Our mutual friend (original 1865; edition 1997)

If you've read it, you know that the ending runs counter to the whole theme of the universal infection caused by money. Dickens gets his liberal umbrage and his liberal cake. I'm sure Eagleton et al. have done this to death, so there's no compulsion to repeat. Let me just comment on Riah, via this complaining nineteenth-century note, a wonderful symptom of the medievalism (Isaac of York! Hugh of Lincoln) at the heart of 'Englishness' of this period and indeed the present day (looking at you Morrisey) The Jew.
Mr. Forster says "the benevolent old Jew, the unconscious agent of a rascal, was meant to wipe out a reproach against his Jew in Oliver Twist, as bringing dislike upon the religion he belonged to." Dickens had written to a remonstrating Hebrew lady, "Surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe, firstly, that all the rest of the wicked dramatis personae are Christians; and secondly, that he is called 'the Jew,' not because of his religion, but because of his race." That scarcely comforted the Hebrew lady, perhaps; but "no sensible man or woman" should be so sensitive. Riah scarcely obliterates Fagin, and, when he talks of "the damsel," he relapses into the style of Isaac of York. "To every man a damsel or twain." The modern Semite, however benevolent, does not affect the phraseology of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament [Comment from Karl: !!! the 'Jewishness' of the font of modern English prose!]. Friendly and appreciative renderings of Jews have never been quite successful in our fiction, and Riah is at least as agreeable as Kingsley's Raphael, or George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Perhaps Sidonia, in Codlingsby, is the most réussi. All this is the sheer result of Hugh of Lincoln, and literary tradition, and secular prejudice, which hampers the author who is trying to overcome it. Would Riah, in real life, have turned the national "Goddam" into "they curse me in Jehovah's name"? Would he "draw folding tablets from his breast," or take a pocket-book out of his pocket?No doubt Dickens scholarship has done this character equally to death; but perhaps not?

A handy epigraph for my paper in St. Erkenwald (look for it in some journal somewhere in about 2013), here:when Riah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a corner over against the house, arose and went his patient way; stealing through the streets in his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed Time.Do read this with The Typological Imaginary. ( )

Wacky, moving, and generally delightful! This novel has sold me on Dickens.

Similarly to The Mill on the Floss, this novel makes bitter that I cannot go find a Dickens fandom on the Internet. English class is good and all, but there's much less in the way of squeeing. I guess I will simply have to force everyone I know to read it.... ( )

"Our Mutual Friend marks a happy return to the earlier manner of Dickens at the end of Dickens's life. One might call it a sort of Indian summer of his farce. Those who most truly love Dickens love the earlier Dickens; and any return to his farce must be welcomed, like a young man come back from the dead. In this book indeed he does not merely return to his farce; he returns in a manner to his vulgarity. It is the old democratic and even uneducated Dickens who is writing here. The very title is illiterate. Any priggish pupil teacher could tell Dickens that there is no such phrase in English as "our mutual friend." Any one could tell Dickens that "our mutual friend" means "our reciprocal friend," and that "our reciprocal friend" means nothing. If he had only had all the solemn advantages of academic learning (the absence of which in him was lamented by the Quarterly Review), he would have known better. He would have known that the correct phrase for a man known to two people is "our common friend." But if one calls one's friend a common friend, even that phrase is open to misunderstanding.

I dwell with a gloomy pleasure on this mistake in the very title of the book because I, for one, am not pleased to see Dickens gradually absorbed by modern culture and good manners. Dickens, by class and genius, belonged to the kind of people who do talk about a "mutual friend"; and for that class there is a very great deal to be said. These two things can at least be said -- that this class does understand the meaning of the word "friend" and the meaning of the word "mutual." I know that for some long time before he had been slowly and subtly sucked into the whirlpool of the fashionable views of later England. I know that in Bleak House he treats the aristocracy far more tenderly than he treats them in David Copperfield. I know that in A Tale of Two Cities, having come under the influence of Carlyle, he treats revolution as strange and weird, whereas under the influence of Cobbett he would have treated it as obvious and reasonable. I know that in The Mystery of Edwin Drood he not only praised the Minor Canon of Cloisterham at the expense of the dissenting demagogue, Honeythunder; I know that he even took the last and most disastrous step in the modern English reaction. While blaming the old Cloisterham monks (who were democratic), he praised the old-world peace that they had left behind them -- an old-world peace which is simply one of the last amusements of aristocracy. The modern rich feel quite at home with the dead monks. They would have felt anything but comfortable with the live ones. I know, in short, how the simple democracy of Dickens was gradually dimmed by the decay and reaction of the middle of the nineteenth century. I know that he fell into some of the bad habits of aristocratic sentimentalism. I know that he used the word "gentleman" as meaning good man. But all this only adds to the unholy joy with which I realise that the very title of one of his best books was a vulgarism. It is pleasant to contemplate this last unconscious knock in the eye for the gentility with which Dickens was half impressed. Dickens is the old self-made man; you may take him or leave him. He has its disadvantages and its merits. No university man would have written the title; no university man could have written the book."

