Through Nancy’s eyes: ‘The Scent of Oranges’ by Kathy George

When I was eight, my mother took me to the cinema to see the newly released film adaption of the hit musical Oliver! How I loved it. I think I became a little obsessed by the songs, the setting, the characters: innocent young Oliver, played by Mark Lester, the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), Mr Bumble (Harry Secombe), the villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and Fagin (Ron Moody), and lovely, cheeky and caring Nancy (Shani Wallis).

I do, however, also remember being rather traumatised by the (spoiler alert) murder of Nancy. That scene on London Bridge, with the grey dank tenements of Dickensian London all around and Nancy’s headlong rescue dash with Oliver – only to end in her death at the hands of her lover – well, it affected me deeply. When I think about it now, it was possibly my first introduction to the awful fact that there was such a thing as what we now know as ‘intimate partner abuse’ and that it can and does lead to women’s deaths.

Since that time I have read the original Oliver Twist as penned by Dickens, but I must admit that scenes from that 1968 film have stayed with me too.

So I picked up Kathy George’s 2024 retelling of this classic tale with interest. In The Scent of Oranges we see the events and places through the eyes of Nancy, and are privy to her thoughts and feelings about her life.

I appreciated that this author did not attempt to give Nancy a twenty-first-century kind of ‘agency’. She is still a prostitute, pimped out by the deplorable Fagin and Sikes, living in the kind of grinding proverty that would erode the hope and joy from most lives. However she is able to articulate, if only to herself, some cherished hopes and small pleasures, and her reactions to the things that happen to and around her.

The orange in the title is a symbol of the occasional, tiny glimpses she has of beauty and the marvellous gifts of the natural world – although she only ever tastes the fruit twice in her short life.

Nancy in this version is nothing if not pragmatic, acutely aware that her future holds little to look forward to – despite meeting and falling in love with a gentleman who treats her kindly and promises her a better life. This book does not change Nancy’s fate, so readers who are familiar with the original story know in advance that this promise can never be fulfilled. Still, we cheer for Nancy and celebrate her few small, hard-won successes.

My only quibble with the novel is the use of vernacular spelling and terms for Nancy’s voice: ‘wot’, ‘carnt’, ‘innit’ and so on. For some reason I found this a bit jarring.

But that’s a small niggle. Overall the novel does a great job of bringing to life the London of Nancy, the Dodger, Fagin and Sikes, in all its filth, energy and struggle. I very much appreciated seeing a version of the story through Nancy’s eyes.

The Scent of Oranges was published by HarperCollins Australia in 2024.