Ratings9
Average rating3.7
*Our Mutual Friend* is a satiric masterpiece about money. The last novel Dickens completed, and perhaps his most angry, it sounds all the great themes of his later work: the innocence and venality of the aspiring poor, the hollow pretensions of the nouveau riche, the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt everyone it touches. Among those caught up in the ruthless forces of change in Dickens's London are the archetypal innocent Noddy Boffin, who 'inherits' a dustheap where the trash of the rich is thrown; Silas Wegg, a grotesque, one-legged man with unlimited fantasies of grandeur and power; Mr. Veneering, Member of Parliament, whose house, furnishings, servants, carriage, and baby are all 'bran-new'; and Alfred and Sophronia Lammle, who marry one another because each wrongly believes the other is rich. The social themes of *Our Mutual Friend*--having to do with the treatment of the poor, education, representative government, even the inheritance laws--are informed and brought into coherence by the underlying presence of the Thames, signifying the perpetual flow of life into death, and acting as agent of retribution and regeneration too, as a kind of river god in fact, in a novel in which no other god is very present.
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Possibly a 2.5.
Though I generally love Dickens, I did find this overlong for the actual tale, and very heavy handed - very ‘black and white' characters.
Much as with Hard Times, he seemed to cudgel me with his opinions.
My first ever classic
I feel it was a very odd choice for my first classic. many would have gone for a more obvious jane Austen or even Christmas carol from the same author. But nonetheless, I have enjoyed my journal immensely. While there were parts I felt that I was getting dragged along due to its descriptive nature that was needed for the serial fashion It was first published in there were parts that made me laugh so hard. For those who are scared of the classic fo attempt it with an audio book as you read it. i attempted it the same way and it allowed me to get over the different formating of words and sentences because the English back them is very different from the English we use to day