Our Mutual Book Club

[Jozanny]

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 .

Don't wait for me. I am not a huge Dickens fan and I am sorry but my stripes refuse to change color, so while I may plod along it will be at a slow pace. I have the thread on subscription and will probably chime in when Quark isn't looking and has moved on.

[OrphanPip]

I'm still reading it, but I'm just doing it at a slow pace because of time constraints at the moment.

Edits: Dickens works better if read slowly over a long period anyway , even it isn't conductive to discussion.

[Quark]

That's okay. It's not like the thread is going to go anywhere. I'll be around all this summer to discuss whatever. If you get around to the novel, post something and I'll probably reply.

[Jozanny]

I am reading it Quark, but my kindle habits have taken some time to develop and I just finished The Damnation of Theron Ware, a remarkable novel for the time in which it was written, and raced through a short French smut piece which delighted me, and returned to Dreiser.

I did not used to have 50 bookmarks at once; the online era is pure evil, I daresay. I sift a page or two and then round and about race to the finish, as in my student days.

I did not intend to deceive by voting. A review made me hope that Dickens in a dark mood would radicalize himself, but alas... (sighs). Perhaps I will push slightly further today, ignoring my own ludicrous and existential despair, which is a source of infinite jest, for Yorick's skull, Sterne's early textual self-referencing, and dead over-educated tennis players for whom literary brilliance wasn't enough!

I am on the first dinner party....

[Quark]

Well, don't feel like it's an obligation. Everyone already has enough work to do.

[Jozanny]

I have completed chapter two, with Mortimer's anecdote setting up the entire pretext for the novel; the only notations I've made, to date, are how Dickens seemed concerned that the accumulation of wealth seems to mar the social structure of human relationships, even within the internal dynamics of the family.

Thus far, I wish Dickens had tightened up his exposition some--the time he spends satirizing the Veneerings seems too fluid, in a negative way, and though the two writers have little internally to compare with each other, Woolf's effusiveness with dinner parties is stronger than Dickens own.

Depending on my cats' Bad Hairball day, I will see how far along I can get by the end of the week.

[Quark]

I have completed chapter two, with Mortimer's anecdote setting up the entire pretext for the novel; the only notations I've made, to date, are how Dickens seemed concerned that the accumulation of wealth seems to mar the social structure of human relationships, even within the internal dynamics of the family.

Thus far, I wish Dickens had tightened up his exposition some--the time he spends satirizing the Veneerings seems too fluid, in a negative way, and though the two writers have little internally to compare with each other, Woolf's effusiveness with dinner parties is stronger than Dickens own.

Yeah, but I think you have to put the scene in context. So much of it is about a very Victorian theme: the noveau rich and their attempts to buy respectability. I think in contemporary American society sudden wealth isn't something one has to defend. Many tend think that money is its own justification. If you're wealthy that must mean you're successful, and if you're successful that means you deserve money. For Victorians, this wasn't always the case, and many novels of the time explore the ways wealth is created and then anxiously defended. Middlemarch is a prime example of this. Bulstrode essentially steals his wealth, and then uses it to buy a place in society. This is a common plot for the time. After all, this is the age of neo-gothic architechture which is little more than the attempt to throw up a false image of age and dignity on top of something new and untested. This is the architecture that will go over the new Houses of Parliment, Law Courts, and new London Churches: all new sites of power trying to look as though they're old and established. The Veneerings are following in the same style. They use their money to buy a coat of arms, some honorable acquaintances, and even a faux lineage.

Unlike Middlemarch, though, which is a much broader psychological and social investigation into this theme, I thought the scene in Our Mutual Friend was about showing how that habit of creating false pasts extends to everyone in society--not just the newly wealthy. Everyone at the Veenerings table has some false past they're trying to convince everyone is real. This is supposed to contrast with the very real history of Harmon--which is framed almost as a fantastic story.

I think this is probably why the scene goes on for so long. It's a satire that might not have much force today, but I imagine it was quite cutting in its day. Anyway, if you keep reading, do keep posting things. After having read the whole novel, I'm dying to talk about it.

[caspian]

I'm mainly fond of naturalistic writing, so reading Dickens is like taking a nice, long vacation for me. - there's no doubt I'm promised happy ending, a beautiful story mixed with everything; humor, romance, mistery, criticism etch. It feels so good
This is my forth Dickens novel, first in original. And I'm loving it. It has a lot in common with Little Dorrit. -I think Mutual friend is deeper. Money, greed, corruption of high class society, poverty of working class. Mr. Veneering's dinner table serves all.

