雾都孤儿：Oliver twist（英文版）

非常喜欢狄更斯的语言艺术，把每个人物、场景都刻画的栩栩如生，中间许多片段的描写都令我身临其境。他的语言同样十分诙谐，例如在描写英国法律的部分、以及更高阶级对于贫民的压迫时，用到了许多反讽艺术。最后，相较于《双城记》，《雾都孤儿》更多地刻画了底层民众的生活，有那些在贫穷之中仍然坚守着自己的原则的人，也有那些法外之徒。《雾都孤儿》给我们展现了伦敦的肮脏的一面，也展现了其善良的一面。

非常精彩的小说，小时候看过电视连续剧，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.

书中黑话俚语解释如下： 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： 命运或许会赋予某些生命于不幸，生活在黑暗里的人未曾感受到光明，但他们一旦被光温暖过，便会紧紧抓住那个让自己重获新生的机会，鼓足勇气去主宰自己的人生。 “生活中即使有再多的恶，也要相信更多的善”

2022.4.22 当你对“善恶有报”产生怀疑，不妨读读《雾都孤儿》，你总能从中汲取到力量，坚定地去做个好人。 故事里，有的是穷凶极恶泯灭良知的魔鬼，也不乏天性纯良品德高尚的天使。 狄更斯让我们看尽了人性里的“恶”，又用奥利弗的“善”，治愈了我们。 世道艰险，人心难测，但好在仍有暖暖的善意，从伟岸的心灵里传递出来。 这些爱与善，像一束束圣光，驱散了邪恶的魅影。 好人难做，但我们不能放弃，因为这是走向幸福的必经之路。 正如歌德所言：“善良的人在追求中纵然迷茫，却终将意识到这是一条正途。”

狄更斯早期作品。情节架构已经很有狄更斯特色了，但还不够成熟。我还是更喜欢远大前程和双城记🥹

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.