Da introdução, de G. K. Chesterton ( )

A book by Dickens seems like the Victorian equivalent of a popular sitcom. His funny caricatures and absurd situations made me laugh out loud many times. And of course there is the wonderful, brilliantly painted reality of London to revel in. Everyone should pick a book by Dickens this year and read it in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth! ( )

Hace mucho que estaba obsesionada con leer este libro, aunque nunca había leído a Dickens. Tal vez, una de las razones que me llevaron a obsesionarme tanto fue este señor:



Desmond Hume. Mi segundo personaje favorito de Lost, después del genio de Ben Linus. Desmond afirmaba que el último libro que iba a leer antes de morir iba a ser Our mutual friend, y por eso llevaba su copia a todos lados.



Tanto misterio alrededor de una novela me llevó a querer leerla inmediatamente, por lo que la busqué por todo el país, pero no la encontré. Tres años después del final de Lost, decidí leerla desde la computadora, más allá de las molestias en mis ojos y mi amor por el libro impreso.
Definitivamente, elegí una de las armas grandes para empezar con la cacería. Nuestro común amigo fue la última novela terminada por Dickens y, según los críticos, una de las más sofisticadas y complejas.
Antes de comenzar con el análisis de la obra, podría dar algunas opiniones subjetivas, surgidas de mi lectura.
Esta no es una simple historia... son demasiadas historias unidas en unas 712 páginas. Éstas se sitúan en Londres del 1800 y nos muestra el Londres más mísero que podemos imaginar: no sólo por la pobreza, sino por la mezquindad y la avaricia, como consecuencia de la fortuna. Al principio, tantos personajes confunden un poco, pero pasadas las primeras 100 páginas, uno se acostumbra a lidiar con tanta gente y tantos conflictos.
Tengo que destacar que me sorprendí mucho después de leer los primeros capítuos porque la novela no era para nada lo que me esperaba. No sé porqué, pero imaginaba que iba a tratarse de una novela dramática y nada más, pero me encontré con una sátira de los personajes capitalistas y adinerados, con un humor lleno de drama... un drama lleno de humor.

Y aquí comienzan los spoilers, así que si no leíste el libro, no continúes.

Los grandes temas del libro son la envidia, la codicia, el engreimiento, entre otros. Pero también el amor y los valores humanos. Se ve claramente el contraste entre estos temas con la división del libro en cuatro partes: las partes I, II Y III tratan sobre los primeros y la cuarta parte sobre los últimos. Se ve, entonces, que el amor siempre sobrepasa al odio, que el amor puede combatir a la miseria y que con el odio sólo se logra que los vínculos de los demás se hagan más fuertes.
Encontramos en esta novela un señor que forja una fortuna a partir de los montículos de basura de Londres, su hijo y heredero que rechaza la gran fortuna, un pescador de cadáveres del Támesis, una señora con aires de grandeza que cree que todos los hombres se enamoran de ella, una modista de muñecas que cuida de su padre alcohólico como si fuera su hijo, dos abogados que no han tenido ni un sólo caso desde que se recibieron, muchos buitres que intentan sacarle la fortuna al siguiente heredero, que no sabe ni siquiera leer,etc. Tras esa enumeración, podemos ver que hay rastros de sátira en la obra.
Además, debo confesar que Eugene Wrayburn fue, desde que apareció, mi personaje favorito. Taciturno, irónico, escondía un alma grandísima. Me pareció que la historia más lograda en la novela fue el triángulo amoroso Eugene-Lizzie-Headstone. El rencor de Bradley al ser rechazado, la venganza y la violencia pura fueron muy bien logrados y me encantaron, aunque sufrí un poco con la desfiguración de mi querido Eugene.
También debo destacar la enorme cantidad de referencias a otros libros o a la historia universal y los simbolismos que van apareciendo a lo largo de la novela: el agua (o el río) como renovador, las aves de presa, la madrina, el lobo y Cenicienta, entre otros.
El punto débil del libro, causante de que no le ponga 5 estrellitas es el gran bache en la trama principal: la historia de John Harmon. Esperaba que hacia el final se develara quién mató a George (el falso Harmon en el río), quién había hecho un plan contra John y quién mató al Jefe Hexam (porque claramente hubiese sido más interesante que la teoría del accidente que nos da el Inspector) No pude creer al terminar que todo se haya terminado sin más explicaciones.
Otro desacierto fue mostrar que la avaricia de Boffin había sido actuada y resolver de una manera tan simple y poco inteligente las amenazas de Wegg.
Pero, en fin, lo que importa es el camino que te lleva hacia el final, y este camino valió el tortuoso enrojecimiento de ojos todos estos días la pena.




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