中仍然堅守着自己的原則的人，也有那些法外之徒。《霧都孤兒》給我們展現了倫敦的骯髒的一面，也展現了其善良的一面。

非常精彩的小說，小時候看過電視連續劇，映像深刻

A classic tragicomedy. For someone like me with modest English proficiency, it was not an easy read. A couple of superficial impressions after I turned over the last page: * Oliver Twist, the protagonist of the story after whose name the whole book was titled, is almost unseen in the last 15 chapters. I asked in my mind "where is Oliver?" quite a few times as I was reading the later chapters of the book. One would argue that the overall storyline could have been structured in a more balanced fashion, otherwise it just feels that the strong emotional attachment readers have built with Oliver in the early chapters as they accompanied him through all the misery and hardship suddenly got truncated in the later chapters. It is just a bit anti-climax. * There was a clear division in the book that almost all the good-natured characters are of the upper class, and the bad guys from the lower class. It seems to suggest a positive correlation between one's decency and their pedigree or social status. Such a take of human nature could be over-simplistic, and might not resonate well with contemporary readers.

書中黑話俚語解釋如下： airy [377] area (i.e. open well in front of town house; e.g. ‘tossing them down areas’ (I, 10)) (classed by Farmer as ‘vulgar’). barkers [178] pistols. Not recorded before Scott, Guy Mannering (1815) (‘barkers and slashers’), but cf. Grose: ‘BARKING IRONS. Pistols, from their explosion resembling the bow-wow or barking of a dog.’ beak [61] magistrate (formerly policeman). (Underworld: ‘Origin: the prominent noses of dominant magistrates and judges.’) big-wig [364] evidently used here to mean barrister. (Underworld: ‘A magistrate… With a ref. to a judge’s wig.’) bit or drop [399] evidently food or drink: cf. Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies (1863): ‘Some one will give me abit and a sup’ (not cant). blab, to [104] Kent: ‘to nose, to chatter, to tell secrets’. blow upon, to [99] to inform upon or betray; or [as p. 156] give away by mistake. (Underworld: ‘Blow up, v. To reveal the illicit practices or activities of (a person, a gang, a house, a neighborhood).’) blowing-up [by women] [168] scolding or telling-off (colloquial). blunt [250] ready money (cant). bob [61] shilling (formerly cant; Underworld: ‘by 1830 at latest, it was slang’). booby [224] Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (1755): ‘A dull, heavy, stupid fellow: a lubber’. booty, to play [68] to play falsely, betray (by ‘cheating play, where the player purposely avoids winning’ (Grose)). bounceably [226] swaggeringly (Kent: ‘Bounceable, proud, saucy’; Grose: to bounce is to brag or hector). castor [202] man’s hat (slang). centre-bit [157] OED: ‘An instrument turning on a projecting centre-point, used for making cylindrical holes. (Noted as a burglar’s tool.)’ cleaned out [324] Vaux: ‘said of a gambler who has lost his last stake at play; also, of a flat who has been stript of all his money’ (slang). codger, old [361] with ‘old’: an old fellow (low colloquialism, usually grotesque or whimsical). Common Garden [160] Covent Garden (slang). Conkey [249] Hotten: ‘CONKY, having a projecting or remarkable nose.’ cove, covey [60] Grose: ‘A man, a fellow, a rogue’. Often in combinations, e.g. ‘Flash-Cove = a thief or swindler’, ‘Downy-Cove = shrewd man’ (Farmer). crack [177] burglary (Grose: ‘The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and mystery of house-breaking’). crack, to [157] Underworld: ‘to break open burglariously’. cracksman [202] Lexicon: ‘The kiddy is a clever cracksman; the young fellow is a very expert house-breaker’ (cant). crape [179] OED sb. 2b.: ‘A piece of crape drawn over the face as a disguise’; The Examiner (1813): ‘He [a highwayman] pulled down a crape over his face.’ crib [119] Vaux: ‘A house, sometimes applied to shops’ (cant). cry [404] OED sb. 7: ‘Rumour, public report’; a ‘cry’ is also a pack of dogs. cut, to [202]; cutting away [365]; cut off [318] to run away, to make off (slang). darkies (darky or darkee) [179] bull’s-eyes, or ‘dark lanthorn[s] used by housebreakers’ (Lexicon) (cant). dodge, to [377]; dodged, get [323]; Dodger [62] follow; get followed; follower. Underworld: ‘ “to track one in a stealthy manner” (as in Dickens’s Oliver Twist), is not, I think, cant; probably slang. In The London Guide, 1818, it is denned as “to follow at a distance”. There is undoubtedly some reference to or reminiscence of “to dog”.’ downiest [148] most artful; most knowing. (Underworld: ‘downy cove, “a shrewd or very alert fellow”.’ Partridge thinks probably not cant but slang, possibly from boxing.) drain [178] drink (usually gin; from c. 1800) (slang). earwigged [392] pestered or influenced. Hotten: ‘EARWIG, a clergyman, also one who prompts another maliciously.’ (Farmer: ‘From the popular delusion that the earwig lodges itself in the ear with a view to working its way into the brain when it causes death’ (slang).) Ecod [174; cf. ‘ ’Cod’, 350] a mild oath, possibly from ‘Egad’ (itself probably from ‘Ah God!’). family [250] Vaux: ‘Thieves, sharpers, and all others who get their living upon the cross [by dishonest means], are comprehended under the title of “The Family”.’ fancy-work [358] Exact meaning unclear. Hotten: ‘the paramour of a prostitute is still called her FANCY-MAN’ (slang). Tillotson’s speculation, followed by most subsequent editors, ‘living on the proceeds of prostitution’ seems based on Farmer, quoted in OED, to take in fancy work, ‘to be addicted to secret prostitution’. If this is Fagin’s meaning, Noah either ignores or misses it. A fancy-house is a brothel. fence [98] Grose: ‘FENCE, or FENCING CULLY [= rogue]. A receiver of stolen goods.’ file, old; file [202] Formerly a pickpocket (cant); Vaux declares this sense obsolete. But Lexicon: ‘A person who has had a long course of experience in the arts of fraud, so as to have become an adept, is termed an old file upon the town.’ flash [61] OED: ‘Connected with or pertaining to the class of thieves, tramps, and prostitutes’. Or knowing, wide-awake, ‘smart’, ‘fly’ (slang). Or gaudy, dashing, ostentatious. flat [150] Underworld: ‘A dupe, a gullible person… Hence, any person ignorant of the wiles of the underworld’ (cant). fogles [150]; fogle-hunter [79] silk handkerchiefs (possibly from Italian, foglia, a leaf); stealer of handkerchiefs (Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830): ‘Who’s here so base as would be a fogle-hunter?’). fork out, to [61] to produce money (Grose: ‘FORK. A pickpocket. Let us fork him; let us pick his pocket’) (Underworld says low slang, not cant). gallows [79] (as noun) From Grose: ‘GALLOWS BIRD. A thief, or pickpocket; also one that associates with them’ (slang); (as adverb, p. 542); implied [154] Hotten: ‘very, or exceedingly – a disgusting exclamation; “GALLOWS poor,” very poor.’ gammon [118] Hotten: ‘deceit, humbug, a false and ridiculous story’ (slang). glim [127] Grose: ‘A candle, or dark lantern, used in housebreaking.’ grabbed [129] Hotten: ‘caught, apprehended’. green [61] Hotten: ‘ignorant, not wide awake, inexperienced’. Greenland [64] the land of greenhorns (earlier than first recorded use in Underworld). grub [61] Grose: ‘Victuals. To grub: to dine’. heavy-swell [128] Underworld: swell, ‘n. [As] a “gentleman”, “a well-dressed man”, seems to have been cant until c. 1815.’ But OED cites Lady Glanville’s Letters (1830): ‘The people at Melton… asking “who’s that heavy swell?” ’ Jack Ketch [210] Grose: ‘a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name [fl. 1663–86], of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly.’ japanning [146] making black and glossy (here, blacking boots; from the colour of varnished and decorated ‘japan’ ware). jemmies [169] Crowbars: ‘A crow(bar). This instrument is much used by housebreakers. Sometimes called Jemmy Rook’ (Lexicon 1820). Also, though not thieves’ cant but sporting slang, sheeps’ heads: ‘JEMMY (bloody) – a sheep’s head; so called from a great dealer in these delicious morceaux’ (Jon. Bee [John Badcock], Dictionary of the Turf(1823)). jiggered [100] OED: ‘Used as a vague substitute for a profane oath or imprecation, especially in asseverations. (Only in passive)’. The first citation is Marryat (1837); the second, Great Expectations: ‘This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite suppositious case of his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of’ (ch. xvii). ken [104] house (recorded 1566); a flash ken: Grose: ‘a house that harbours thieves’. kennel [74] street gutter. kinchin lay, the [358] Underworld: ‘Robbing children – especially young or innocent children – of their money as they walk along the street with it in their hands, and then jostling them to make it appear that they have fallen down.’ kinchins [358] ‘a little child’. (B.E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (London: W. Hawes, 1699).) lagged, lagging [129] transported; transportation (as convict) (Lexicon: ‘The cove was lagged for a drag. The man was transported for stealing something out of a waggon.’). lay [358] Grose: ‘Enterprise, pursuit or attempt’; an underworld scheme or means of livelihood. lay, on the [325] on the job, engaged in crime. leg-bail, to give someone [160] to escape someone; literally, to be indebted to one’s legs for flight (Grose: ‘To give leg-bail and land-security; to run away’ (according to OED, ‘jocular’)). life-preserver [155] OED: ‘A stick or bludgeon loaded with lead, intended for self-defence. Often referred to as a frequent weapon of burglars.’ Annual Register (1837): ‘The prisoner was given in charge to the police, a life-preserver having been found upon him.’ lifer [362] Hotten: ‘A convict who is sentenced to transportation for life. line, to get into a [156] Vaux: ‘To get a person in a line, or in a string, is to engage them in a conversation, while your confederate is robbing their person or premises’; here, probably, to persuade to become an accomplice in a crime (a sense not recorded in any of the period sources). lucky, made our [149] escaped (low slang). lummy [362] first-class (low slang). lushed [321] drank (Lexicon: ‘To lush at Freeman’s quay; to drink at another’s cost’). magpie [61] halfpenny (probably from mag or meg, a halfpenny) (Oliver Twist is first instance in Underworld of this sense). mill, on the [61] the treadmill: Dickens may also have in mind an old sense, cited in Underworld: ‘those that go upon the Mill, which are called House-Breakers’ (1676, Anon.). milled [200] jailed, sent to the treadmill (Oliver Twist is first instance in Underworld of this sense). morrice, to [61] to decamp, get going (Kent: ‘Morriss off, to run away’; Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773): ‘Zounds, here they are! Morrice! Prance! (Exit Hastings)’) (slang). move [149] motive of scheme (Vaux: ‘the secret spring by which any project is conducted, as, There is a move in that Business which you are not down to.’). mug [177] the face (slang). mull [see p. 548] Farmer: ‘a muddle: a result of mismanagement’ (colloquial or slang). Pierce Egan, Life inLondon (1821): ‘Somebody must make a mull – but Randall’s the man.’ murrain [303] a plague. OED: ‘In imprecations… “may a murrain or pestilence fall upon (some one)”.’ nabbed [371] ‘B. E.’, The Canting Crew (1699): ‘Nab’d, Apprehended… or Arrested’. nightcap [118] A horse’s nightcap is a halter; to die in a horse’s nightcap, to be hanged (low slang). pad the hoof, to [71] to walk (Anon., The New Fol de rol Tit (or The Flash Man of St Giles) (c. 1773): ‘I padded the hoof for many miles / To show the strength of my flame’). passengers [123] in former sense, OED: ‘a passer by or through’, or ‘a traveller (usually on foot), a wayfarer’. paviour [77] one who paves, or lays pavements. peach, to;peached [67] to turn informer; informed. (Grose: ‘To impeach; called also to blow the gab, squeak, or turn stag’ (slang).) persuaders [178] Kent: ‘Persuaders, cudgels or spurs’ (slang). pins [61] legs (slang). plant [156]; a prime plant [74] a criminal scheme; a fine target for plunder (Vaux: ‘A person’s money, or valuables, secreted about his house or person, is called his plant’). play booty, to [68] to play falsely, betray; seems a metaphorical application of gambling cant term: Underworld: ‘to play with intention to lose, so that one shares in one’s opponent’s winnings from that simpleton whom one has partnered’. Plummy [63] Lexicon: ‘It is all plummy; i.e. all is right, or as it ought to be’; here in phrase as password (see also ‘slam’). pound it, I’ll [207] I’ll wager (from cockfights) (slang). prad [244] Bee’s Dictionary of the Turf (1823): ‘Prads – are riding-horses of any description, ponies included’ (cant).prig [147] Humphrey Potter, A New Dictionary of All the Cod and Flash Languages (London: B. Crosby, 1797): ‘Prigg, a pickpocket’. put up [211] OED: ‘(Hunting) To cause (game) to rise from cover; to rouse, start’. put-up job, put-up thing [156] Vaux: ‘Put up Affair, any preconcerted plan or scheme to effect a robbery, &c, undertaken at the suggestion of another person, who possessing a knowledge of the premises, is competent to advise the principal how best to succeed’. row, what’s the [60] what’s the matter? (slang). sack; insert his hand in a sack [198] a pocket; pick a pocket (Grose: ‘To dive into the sack; to pick a pocket’). scouts [404] Farmer: ‘a spy, esp. a police-spy’. scragged [150] hanged. Partridge, in his edition of Grose: ‘the hanging terms are all cant: scrag or crag, a neck; scragboy, hangman; scrag, scrag-squeezer, scragging-post, the gallows; scrag’em Fair, a public