Our Mutual Book Club

[Quark]

The voting is done. Our Mutual Friend wins! Here is our thread.

As usual, we're hidden away in the author's forums--LitNet's equivalent of the back alleys in Dickensian London. Yet, I'm hopeful that the poll caught enough eyes to draw some people into this obscure corner of the site. I'm also hoping the book draws some interest, too. Our Mutual Friend is a good one. It's got a lot of funny scenes, great mystery, and warm moments. It's also got a lot of symbolic weight and thematic substance. It might take a while for everyone to read, but, once things get going on the thread, I'm sure there will be some excellent posts.

This is a late novel (1864-65) in Dickens career, but it reads more like a follow-up to Bleak House than it does like the works that actually precede it (Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities). Most of Dickens later work has a much more psychological focus, and, in general, it just has more focus period. Our Mutual Friend, though, returns to the sprawling social criticism that made Dickens the initial success he was. With this novel, he also returns to the bulky, twenty-installment, monthly format in which he wrote many of his other earlier classics (Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Pickwick Papers, etc.). Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities were smaller works published occasionally in magazines. Our Mutual Friend, on the other hand, came out at regular intervals in little blue books that were almost pamphlet size. They were about a forty pages each, but much of it was filled with ads for Fraiser's Miracle Ointment or Johnson's Magisterial Firm. You have to flip some pages to get to anything Dickens, and when you do get there the font is almost microscopic.

The Original April 1865 Version of Our Mutual Friend

Each of these would carry three or four chapters of the novel. Since this is such long novel, I suggest that we use these installments to pace the discussion. We could discuss the first installment (chps. 1-4) for a while, and then move on to the second (chps. 5-7)--then the third (chps. 8-10), etc. It might get a little chaotic if we try to discuss the book all at once, so I think breaking up the discussion into a series of mini-conversation would probably be a good idea. Also, this will give everyone some idea of how the novel was actually received at first. The large, clean texts that we're holding now are nothing like what nineteenth-century readers would have owned. We can't all get the little blue books (although if you're at a university library you might), but we can at least read the text in the chunks that Dickens had in mind. So, for both history's sake and this thread's sake, I suggest we break the discussion up. I can post introductions to each section, so that those just joining the thread will know where we are in the novel.

I don't mind if people want to make general comments about the book, as well. You might want to attach the spoiler tag to it, though, so that you don't give away anything--after all, there's quite a bit of mystery in the novel. Also, feel free to bring up anything and everything loosely related with the novel--like film adaptations or Victorian history. If there's lots of discussion on something like that, I can always open up a spin-off thread on that topic. In any case, this thread is up, and discussion starts whenever we have the time to read and post. Thanks for voting in the poll everyone.

Angry Cat Reminds You That Homework Help Will Not Be Forthcoming from This Thread!

Thanks again people. Comments, anyone?

[Janine]

hahah, Quark, angry cat is hilarious....good one. How long is the book? I don't own a copy, but I loved the BBC miniseries of this novel. I really should read it. I didn't realise, when I just voted, that the pole was closed and I also thought it was just a favorite novel pole. I might be able to join in in some capacity. Fine job on your introduction!

[Jozanny]

Angry Cat has an open invitation to move in with me; Joey in particular would love to join him in the pool . I'll begin reading sometime this morning, promioso. I snooted back into Theron Ware for a bit to recalibrate back to the 19th century.

[wessexgirl]

*MY THOUGHTS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK. I DON'T THINK I HAVE POSTED ANY SPOILERS, JUST A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE CHARACTERS, BUT PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT.*

Well, I've just finished watching the BBC production again, and I urge anyone who has the chance to watch it, it's excellent. I've now read the first four chapters, as suggested by Quark, and love the way Dickens has drawn such excellent character descriptions of the participants so far. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Veneerings dinner party, and the swipe he takes at those characters. There are some lovely turns of phrase, particularly the description of a character who has a "fatal freshness" on him, I'm assuming, like a lamb to the slaughter, as a newcomer amongst the venal "society" he is interacting with. A lovely comical scene.

