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heyimaghost 's review for:
Our Mutual Friend
by Charles Dickens
While, in my opinion, Dickens’ best work is Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend is right along that line. It’s very story driven, as opposed to, say, Nicholas Nickleby or any other of his earlier work. Now, it still retains his character-heavy storytelling traits and his almost ridiculous plot twists. Frankly, the love story between John Harmon and Bella Wilfer and the “change” found in Noddy Boffin that helped to bring it about was a bit too much for me, but it’s often not the main story of Dickens’ novels that I remember with the most fondness. It was the story of Eugene Wrayburn and Lizzie Hexam that truly captured me and will bring me back to this novel again. I loved the character of Wrayburn ( I loved Harmon as well, but he felt so under-used) and his friend Mortimer Lightwood. The scenes between the two were some of the best scenes of friendship in Dickensian literature since David Copperfield. However, the character who I felt the most interest in was the “second” villain: Bradley Headstone. In my opinion, he’s one of the most interesting villains of all of Dickens’ novels. He reminded me of Carker from Dombey and Son to a small extent, but he had a depth that I’m not used to seeing in Dickens’ works. His motives ring true of an actual human being, as opposed to many of Dickens’ villains, which seems only to be caricatures of evil men, ignoring all that could’ve made them good or all that does make them good. Actually, that’s not a truly fair statement, because as soon as I typed it, my head was flooded with many villains from Dickensia (I don’t think that’s a word people really use, but there you have it) that are more human sometimes than the heroes, but regardless off that, the story of Wrayburn, Hexam, and Headstone was by far the most interesting part of the book.
To finish, the book is his last full work, and is the culmination of everything in him, both his flaws and his strengths. I don’t think it’s his best work, but even his best work is not my preferred work. Like I said, I think Dickens’ best novel is Bleak House, but I’ll take all the flaws of David Copperfield any day. And I think Our Mutual Friend is a wonderful amalgamation of the two.
To finish, the book is his last full work, and is the culmination of everything in him, both his flaws and his strengths. I don’t think it’s his best work, but even his best work is not my preferred work. Like I said, I think Dickens’ best novel is Bleak House, but I’ll take all the flaws of David Copperfield any day. And I think Our Mutual Friend is a wonderful amalgamation of the two.