execution’. sell [208] an act of betrayal; Vaux: ‘To sell a man is to betray him, by giving information against him, or otherwise to injure him clandestinely for the sake of interest… A man who falls a victim to any treachery of this kind, is said to have been sold like a bullock in Smithfield: shaver [368] Grose: ‘A cunning shaver; a subtle fellow, one who trims close, an acute cheat. A young shaver; a boy. Sea term (slang not cant, according to Partridge). shell [223] OED: ‘A wooden coffin, especially a rough or temporary one. Also a thin coffin of lead or other material to be enclosed in a more substantial one.’ shiners [157] guineas (21 shillings); or after c. 1825, sovereigns (£1, or 20 shillings). shopped[i25] Grose: ‘SH O P. A prison. Shopped; confined, imprisoned.’ slam [63] a trick, a swindling piece of cheating; used as password (see also ‘plummy’). sneaking-way [358] to sneak is to pilfer (John Poulter, Discoveries (1753): ‘I’m a Sneak for Chinks or Feeders; I’m a Thief for Tankards and Spoons’). sneeze-box [362] snuff-box. ‘Sneezing-coffer’ and ‘sneezing-scoop’ were also cant terms for a snuff-box; Oliver Twist is the earliest instance of ‘sneeze-box’ in OED. split upon, to [201] Vaux: ‘To split upon a person, or turn split, is synonymous with nosing, snitching, or turning nose. To split signifies generally to tell of any thing you hear, or see transacted.’ spring-gun [252] OED: ‘A gun capable of being discharged by one coming in contact with it, or with a wire or the like attached to the trigger; formerly used as a guard against trespassers or poachers, and placed in concealment for this purpose.’ (It was made illegal by an Act of Parliament in 1827.) stick up to, to [200] OED: ‘Dialect: to make love to.’ Stone Jug [363] Grose: ‘Newgate, or any other prison’. (Hence ‘jug’ for gaol.) Vaux: ‘Newgate in London is called by various names, as the pitcher, the stone pitcher, the start, and the stone jug, according to the humour of the speaker.’ stones, [to get] off the [160] to get out of London. ’Stow [118] leave off, withhold. (Grose: ‘Stow you; be silent, or hold your peace. Stow your whidds [words] and plant’em, for the cove of the ken can cant ’em: you have said enough, the man of the house understands you.’) stump, to [61] to pay, hand over (slang). swag [160] Vaux: ‘Booty… of any kind… except money’. Related to ‘Grose: A shop. Rum swag; a shop full of rich goods.’ swell see ‘heavy swell’. swipes [324] flat or small beer. Joseph Wright, English Dialect Dictionary(1898–1905): ‘The name given by the seamen to the beer that (in the Navy) was formerly issued as a ration. The quantity was generous – four quarts a day while it lasted – but the quality and conditions were appalling.’ (slang). tickers [150] watches. The Oracle (1800): ‘They secured three gold tickers’. time of day [167] the right way (rhyming slang) (Kent: ‘Time o’ day, quite right, the thing’). tinkler [119] bell. {Underworld: ‘As “a bell”, this has never, I think, been English cant, despite Dickens’s apparent belief (see Oliver Twist, 1838) that it was.’) togs [128] Potter (1797): ‘Toges or toggs, cloaths for both sexes’ (cant). top-sawyer [363] Barrere & Leland, Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Ballantyne Press, 1889–90): ‘an expert thief (according to Partridge, not cant but slang). town-maders [357] Perhaps from ‘town-made’, ‘made or manufactured in a town’ (OED). traps [97] Vaux: ‘Traps, police officers, or runners, are properly so called; but it is common to include constables of any description under this title.’ trotter-cases [146] (or ‘trotting-cases’) boots or shoes (low slang). up, to be; up to [168] Underworld quotes Humphrey Potter’s Dictionary (1797). ‘Upp, being acquainted with what is going forward’, and says, ‘up to, “equal to”, “alert to the tricks or the illicit or criminal intentions of”, may itself have, originally, been cant’. up, it’s all [224], U P., it’s all [193] OED, up (adv) i2e: ‘All up, completely done or finished; quite over’ (earliest example given is 1825). Also in euphemistic or emphatic form, ‘U. P.’ when the wind’s low [61] when money is short (Grose: ‘To raise the wind; to procure money’). Winkin [148] Meaning obscure. Grose: ‘to tip one the wink; to give a signal by winking the eye.’ ‘Like winkin’: suddenly or vigorously. wipes [64] handkerchiefs, usually cotton (cant; replaced wiper c. 1790) (Grose: ‘WIPER DRAWER. A pickpocket, one who steals handkerchiefs’). wittles [148] Cockney for victuals; food. younker [177] Hotten: ‘in street language, a lad or boy’.

