A Review of Dodger by Terry Pratchett

How did Charles Dickens come up with the character of the Artful Dodger for Oliver Twist? According to this book, the journalist and serial novelist met a street-smart teen who served as the basis for the character. That would be a great premise all by itself, but Pratchett takes it a step further—the book is told from the perspective of Dodger. It is also, according to the author’s note, historical fantasy. Since you won’t come across a shred of magic here, you might find yourself wondering why. Here’s how the author puts it: “This is a historical fantasy—and certainly not a historical novel….” I would say it’s historical fantasy because Dodger performs feats of derring-do that are sometimes a little over the top. Feats, in fact, worthy of a Dickens novel. Or maybe a James Bond movie. (Spy books and movies are secretly fantasy novels, I’ve always thought.) Joan Aiken would be proud of this book, which channels the kind of fantasy/adventure writing you'll find in her Wolves of Willoughby Chase and the rest of the series. So. Strict fantasy? No. But Dodger requires a certain suspension of disbelief. It is also one of the best books I’ve read all year.

This is approximately one-fourth due to the adventure and secondary characters like Charles Dickens; it's three-fourths due to the central character. We learn that Dodger is a tosher. Not only that, but he’s a geezer. Here’s a minor villain explaining to the major villains what they’re up against:

“A geezer is somebody that everybody knows, and he knows everybody, and maybe he knows something about everyone he knows that maybe you wished he didn’t know. Um, and well, he’s sharp, crafty, um, not exactly a thief but somehow things find their way into his hands. Doesn’t mind a bit of mischief, and wears the street like an overcoat. Dodger now…well, Dodger’s a tosher as well, which means he knows what’s going on down in the sewers too—a tosher, sir, being somebody who goes down there looking for coins and suchlike that may have been lost down the drain.”

Dodger mostly considers himself a tosher. He’s even been known to pray to the Lady on occasion. She's the patron saint of toshers—a beautiful woman with rats swarming happily over her feet. But Dodger is meant for something more. It all begins one night when he’s in the sewers and hears a cry for help. He pops out and sees a girl trying to get away from two men in a coach. I should mention that Dodger is a fierce street brawler. He bashes up the men rather handily and takes off with the girl. Here’s where he runs into Charles Dickens and his friend Henry Mayfield. Once they have convinced him of their integrity, he allows them to convey the girl, who has been badly beaten, to Mayfield’s home to be cared for by Mrs. Mayfield. But Dodger comes along to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Then Charles Dickens takes an interest in Dodger and hires him to find out who the girl is. Not only does Dodger have an instant crush on the girl they begin calling Simplicity, but he’s also intrigued by the challenge. He begins asking around—which is what brings him to the attention of the villains. The adventure escalates and escalates in, well, true Dickensian fashion. With a little bit of James Bond thrown in for good measure.

But I was telling you about Dodger. He is dimensional in a rough and ready way tinged with vague ambitions. Fortunately, he has a mentor in the form of the old Jewish man he lives with: Solomon, of course. Solomon has been trying to teach Dodger just a little honesty and now begins to help him take advantage of the opportunities that come his way because of this new adventure. Solomon is an amazing character; later in the book we start to realize just how amazing he really is. Simplicity turns out to be rather complicated, too. Dodger meets one of the richest women in England, not to mention Benjamin Disraeli, police master Robert Peel and, in a Pratchett tour de force, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street—from whom Dodger seeks a haircut.

I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderfully well all of this is executed. The writing itself is strong, but the ideas are even better. For example, Dickens teaches Dodger about the way journalists spin stories, explaining it using fog as an analogy. We see variations of London fog crawling here and there in the story to reinforce the theme. Then Dodger coopts the metaphor in a truly useful way as his life careens down the increasingly dangerous streets of the city. For example, Dodger meets Disraeli and draws his own conclusions. Here he talks to Solomon about it. The old man is describing social stratification. “Intrigued, Dodger said, ‘Am I downtrodden?’” The old man answered:

“You? Not so you would notice, my boy, and neither do you tread on anybody else, which is a happy situation to be in, but if I was you I shouldn’t think too much more about politics, it can only make you ill.”

Dodger may not think a lot about politics, but he knows how to play people. After turning into a reluctant hero to the entire city and laying his fists about in a couple of dark corners where he is meant to die, Dodger hatches an elaborate plot to save Simplicity. Then he takes an odd crew a-toshing in the sewers, where he meets up with the worst of the villains hired by the major bad guys to kill him.

Pratchett has a marvelous time with his conclusion, which is unexpected and unbelievable and absolutely perfect. But the book sings because of the people in it. I have long admired Pratchett for his talent with characterization, and here he does it again—in spades. Dodger’s dodgy yet sincere thought processes are a compelling, heart-warming mix of an utter lack of morals combined with a true-blue determination to put certain wrongs right.

