Our Mutual Friend
Has anyone here ever managed to battle their way through this? I bought it some time ago, really, really meaning to read it and have, so far been thwarted. It just seems so disjointed - much more so than other Dickens works. Maybe that's because the choppiness didn't show when it was in the Victorian newspapers in serial form, but I'm having problems with it now. I know that Bella Wilfer gets married at the Trafalgar Tavern blah-de-blah, but I just can't get into it.
Radio Four is coming to my rescue though. They've adapted it to a drama serial, and it's on Woman's Hour (and 7.45pm for those of us who are out)every day this week. If you miss any of it you'll be able to find it here, but don't hang about - it only lasts for seven days after broadcast date.
I really hope I'll manage to last the course this time. Otherwise I'll just have to give up, as I confess I have done with Sir Walter Scott's execrable Fortunes of Nigel, (yes, it's really called that) which is, apparently, partially set in Greenwich, but, with large sections of it written phonetically in faux Scots 'braw-bricht-moonlicht-nicht-the-nicht' brogue is, IMHO, unreadable, even if it does have a pretty cover...
Radio Four is coming to my rescue though. They've adapted it to a drama serial, and it's on Woman's Hour (and 7.45pm for those of us who are out)every day this week. If you miss any of it you'll be able to find it here, but don't hang about - it only lasts for seven days after broadcast date.
I really hope I'll manage to last the course this time. Otherwise I'll just have to give up, as I confess I have done with Sir Walter Scott's execrable Fortunes of Nigel, (yes, it's really called that) which is, apparently, partially set in Greenwich, but, with large sections of it written phonetically in faux Scots 'braw-bricht-moonlicht-nicht-the-nicht' brogue is, IMHO, unreadable, even if it does have a pretty cover...
Labels: Books
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
15:05
12 Comments:
Hmm. Wikipedia states: "Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is in many ways one of his most sophisticated works, combining deep psychological insight with rich social analysis."
If it is deep in terms of Dickens' work, then it would certainly be unreadable to me.
"If it is deep in terms of Dickens' work, then it would certainly be unreadable to me"... can't say Dickens' work is anything other than the light read it was intended to be when serialised in the popular Victorian journals of the day.
I'm with the Phantom on the story's structure though - he never succesfully married the multiple plotlines together in a way which could be followed easily and therefore a lot of the nuances of the characters and their relationships to each other are lost.
Hopefully in adapting it for radio they might iron out the problems - I for one could never muster the energy to get more than half way through the book!
I prefer David Copperfield (the book as opposed to TV or film adaptations) - I saw Our Mutual Friend years ago on TV and I wasn't able to feel any connection with the character's (may have been the actor's I suppose)
There was a pub called the "Betsy Trotwood" not far from the London Metropolitan Archives which I have not tried (I half expected to be shooed off.... that would have been the Twist in the tale... I do however have great expectations of the pub food should I drop in
It's a bit of a trawl, but it has a real underworld darkness to it that some of the more chocolate-box Dickens doesn't - the whole obsession with rubbish is fascinating. I don't think one should mistake popularity for 'lightness' though, sorry Manbaps - Middlemarch was serialised for example, as was much of Hardy's fiction later in the century; and in any case Dickens was often outsold by W. H. Ainsworth. I think 'popular culture' in the Victorian age was just a little more all-embracing than it is today - both Panorama and X Factor rather than just the latter.
If you're not enjoying it, old love, just stop reading it.
The TV version some years ago was the BBC at it's best, with a distinguised cast, but I thought it was totally imcomprehensible (and I have got a degree in English) - Mrs Rod had to keep trying to explain it to me, but we both got fed up and it was agreed that I'd go to the pub when it was on.
Mrs Rod thinks it's very good.....
There was a very good tv adaptation of it in 1998 and the wedding breakfast scene was actually filmed in the Trafalgar Tavern.
At the time, berating myself for never having properly read any of the great Dickens novels, I purchased a copy of OMF.
Alas, it sits on my shelf only half read.
I fear that my surfing-addled brain just isn't up to the concentration needed for a right, good read.
I even struggle to read a newspaper these days.
Captain Manbaps....are you usually this patronising or was your response to Greenwichite out of character? Your comment makes you sound like a bit of an arse.
And your tone does YOU know favours, Anonymous.
Dickens was paid by the word, so the longer the book the better for him. Also, they were first published in serialised fashion. So, people got lots of words in small doses. Sort of like watching a soap opera is probably fun in weekly episodes, but imagine asking people to watch an extended session of Dynasty or Bold and the Beautiful or even Friends and having them tear their hair out because it just doesn't end....
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND?
I THINK WORLD WAR THREE IS ABOUT TO START BETWEEN ST ALFEGE PASSAGE AND ST ALFEGE CHURCH
watch this space!!!
Oh! I didn't realise I'd cause such a stir.
I wasn't aware that Dickens was ever considered high literature, and his writing is certainly more in the popularist vein. To imply Dickens is unreadable because of the depth of his prose is akin to handing the Nobel Prize for Literature to Dan Brown; Dickens is largely about the plot, the characters. As can be seen (or heard) from the numerous adaptations of his work for screen or radio the language of the narrative is not so vital as it might be in, say, a Shakespear play.
Also, if I were able to put into words the sound of an arse I would have fulfilled a life's ambition...
I did read it about 20 years ago and got through to the end, though the fact that this was for an English Literature evening class I was going to probably provided some motivation to keep going.
I agree with Donovan about the darkness and the preoccupation with rubbish. The gloomy myssterious menace of the river is especially caught I think. When they did the TV adaptation several years ago I was a bit put off by the fact that the river in the production just seemed so nice and idyllic - not the feeling I'd got from the book at all. There was also some biting social satire (e.g. the Veneerings). On the negative side a somewhat forgettable Jewish character which I believe Dickens had just put in in order to be sympathetic following complaints about his creation of Fagin (so there was some political correctness around even then) and a bit of Dickensian mawkishness around babies and children.
High literature? Well, Dostoevsky admired him.
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