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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
Our Mutual Friend: Or, Where for art thou Editor?
Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, or as I like to call it, the Neverending Story: Unabridged Version, was a neverending look into the lives of *millions (ok, ok, not millions, but it felt like millions) of characters in 18th century London. We've got: John Harmon, the Boffins, the Wilfers, the Hexams, the Lammles, the Veneerings, Mortimer Lightwood, Eugene Wrayburn, Mr. Riah, Bradley Headstone etc. etc. etc. on and on and on... Just when you think there aren't anymore characters, he throws MORE characters at you. It's quite insane.
On top of all the characters, the writing is repetitive and at times meandering and pointless. Someone's baby is described as "inexhaustible" at least twenty times in one chapter. You know what's inexhaustible? Describing a baby as inexhaustible over twenty dang times!
I couldn't keep up with characters and descriptions and the conversations. Look -- I get it. It's satire! He's making fun of the stupid rich people. The good guys are mostly the poor and innocent ones (not counting Wegg & Venus & Riderhood). It probably meant way more back then to the people who read it week to week. But for me, the "plot twist" was obvious from the beginning. Nothing was surprising or frankly interesting. It just kept slogging on and on and on...
The only thing I really learned is the importance of hiring an editor. A good editor -- one that can stop you from using the word "inexhaustible" over twenty times in the span of a few pages. One that can reduce your 900+ page book into an actually coherent and intriguing piece of literature.
P.S. I read this because Desmond on LOST kept a picture of his "constant" love Penny in its pages.. So, sorry to Desmond that I didn't like it. I feel like I disappointed you, brotha!
Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, or as I like to call it, the Neverending Story: Unabridged Version, was a neverending look into the lives of *millions (ok, ok, not millions, but it felt like millions) of characters in 18th century London. We've got: John Harmon, the Boffins, the Wilfers, the Hexams, the Lammles, the Veneerings, Mortimer Lightwood, Eugene Wrayburn, Mr. Riah, Bradley Headstone etc. etc. etc. on and on and on... Just when you think there aren't anymore characters, he throws MORE characters at you. It's quite insane.
On top of all the characters, the writing is repetitive and at times meandering and pointless. Someone's baby is described as "inexhaustible" at least twenty times in one chapter. You know what's inexhaustible? Describing a baby as inexhaustible over twenty dang times!
I couldn't keep up with characters and descriptions and the conversations. Look -- I get it. It's satire! He's making fun of the stupid rich people. The good guys are mostly the poor and innocent ones (not counting Wegg & Venus & Riderhood). It probably meant way more back then to the people who read it week to week. But for me, the "plot twist" was obvious from the beginning. Nothing was surprising or frankly interesting. It just kept slogging on and on and on...
The only thing I really learned is the importance of hiring an editor. A good editor -- one that can stop you from using the word "inexhaustible" over twenty times in the span of a few pages. One that can reduce your 900+ page book into an actually coherent and intriguing piece of literature.
P.S. I read this because Desmond on LOST kept a picture of his "constant" love Penny in its pages.. So, sorry to Desmond that I didn't like it. I feel like I disappointed you, brotha!
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
One of Dickens longest books - it is clear how much writing serials affected the story. While the story is good, it has a lot of excess that makes it hard to get through. I originally read in high school, and not sure I would make it through the book today.
challenging
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
slow-paced
Müşterek Dostumuz ile aylarım geçti. Bundan önceki yılların birinde başlayıp öylece bırakmışlığım da var. İşin aslı başlamak değil zaten bitirmek. İçten içe ya hazır değildim ya da o kadar hazırdım ki yalnızca listelerimde okundu olarak görme fikrinden hoşlanmıyordum, bilmiyorum. Kitapsa tam olarak bu düşünceleri besleyen karmaşadan pay almış gibiydi, okuduğum en karanlık ve karmaşık Dickens kurgusu. Toplum incelemeleri, karakter gelişimleri, katmanlı olay örgüsü, resmen akıp giden betimlemeleriyle eksiksiz bir kurgu. Dickens’ın en sevdiğim özelliklerinden biri; öyle inceden batırıyor ki iğneyi anlık bir refleks ama uzun çok uzun süren bir sızı: Sanatında usta.
Hikayenin bütünü tam olarak böyle işte. Anlattığı dönem, kitabın cüssesi, hakkında işittiğiniz redaksiyon veya çeviriyle ilgili kötü yorumların sizi engellemesine izin vermeyin derim. Hazır değilseniz muhtemelen hiçbir zaman hazır hissetmeyeceksiniz zaten. En fazla arkadaşlarınızı darlarsınız birlikte okuyalım diye, benim yaptığım gibi. Dostlar ve Dickens bugünler için değil mi?