I like the way he's written that comic interlude after the introduction of Lizzie, and her world. He makes no bones about where his sympathies are going to lie, does he? Great character portraits of the Wilfer family too. He is also adept at his usual trick with names, Bella Wilfer, being beautiful, but wilful; her father only ever signing his initial as R, as his name is "too self-assertive", coupled with his genial appearance, described as cherubic, giving us a wonderful pen-portrait of a shy, retiring man, who is good-natured and good-hearted, in a couple of pages. We have been shown in a few chapters the disposition of some of the main players in the story so far, Bella's pride and haughtiness, Eugene's emptiness, Lizzie's goodness, Rokesmith's reserve etc, by the use of some wonderfully acute observations by Dickens.

How are you all finding it so far?

[Quark]

hahah, Quark, angry cat is hilarious....good one.

Angry Cat has an open invitation to move in with me; Joey in particular would love to join him in the pool .

I'd be more than willing to unload Angry Cat. Really, he's pleasant most of the time. But he doesn't like two things: water and LitNetters looking for homework help in the wrong threads. Beware of Angry Cat!

How long is the book?

It's quite long--but good. It runs about 800 pages in most books. You should be able to find it at libraries and bookstores, as it is one of the more widely read of Dickens' works.

I really should read it. I didn't realise, when I just voted, that the pole was closed and I also thought it was just a favorite novel pole. I might be able to join in in some capacity.

Yeah, I thought it might get confusing. Originally, I had laid out what I was trying to do in the OP, but that got buried pretty fast and the poll itself wasn't specific enough. I was just surprised that so many people posted that the OP got covered up. I wasn't counting on that happening.

I'll begin reading sometime this morning, promioso. I snooted back into Theron Ware for a bit to recalibrate back to the 19th century.

Don't worry about it. We're probably going to go pretty slow at first to give everyone time to read. It's a dense novel, so you don't want to rush through it.

Well, I've just finished watching the BBC production again, and I urge anyone who has the chance to watch it, it's excellent.

I'm downloading it now. I'll post links to it after I watch it.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Veneerings dinner party, and the swipe he takes at those characters. There are some lovely turns of phrase, particularly the description of a character who has a "fatal freshness" on him, I'm assuming, like a lamb to the slaughter, as a newcomer amongst the venal "society" he is interacting with. A lovely comical scene.

It's a well-done scene. I liked the description of Veneering as "a kind of sufficiently well-looking veiled-prophet, not prophesying." Dickens carefully sets him up for this line with lots of little indications of being removed and ineffectual. When Dickens finally makes his little jab, it fits so well--and is that much more crushing. It's almost not fair: the narrator has such a fine sense of everything, and the characters he's making fun of are such bumbling fools.

There's a sad undercurrent to this scene, though, too. After all, if these are people with money and power, what does that mean for the rest of us? Their society isn't something anyone wants to be in, yet it's impossible to avoid. This is also the only scene that even approaches community and pleasant social interaction--and it's unbearable. These first chapters give us a pretty bleak picture of the world. There's a family that's knit together by the children lying to the father and the father holding his children back. There's a society of people with no fellow-feeling. There's some professionals who hate their profession. Only idiots like the Boffins pair can enjoy themselves in these circumstances. I once described Dickens novels as squeezing a little bit of humanity out of a bad situation. This novel certainly is giving us a bad situation.

You make some other good observations in your post, but I'm running out of time to post at the moment. I'll get to them when I post an intro to the first four chapter.

[Jozanny]

I am not very far in yet, as my kitty kids swish kindle when mom needs to cease and desist and pay attention to them, but will concede that Dickens skillfully echoes Charon in portraying the ferryman on his skiff that is more of the ooze in the Thames than an object through which man bends forces of nature to his use:



But this man and his daughter also seem to be an actual consequence of the Industrial Age itself, creatures particular to it.

[Jozanny]

But scenes like Twenlow's dynamic with the Veneerings are scenes that illicits tortured screams from my soul I suppose defenders would say humanizing the characteristics of a dining table is part of the trademark Dickensonian genius, and it can be effective, but here it only served me up some confusion. Quark and Dark have indicated they have already read the novel. I haven't, but there seems to be some grammatical issues in Twenlow's table brain. It could be the file preparer made an error or two, since this was a free download, or it might be Dickens, I don't know.