I'm halfway through the book. Just reached the part where a "love triangle' is in the air. Charles visits Eugene. I should admit I'm a lousy matchmaker. So far no one is good enough for perfect Lizzie. I can't wait to see how Dickens handles it. . Number of characters is extraordinary. I've just met new character -Mr Riah -the jew moneylender is very promising. Dickens is hard to predict. I can't help wondering how all of his varied characters would come together in the end.

I don't know if I like Eugene. His arrogance is so sharp. Though I believe it's just mask.

Dickens is so amusing:

'Thankee, sir, thankee,' returned that gentleman. 'And how do
YOU like the law?'

'A--not particularly,' returned Eugene.

'Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of
sticking to, before you master it. But there's nothing like work.
Look at the bees.'

'I beg your pardon,' returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 'but
will you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being
referred to the bees?'

'Do you!' said Mr Boffin.

'I object on principle,' said Eugene, 'as a biped--'

'As a what?' asked Mr Boffin.

'As a two-footed creature;--I object on principle, as a two-footed
creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed
creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings
according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or
the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an
excessively temperate person; but he has several stomachs to
entertain himself with, and I have only one. Besides, I am not
fitted up with a convenient cool cellar to keep my drink in.'

'But I said, you know,' urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an
answer, 'the bee.'

'Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to say the
bee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that
there is any analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and
pantaloons (which I deny), and that it is settled that the man is to
learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question still remains,
what is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends
the bees worry themselves to that highly fluttered extent about their
sovereign, and become perfectly distracted touching the slightest
monarchical movement, are we men to learn the greatness of Tuft-
hunting, or the littleness of the Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr
Boffin, but that the hive may be satirical.'

'At all events, they work,' said Mr Boffin.

'Ye-es,' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you
think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need--
they make so much more than they can eat--they are so incessantly
boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them--
that don't you think they overdo it? And are human labourers to
have no holidays, because of the bees? And am I never to have
change of air, because the bees don't? Mr Boffin, I think honey
excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light of my conventional
schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug
of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for you.'

[Quark]

Hi, caspian. I didn't notice anyone had posted here. I've gotten away from the discussion because it's been rather empty of late. This doesn't surprise me one bit. I've seen enough of the forum to realize that discussions on individual texts make up a small fraction of the posts on LitNet. Trying to get posters to read a text and hold a conversation about it is a difficult thing to do and no one really has the time. Really, bookclubs have less of a chance of surviving in this environment than sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. I'll post occasionally in this thread to see if there's anyone who just happens to be reading the book at the time, but I probably won't post everyday.

I'm glad you're enjoying the book, though. I won't reveal how the love story resolves itself--although I think you probably already know where it's going. I was curious what you meant by "naturalistic." Are you talking about literary naturalism--like Gissing or Zola? Dickens would be very different from that. In fact, Dickens' melodrama and verbose narration were what Gissing was trying to get away from.

[Jozanny]

Yeah, but I think you have to put the scene in context. So much of it is about a very Victorian theme: the noveau rich and their attempts to buy respectability. I think in contemporary American society sudden wealth isn't something one has to defend. Many tend think that money is its own justification. If you're wealthy that must mean you're successful, and if you're successful that means you deserve money. For Victorians, this wasn't always the case, and many novels of the time explore the ways wealth is created and then anxiously defended. I think this is probably why the scene goes on for so long. It's a satire that might not have much force today, but I imagine it was quite cutting in its day. Anyway, if you keep reading, do keep posting things. After having read the whole novel, I'm dying to talk about it.

I am on my way to bed, wherein maybe I will read a little more in, or if not now, at the doctors' offices later, but this is exactly my problem. I can open Flaubert, Zola, even Balzac, and class consciousness slaps me in the face, but Dickens is so intent on making the dinner table adorably infantile that I never really receive the sense that the Veneerings are nouveau riche, though Mortimer setting up the plot background keys it in somewhat.

I know you want to talk up the book, and I'm not trying to frustrate you, I just have a lot to do and I have to slow my forum participation down for the time being, but where the opening chapter was sharp, the second suffers from what could have been a more effective disjunction.

Edit: I am in the opening of ch 3, where Mortimer and Eugene exchange wits with the boy.

[Quark]

I can open Flaubert, Zola, even Balzac, and class consciousness slaps me in the face, but Dickens is so intent on making the dinner table adorably infantile that I never really receive the sense that the Veneerings are nouveau riche, though Mortimer setting up the plot background keys it in somewhat.