someone is unlucky, someone is bad enough, someone is just like angel. it's not wrong to be a person without love, but it's really terrible to be a bad egg. anyway , I believe in love and justice👊

Finally love defeat evil.The hardships that they had once suffered had left no bitterness in their gentle souls,and all their lives they showed the mercy and kindness to others that God himself shows to all things that breathe.

Thoughts： 命運或許會賦予某些生命於不幸，生活在黑暗裏的人未曾感受到光明，但他們一旦被光溫暖過，便會緊緊抓住那個讓自己重獲新生的機會，鼓足勇氣去主宰自己的人生。 “生活中即使有再多的惡，也要相信更多的善”

2022.4.22 當你對“善惡有報”產生懷疑，不妨讀讀《霧都孤兒》，你總能從中汲取到力量，堅定地去做個好人。 故事裏，有的是窮兇極惡泯滅良知的魔鬼，也不乏天性純良品德高尚的天使。 狄更斯讓我們看盡了人性裏的“惡”，又用奧利弗的“善”，治癒了我們。 世道艱險，人心難測，但好在仍有暖暖的善意，從偉岸的心靈裏傳遞出來。 這些愛與善，像一束束聖光，驅散了邪惡的魅影。 好人難做，但我們不能放棄，因爲這是走向幸福的必經之路。 正如歌德所言：“善良的人在追求中縱然迷茫，卻終將意識到這是一條正途。”

狄更斯早期作品。情節架構已經很有狄更斯特色了，但還不夠成熟。我還是更喜歡遠大前程和雙城記🥹

an unbelievable story which make you stay reading and forget to put off. There is the ugliest side of the society, yet the justice finally came though a little too late.