[Quark]

but will concede that Dickens skillfully echoes Charon in portraying the ferryman on his skiff that is more of the ooze in the Thames than an object through which man bends forces of nature to his use:

That's a good thought. You're right that there's a sort of modern retelling of the Charon myth. Instead of Charon changing a coin to transfer the dead across the river of pain to Hades, Dickens has the modern ferryman pick your pockets and tow you behind the boat in sludge. The original Charon myth is filled with strong emotion and theological implications, but Dickens' Charon is stripped of everything but dirty, selfish realism. There's no afterlife that Dickens' Charon is taking you. It's only the police station. That's fitting, of course. The opening chapters are all about hitting the reader with the bleak, inescapable reality of London. An afterlife (however unpleasant) might conflict with that message.

As for the river, it's a complex figure in Our Mutual Friend. It collects all the filth and slime--physically and morally--but it also serves as the conduit through which new and more hopefully things can enter London. Dickens uses the river and water in many different ways throughout the novel.

But this man and his daughter also seem to be an actual consequence of the Industrial Age itself, creatures particular to it.

Undoubtedly. This all very topical. All the characters have something to say about the times. There was much talk about the kinds of education you see from characters like Charley and Wegg. The Veneering reflect sociological changes in England at the time.

But scenes like Twenlow's dynamic with the Veneerings are scenes that illicits tortured screams from my soul I suppose defenders would say humanizing the characteristics of a dining table is part of the trademark Dickensonian genius, and it can be effective, but here it only served me up some confusion.

Examples. Examples. I need examples. What tripped you up? There's a few too many characters to keep track off--too many leaves in Twemlow as it were--but I didn't notice any grammatical errors--at least not any meaning-destroying ones.

We have been shown in a few chapters the disposition of some of the main players in the story so far, Bella's pride and haughtiness, Eugene's emptiness, Lizzie's goodness, Rokesmith's reserve etc, by the use of some wonderfully acute observations by Dickens.

Yeah, there's quite a bit of setting up the board in these opening scenes, but I always like Dickens' introductions to his characters. Sometimes in the novel that's all we get of them, too. Some characters show up for a couple of pages, and are never heard from again.

As I was suggesting before, I thought it might be good to talk about the sections of the novel as they were published. I'll try to post introductions to each section, so that people just joining the thread will know where we're at. So here's

Chapters 1-4

A common complaint of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is that it's just a story of people walking. On the other hand, though, is Our Mutual Friend: a story much about people sitting--and staring. Lizzie and Hexam sit in the boat staring at the water. Lizzie and Charley sit at home staring into the fire. The Veneering sit at dinner, and we gaze at their reflection in the mirror. For most of the beginning characters are just as recumbent as Mrs. Boffin and staring in wonder at something near or far. This adds to the feeling of stasis that readers get as they stare at the grim spectacle that is Victorian England. It may seem like over-reading to draw a connection between the posture of the characters and the readers--but in Dickens there is no such thing as over-reading. His books are so tightly controlled that even seemingly unimportant minor characters in the beginning come back to play huge roles later on. The readers forget about people like Skimpole and Magwitch, but Dickens doesn't. Everything plays a role in the story.

The first few chapters give us the economic reality of the book: people don't work, they just scavenge. No one is involved in any productive labor. Instead, they scavenge for resources. Hexam steals from the dead. The dust collector makes money by carrying aware ash and garbage. The Veneering speculate. The Boffins inherit. No one, though, actually makes anything socially useful. This is obviously meant to contrast with the unpaid work of Lizzie. If it's not clear already that she's the heroine, I'll just come out and say it: she's the likeable heroine we're all supposed to be pulling for. Ultimately, she's trying to keep the family together, but she's also trying to live her own life.

We also have the introduction to the main mystery of the novel: what happened to John Harmon? In chapter 2, Mortimer lets loose Harmon's story, but we're still unclear after four chapters how the story ends.

Oh, and I think I should qualify what I said about the Boffins a couple posts back. I may have been a little too hard on them. They are good people, but, let's face it, they also have the IQ of a potato.

[wessexgirl]

I've only read the first 4 chapters so far, and the Boffins don't make an entrance until C5 in my edition. I am going to try and read a little more now, but I don't want to get too far ahead, as we're concentrating on the beginning here.

Yes, the river is extremely important to the whole novel, as we will see throughout, particularly in Lizzie's story.