I thought it was pretty overt that they were newly rich. Maybe it doesn't slap you upside the head with class consciousness (do you really want to be hit in the face?), but that's certainly there, too. The very beginning of the chapter tells you that "Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London." There wealth is nothing traditional and established. Rather, it's bran-new, and throughout the chapter there's reference made to the new family history they've made out for themselves, new friends they've acquired, new furniture they've bought. Everything is new (and fabricated). As I pointed out in my first post, this sudden discovery of wealth and subsequent efforts to justify it is a common Victorian theme. After all, part of London went through exactly this kind of gentrification at the time, and Dickens is satirizing it and also using it in the greater structure of his novel. More than just being a clever little jab at the stupidly rich, it also expresses anxiety about art and story telling in general. Later on, Twemlow will comment on the "fictions" of the Veneering: the way they create self-serving illusions. Part of what's going on in chapter two is that Dickens is showing how fictions can be used selfishly. The Harmon narrative will become Dickens' way of saving narrative from the people like the Veneering who would use it for their own gains. So, there's a little more to the chapter than just plot exposition.

I know you want to talk up the book, and I'm not trying to frustrate you, I just have a lot to do and I have to slow my forum participation down for the time being, but where the opening chapter was sharp, the second suffers from what could have been a more effective disjunction.

Don't worry. Quark's as cool as cucumber right now. It's going to be a pretty leisurely summer for me, so I'm free to discuss whatever people want and whenever.

Edit: I am in the opening of ch 3, where Mortimer and Eugene exchange wits with the boy.

Some of the dialogue is pretty funny. I like the back-and-forths with Boffins a few chapters past where you are now.

[Jozanny]

I thought it was pretty overt that they were newly rich. Maybe it doesn't slap you upside the head with class consciousness (do you really want to be hit in the face?), but that's certainly there, too. The very beginning of the chapter tells you that "Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London." There wealth is nothing traditional and established. Rather, it's bran-new, and throughout the chapter there's reference made to the new family history they've made out for themselves, new friends they've acquired, new furniture they've bought. Everything is new (and fabricated). As I pointed out in my first post, this sudden discovery of wealth and subsequent efforts to justify it is a common Victorian theme. After all, part of London went through exactly this kind of gentrification at the time, and Dickens is satirizing it and also using it in the greater structure of his novel. More than just being a clever little jab at the stupidly rich, it also expresses anxiety about art and story telling in general. Later on, Twemlow will comment on the "fictions" of the Veneering: the way they create self-serving illusions. Part of what's going on in chapter two is that Dickens is showing how fictions can be used selfishly. The Harmon narrative will become Dickens' way of saving narrative from the people like the Veneering who would use it for their own gains. So, there's a little more to the chapter than just plot exposition.

Nicely made argument, and I rarely pay such compliments, but obviously, when Quark is on, he's on!

[kasie]

Please may I join the discussion? I'm trying very hard to overcome a lifelong aversion to Dickens and believe I may have found the way to do it: I have downloaded an unabridged audio version to my iPod and am listening to it a chapter at a time, then re-reading it on-line (thank you LitNet) instead of struggling through a Mighty Tome with tiny, poor quality print, which I think is what put me off Dickens in the past. After all, Dickens wrote many of his works in instalments and these were often read aloud in family circles, so I am going back to the original method of delivery, just updated a bit.

re: the description of the river in the opening chapter: in 1858, the Great Stink, as it was called, was so bad that Parliament had to be suspended; that sped up the movement to have a proper sewerage disposal system for London. The work would have been underway by the time OMF was published but the state of the river would have been a lively memory to its first readers.

[Quark]

Please may I join the discussion?

Oh, I guess.

re: the description of the river in the opening chapter: in 1858, the Great Stink, as it was called, was so bad that Parliament had to be suspended; that sped up the movement to have a proper sewerage disposal system for London. The work would have been underway by the time OMF was published but the state of the river would have been a lively memory to its first readers.

That's all true. I think it's especially good that you point out how Dickens' readers might have perceived the opening chapters: that is, as something from the not-so-distant past. In a way, we might think of Hexam, his craft, and his locale all become mythological representations of an England that was just recently eclipsed at the time of the novel's publication. Jozanny pointed to Hexam's timeless resonance--a sort of retelling of the Charon myth--but I think you're right that there's something very topical about the opening chapter. Dickens picks some iconic images (and smells) to portray in the novel, and no doubt he's banking on his readers making the kind of connections you did. Dickens alternates between these two registers--the timeless and the topical--frequently in the novel and it's one of his skills as a writer that he can take something very specific and make it hugely important to readers everywhere.

[Jozanny]

I am not much farther along than I was (mostly because I am working and red tape busy), but thank you kasie; your historical references enrich insights--and I will try to forget my indignation over Twenilow the dining table henceforth!