This is really a grim book, but Dickens’s way of storytelling and his tongue-in-cheek description of characters turn it into a gem. With each Dickens’ book I read, I think ‘this is the best one,’ but by now, I have realized they are all the best ones.

The book opens with the discovery of a dead body in the river Thames by Gaffer Hexam and his young beautiful daughter Lizzie. Who’d know that this river would be the holding place for the demise of so many people and the others made their living from what they could find on the corpses! This, however, seems to be the fare of the day, during the times when Dickens wrote.

The dead body is thought to be that of John Harmon, Jr., who was alienated from John Harmon Sr. who had died and left a will. According to the will, John Harmon, Jr. would inherit his father’s riches, only if he were to marry the girl his father had chosen for him, Bella Wilfer. Otherwise, the riches would go to the Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, John Harmon’s caretakers.

As is usual with Dickens’ dramatis personae, this book has numerous characters and twisted and twisting storylines for each one. So much so that, unless you read the entire book from end to end and take notes on who’s who and what’s what, one can easily get lost as to what happened and why.

In the story, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, being more or less decent people, ask Bella to come live with them and have a decent rich life, the one denied to her when the corpse was found. As to Gaffer Hexam the one who found the body, he has an archenemy in another riverman with the name Rogue Riderhood, who eventually does away with Gaffer. But before that, Gaffer’s daughter Lizzie has the eye of Eugene Wrayburn, one of the two lawyers on the recovery of John Harmon Jr.’s body. Lizzie is also being chased by her brother Charles’s headmaster Headstone.

Another, romance is between Bella and John Harmon Jr. who was still alive and was using two different names. He was trying to see why Bella would want him, for himself or for his inheritance. The corpse found was a sailor who had changed clothes with John and during an accident, he had perished in the Thames. Then there are the backstabbers like Mr. Boffins’s secretary, and the high society’s ills and frivolity.

The book is written in third person omniscient, which picks on all kinds of characters it includes. The story starts with the puzzle or a problem and until toward the end, the reader isn’t let in on the main fact of the puzzle, which is John Harmon Jr. is alive.

The tone of storytelling changes between sarcasm and sentimentality, and Dickens never economizes on his word use, but the way he uses his words makes this wordiness worthwhile.

The characters are varied from the frivolous and superficial Veneerings who are brand-new with everything and their societal status to the good people like Lizzie and Eugene and their backers like Mr. Twemlow who lectures others on love at the end of the book.

The setting is the 19th century London, with calling cards and all that, and Dickens constantly mocks the people of London and their ways. The good news is, all loose ends are neatly tied well at the end of the book with the evil ones finding what they deserve and the lovers finding each other.

enjoyment of a mystery and wondering about the fakeness or the reality of the 19th century London Society.

Dickens's satirical look at everything.

is Charles Dickens, (1812 - 1870), who was an author, journalist, editor, illustrator and social commentator. His most famous books include Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities.

it is a classic and well-written and enjoyable, but you have to take your time reading it. It is not a book to be read in one sitting.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Our Mutual Friend (Penguin Classics)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Oct 04, 2020 at 1:04pm • Submit your own review...