It's obviously meant to be ironic that the Boffins are so named, as you say, they have little IQ, and so what better name to give them than Boffins? I know that Dickens can be criticised for this style of his, where the names of the characters reflect their disposition, or are ironic in the case of the Boffins, but how better to hit you straight away with what he thinks? The Veneerings are a splendid example, all surface, show and gloss. Lizzie may have a relatively normal name in comparison, perhaps his way of showing, as he does from the start that she is his heroine, but if we think about it, Hexham has connotations of hex, or curse, and she certainly does have a blighted life. Anyway, I will go and read the next chapter on the Boffins, as that seems as if it should be included in our beginning section, and I'll pop in later.

[Quark]

I've only read the first 4 chapters so far, and the Boffins don't make an entrance until C5 in my edition. I am going to try and read a little more now, but I don't want to get too far ahead, as we're concentrating on the beginning here.

You're right. I was breaking my own rules. The Boffins don't come until until chapter five. I might have to reread the first four chapters, since I'm forgetting what's in them. Right now, I'm almost half way through the novel, so it's getting a little unclear to me what happened at the beginning.

It's obviously meant to be ironic that the Boffins are so named, as you say, they have little IQ, and so what better name to give them than Boffins? I know that Dickens can be criticised for this style of his, where the names of the characters reflect their disposition, or are ironic in the case of the Boffins, but how better to hit you straight away with what he thinks? The Veneerings are a splendid example, all surface, show and gloss. Lizzie may have a relatively normal name in comparison, perhaps his way of showing, as he does from the start that she is his heroine, but if we think about it, Hexham has connotations of hex, or curse, and she certainly does have a blighted life.

Yeah, the names kind of give everything away, but Dickens is trying to remind readers that these characters are not just individual people--they're also type of people that one sees in English society. There's a sort of universal quality to them that might be lost if they had realistic names.

[OrphanPip]

The name thing is drawing on a tradition of the Picaresque novels and 17th-18th century comedies where these kinds of "character type" names are expected. In drama the use of these kinds of names is often an expedient way to characterize a character without much effort, but I think in Dickens it is more of reflection of his love for the traditions of comedy and satire.

[Quark]

The name thing is drawing on a tradition of the Picaresque novels and 17th-18th century comedies

That's quite right. A lot of Dickens' writing looks back to the eighteenth-century. What do you think of the novel so far, though? Have you read this one before?

[wessexgirl]

Is anyone still reading? I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while, only I'm back at work now, and haven't had time to keep up. I did read the next 3 chapters before returning to work, but didn't want to post as we were still on the first 4. I will try to get back into it over the weekend, but I have so much to do, so may not get around to it. I need to get my priorities right - books before chores .

[Quark]

Is anyone still reading?

I've almost finished. I stopped last week, though, because there wasn't much activity on the thread. That's fine, of course. If we don't have the time for the discussion right now, we shouldn't post. I don't want to give anyone more work than they already have. I just thought it might be fun to go over a long novel like Dickens' with a group of pretty literate people.

I will try to get back into it over the weekend, but I have so much to do, so may not get around to it.

I'll probably post something, too, this weekend. There's still quite a lot to say about the novel.

[caspian]

Yeah, there's quite a bit of setting up the board in these opening scenes, but I always like Dickens' introductions to his characters. Sometimes in the novel that's all we get of them, too. Some characters show up for a couple of pages, and are never heard from again..

I'm sure The Veneerings are one of them.

The first few chapters give us the economic reality of the book: people don't work, they just scavenge. No one is involved in any productive labor. Instead, they scavenge for resources. Hexam steals from the dead. The dust collector makes money by carrying aware ash and garbage. The Veneering speculate. The Boffins inherit. No one, though, actually makes anything socially useful. This is obviously meant to contrast with the unpaid work of Lizzie. If it's not clear already that she's the heroine, I'll just come out and say it: she's the likeable heroine we're all supposed to be pulling for. Ultimately, she's trying to keep the family together, but she's also trying to live her own life.

We also have the introduction to the main mystery of the novel: what happened to John Harmon? In chapter 2, Mortimer lets loose Harmon's story, but we're still unclear after four chapters how the story ends.

Oh, and I think I should qualify what I said about the Boffins a couple posts back. I may have been a little too hard on them. They are good people, but, let's face it, they also have the IQ of a potato.

Yes, Lizzie is the likeable heroine. But i don't see any suitable match for her other than dead John Harmon. Is it certain that he's dead?