Bugün değilse ne zaman?
Şu şahane replikle bitiyorum çünkü favorilerimden biri ve aklıma geldikçe gülüyorum:
“Evet deyin.”
“Bu kadar kederli olmasam cevabım hayır olurdu. Ama kederlere gark olduğum için, deliliğe ve umutsuzluğa sürüklendiğim için sanırım evet diyeceğim.”
Tekrarlıyorum bugün değilse ne zaman? Evet deyin.
Teşekkür ederim.
Hikayenin bütünü tam olarak böyle işte. Anlattığı dönem, kitabın cüssesi, hakkında işittiğiniz redaksiyon veya çeviriyle ilgili kötü yorumların sizi engellemesine izin vermeyin derim. Hazır değilseniz muhtemelen hiçbir zaman hazır hissetmeyeceksiniz zaten. En fazla arkadaşlarınızı darlarsınız birlikte okuyalım diye, benim yaptığım gibi. Dostlar ve Dickens bugünler için değil mi?
Bugün değilse ne zaman?
Şu şahane replikle bitiyorum çünkü favorilerimden biri ve aklıma geldikçe gülüyorum:
“Evet deyin.”
“Bu kadar kederli olmasam cevabım hayır olurdu. Ama kederlere gark olduğum için, deliliğe ve umutsuzluğa sürüklendiğim için sanırım evet diyeceğim.”
Tekrarlıyorum bugün değilse ne zaman? Evet deyin.
Teşekkür ederim.
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The main plot is both transparently obvious and a bloody mess, the Noddy Boffin sub-plot suddenly and unsatisfactorily truncated, the doe-eyed heroine more saintly than ever, the afflictions of the likes of Sloppy and Jenny Wren treated as comic-relief, and Mr Riah is a clumsy apology for Fagin...
Brilliant, of course.
Brilliant, of course.
Fear death by water. Madame Sosostris's advice came way too late for the characters in this 1865 satire of upward mobility and the corrupting power of money, through which the River Thames flows in its stately and all-devouring way from Henley to Limehouse and beyond. (It's a fair bet that TS Eliot had Our Mutual Friend in mind when he wrote the line, given that one working title for The Waste Land is said to be He do the policemen in different voices, Betty Higden's account of her supposedly idiotic assistant Sloppy reading her the law reports from the newspaper). As well as those who meet a wet end, and the whole complex narrative opens with a corpse dragged from the murky river, baptism and moral redemption through near-drowning is a powerful theme for no fewer than three prominent characters. One of those believes that surviving such an experience renders him immune from drowning. I don't want to spoil things for would-be readers by saying more, except that this is Dickens and as ever the story is shot through with the tropes of myth, fairy-tale and even pantomine. The child is mother to the man, the Jewish moneylender is as kind and generous as his Christian master is grasping and ruthless, and the vacuous social climbers trample all over each other in their rush to get to the top. Sorry, I lied about the last example, that's just like real life in the 20th Century.
It's a rum old thing, is this. It's a somewhat different, somewhat more subdued Dickens than the author of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. The indignation against social injustice is still there; he revisits his outrage at the treatment of the poor from Oliver Twist, the corrupting power of wealth from Great Expectations, the shortcomings of the education system from Nicholas Nickleby and Hard Times, and yet it's less gripping than any of those. That's not to diminish it; this may not be a book to stay up all night reading, but it's a book to be a companion on a long journey, complex and intricate in its detail and one that refuses to be rushed. It lacks the stature of Bleak House maybe, but that's a very high standard to match.
And so this one-time Dickens-loather takes a further step on her journey to fandom. I do find I prefer the darker, more labyrinthine later Dickens to the earlier and better-known stuff.
It's a rum old thing, is this. It's a somewhat different, somewhat more subdued Dickens than the author of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. The indignation against social injustice is still there; he revisits his outrage at the treatment of the poor from Oliver Twist, the corrupting power of wealth from Great Expectations, the shortcomings of the education system from Nicholas Nickleby and Hard Times, and yet it's less gripping than any of those. That's not to diminish it; this may not be a book to stay up all night reading, but it's a book to be a companion on a long journey, complex and intricate in its detail and one that refuses to be rushed. It lacks the stature of Bleak House maybe, but that's a very high standard to match.
And so this one-time Dickens-loather takes a further step on her journey to fandom. I do find I prefer the darker, more labyrinthine later Dickens to the earlier and better-known stuff.