We also get Pratchett’s signature humor, though it’s considerably toned down in this book as compared to the satire in the Discworld series. The passages about Dodger getting a better class of clothing, first in a shonky shop and later on Savile Row, are a prime example, along with the follow-up joke that will make you think of celebrities wearing the same designer dress to a fancy party. A lot of the humor has to do with Dodger as a fish out of water, but Dodger is so valiant and so aware of himself in the world that he is not, after all, the brunt of disdain. All of this struts its stuff on the stage of filthy, colorful nineteenth-century London.

You simply can’t go wrong with this book.

I’m not crazy about the trailer—Dodger isn’t tough enough and the fight is too slow paced. But watch it if you want.

Also: This cover is not the best ever, but I think the UK cover is worse. It's just doofy. Good thing the inside of the book is so wonderful!

Note for Worried Parents: Dodger is a book for teens, with a good dollop of peril and violence plus a few relatively mild references to prostitutes and just basically the sordid nature of the streets. And there’s a joke you wait for the whole book due to the unfortunate name of Dodger’s very smelly dog. Even that is not spelled out, though. In general, it’s just a mature book about an older teen character.

A Review of Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver

I've heard a lot of talk about this book lately, so I was eager to read it and see for myself. The author has already written a couple of well-regarded books for teens: Before I Fall and Delirium. Sometimes authors for older readers who switch to writing for younger children have a little trouble with the transition, but Oliver plunges into the MG genre skillfully.

Of course, I am a sucker for great metaphors, and Oliver has a real talent for them. Here's how the book begins:

On the third night after the day her father died, Liesl saw the ghost.

She was lying in bed in the uniform gray darkness of her small attic room when in one corner the shadows seemed to crimp, or flex, and suddenly standing next to her wobbly desk and three-legged chair was a person about her height. It was as though the darkness was a sheet of raw cookie dough, and someone had just taken a cookie cutter and made a child-sized shape out of it.

Liesl sat up, alarmed.

"What are you?" she whispered into the darkness, even though she knew it was a ghost. Normal people do not appear out of darkness, nor seem to be made out of liquid shadow. Besides, she had read about ghosts. She read a lot in her little attic room. There was not much else to do.

The plot feels a bit like Charles Dickens meets Cinderella. And what a terrific cast of characters!

We've got Liesl, whose awful stepmother has locked her in the attic and has no plans whatsoever to let her out. (Augusta is too busy spending Liesl's inheritance.)

Then there's Will, the boy who stands down in the street watching Liesl's window in between running midnight errands for his heartless master, an alchemist.

Another character I like very much is a simple guardsman named Mo who carries a cat.

The sun never shines in Liesl's land, so the story takes place in a great deal of gloom and chill. Steam trains and factories add to the atmospheric mood of the book.

Liesl and Po has the feel of a fable. It's shaped like a folktale or perhaps a theater piece for children, a Christmas pantomime. The characters are deliberate types: the Wicked Stepmother, the Simpleton, the Oppressed Good Daughter, the Evil Alchemist, the Kindly Boy, the Greedy Duchess, the Thief. This is a good thing: the stylized feel of the book really works with the story Oliver is telling. So does the sweetly whimsical tone, shining forth in spite of the gloom and the various villains.

The book's magic, which is carried around in a box and changes hands comically (as in one of Shakespeare's plays about mistaken identity), is defined rather vaguely. It becomes a Symbol, not the tool you have seen in other fantasies.

Of course, let's not forget that this book is in part a meditation on death, loss, and the afterlife. Oliver herself says as much in the Introduction:

I wrote Liesl & Po during a concentrated two-month period at the end of 2009...

At the time, I was dealing with the sudden death of my best friend. The lasting impact of this loss reverberated through the months, and it made my world gray and murky, much like the world Liesl inhabits at the start of the story....

Only in retrospect did I realize that I was writing about myself—that Liesl's journey was my own.

The author goes on to define the book, not as an escape, but as "the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in...."

And so we return to that little ghost, Po, who becomes Liesl's best friend, despite the space (and philosophy) that separates them. Here is a moment when Liesl asks Po for a favor:

"And you must help me," Liesl finished.

Po was unprepared for this. "Me?" it said unhappily. "Why me?"

"Because you are my friend," Liesl said.

"Friend," Po repeated. The word was unfamiliar by this point. Something tugged at the edges of Po's memory, the faintest of faint recollections of a bark of laughter, and the smell of thick wool, and the sting of something wet against its cheek. Snowball fight, Po thought suddenly, without knowing where the words came from: words he had not thought of in ages and ages, in so long that millions of stars had collapsed and been born in that time.

"All right," Po said. It had never occurred to Po that it would ever have a friend again, in all of eternity. "I'll help you."

There are chases and villains and peril and a rich setting in this story. But most of all, there is a wistfulness. Having read Lauren Oliver's introduction (after reading the book, I'm happy to report!), now I know why.

Children will probably like Liesl & Po for the adventure and the appealing characters, but grown-ups might read it and get a bit teary, the way they feel after reading Antoine de Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince.

Note for Worried Parents: Oliver's portrayal of the afterlife may be of concern to religious families. A discussion of your beliefs vs. the book's take on things would be useful.

Also: I requested a copy of this book from Amazon Vine. Liesl & Po will be available in bookstores on October 4.