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weaselweader 's review for:
Our Mutual Friend
by Charles Dickens
“The whole life I place before myself is money, money, money, and what money can make of life”
A wealthy London miser’s will provides for the transfer of his entire estate to his estranged son, John Harmon, provided he returns to England and marries Miss Bella Wilfer, a young woman that the son has never met. (Come to that she has never met the son either). The son fails to appear, having apparently drowned in the Thames under questionable circumstances on his way home. Mr Harmon’s apparent murder makes the achievement of the marriage condition problematic and, subsequently per the conditions of the will, the entire estate devolves onto two former employees of the eccentric deceased, Mr and Mrs Boffin, a naïve, generous, light-hearted, outgoing couple.
If Dickens wrote tales filled with plots, situations, and characters that modern readers have collectively characterized as Dickensian, then OUR MUTUAL FRIEND has to qualify as the most Dickensian of all of his prodigious output. Every single character – whether comic, heroic, romantic, hapless, generous, or nasty - is brought to vivid life and brilliantly described at considerable length (well … what else? We are talking about Dickens here!) OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a complex, blood-soaked tale that is filled with murder, fisticuffs, beatings, violence, extortion, double-crossing, and complex plot twists and turns. Along the way Dickens makes room to flex his satirical muscles and ruthlessly lampoons London high society, parliament, lawyers and general Victorian behavioural standards. Some of this is so effectively delivered that readers will almost certainly be brought to out loud laughter. In addition, particularly as the plot comes to a close, Dickens adds in some generosity, pure goodness, love and romance that almost falls over the edge into the realm of outrageous, saccharine melodrama.
Since the over-riding theme of OUR MUTUAL FRIEND was money and love of money as the proverbial root of all evil, I was led to mental comparison with another more modern classic that dealt with similar topics. If Charles Dickens and F Scott Fitzgerald could somehow manage to have a conversation on the themes of their novels, I’m sure that they would find considerable common ground in OUR MUTUAL FRIEND and THE GREAT GATSBY. When I reviewed THE GREAT GATSBY, I said, for example:
“The brim of the cup that is THE GREAT GATSBY runneth over with licentiousness, hypocrisy, greed, amorality, false friendship and weak-kneed love – in other words, a veritable cocktail of moral turpitude to sip or swill and digest while pondering its base flavours plus a variety of notes and subtle overtones.”
Dickens and Victorian England weren’t quite ready for open licentiousness in a novel, but, despite the vast societal differences between 19th century England and pre-depression USA, the remainder of the comment could serve as a pretty reasonable thematic summary for OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. Of course, moral turpitude is available at all levels of society but Dickens was pleased to reserve particularly biting satirical commentary in that regard for the vacuous, rather meaningless lives led by the privileged upper class, whether they had real money or were merely acting as if they did.
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a long, complex and, frankly, difficult read. But if you’re a Dickens fan, your reading life is not complete until you’ve read this one. Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
A wealthy London miser’s will provides for the transfer of his entire estate to his estranged son, John Harmon, provided he returns to England and marries Miss Bella Wilfer, a young woman that the son has never met. (Come to that she has never met the son either). The son fails to appear, having apparently drowned in the Thames under questionable circumstances on his way home. Mr Harmon’s apparent murder makes the achievement of the marriage condition problematic and, subsequently per the conditions of the will, the entire estate devolves onto two former employees of the eccentric deceased, Mr and Mrs Boffin, a naïve, generous, light-hearted, outgoing couple.
If Dickens wrote tales filled with plots, situations, and characters that modern readers have collectively characterized as Dickensian, then OUR MUTUAL FRIEND has to qualify as the most Dickensian of all of his prodigious output. Every single character – whether comic, heroic, romantic, hapless, generous, or nasty - is brought to vivid life and brilliantly described at considerable length (well … what else? We are talking about Dickens here!) OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a complex, blood-soaked tale that is filled with murder, fisticuffs, beatings, violence, extortion, double-crossing, and complex plot twists and turns. Along the way Dickens makes room to flex his satirical muscles and ruthlessly lampoons London high society, parliament, lawyers and general Victorian behavioural standards. Some of this is so effectively delivered that readers will almost certainly be brought to out loud laughter. In addition, particularly as the plot comes to a close, Dickens adds in some generosity, pure goodness, love and romance that almost falls over the edge into the realm of outrageous, saccharine melodrama.
Since the over-riding theme of OUR MUTUAL FRIEND was money and love of money as the proverbial root of all evil, I was led to mental comparison with another more modern classic that dealt with similar topics. If Charles Dickens and F Scott Fitzgerald could somehow manage to have a conversation on the themes of their novels, I’m sure that they would find considerable common ground in OUR MUTUAL FRIEND and THE GREAT GATSBY. When I reviewed THE GREAT GATSBY, I said, for example:
“The brim of the cup that is THE GREAT GATSBY runneth over with licentiousness, hypocrisy, greed, amorality, false friendship and weak-kneed love – in other words, a veritable cocktail of moral turpitude to sip or swill and digest while pondering its base flavours plus a variety of notes and subtle overtones.”
Dickens and Victorian England weren’t quite ready for open licentiousness in a novel, but, despite the vast societal differences between 19th century England and pre-depression USA, the remainder of the comment could serve as a pretty reasonable thematic summary for OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. Of course, moral turpitude is available at all levels of society but Dickens was pleased to reserve particularly biting satirical commentary in that regard for the vacuous, rather meaningless lives led by the privileged upper class, whether they had real money or were merely acting as if they did.
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a long, complex and, frankly, difficult read. But if you’re a Dickens fan, your reading life is not complete until you’ve read this one. Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss