Our Mutual Friend (Modern Library
Classics) by Charles Dickens
Dickens At His Best
Our Mutual Friend was the last novel Charles Dickens completed and is,
arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage
Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two,
plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters.
But in this final outing the authors heroes are more flawed, his villains
more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less
sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman,
Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for
drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over
to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later
identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim
a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the
river. Harmons death is the catalyst for everything else that happens in
the novel. It seems the fortune was left to the young man on the condition
that he marry a girl hed never met, Bella Wilfer. His death, however,

brings a new heir onto the scene, Nicodemus Boffin, the kind-hearted but
low-born assistant to Harmons father. Boffin and his wife adopt young
Bella, who is determined to marry money, and also hire a mysterious
young secretary, John Rokesmith, who takes an uncommon interest in
their ward. Not content with just one plot, Dickens throws in a secondary
love story featuring the rivermans daughter, Lizzie Hexam; a dissolute
young upper-class lawyer, Eugene Wrayburn; and his rival, the
headmaster Bradley Headstone. Dark as the novel is, Dickens is careful to
leaven it with secondary characters who are as funny as they are
menacing--blackmailing Silas Wegg and his accomplice Mr. Venus, the
avaricious Lammles, and self-centered Charlie Hexam. Our Mutual Friend
is one of Dickenss most satisfying novels, and a fitting denouement to his
prolific career. --Alix Wilber
Personal Review: Our Mutual Friend (Modern Library Classics)
by Charles Dickens
The last completed novel by Dickens is also one of the darkest and, in my
opinion, one of the best. The plot, as usual, is too dense and complex to
be treatd here in detail. The story centers around one John Harmon, back
from abroad to claim the inheritance from his deceased, horrible, and
miser of a father. For reasons that are never explained (one of the several
loose ends of the book), Old Harmon had set the condition that, in order for
his son to receive the inheritance, he must marry a young, poor girl called
Bella Wilfer, whom young Harmon had never met. One night, a guy whose
trade was to recover things -and bodies- from the fetid Thames, along with
his daughter, finds a corpse, which is later identified as that of John
Harmon. Mysterious characters appear to have an interest in the affair, but
the fact is that, missing the first-choice heir, the fortune must go to the
Boffins, long time employees of Old Harmon. By the way, Old Harmon's
source of fortune is a very strange one: he was a Dustman, apparently
someone who trades in garbage and other discarded objects. The Boffins
are an old, childless, good, charming, and ignorant couple. Feeling sorry
for the death of beloved Johnny, and owing to a sense of reparation, they
practically adopt Bella Wilfer. They also hire as their secretary an old
tenant of the Wilfers, the mysterious John Rokesmith, who falls in love with
the arrogant and pretentious Bella.
What follows is a mad, symphonic, convoluted tale of ambition, corruption,
passion, crime, and revenge, as well as of confused identities. All in a tone
of farce and black -but very funny- humor. Dickens paints his very own
London, dark, wet, fetid, inhuman. The characters travel up and down the
Thames, through St. James, the Temple, the City, etc., crossing time and
again the dangerous river. They come and go all the time. The two young
ladies, Bella and Lizzie Hexam, the daughter of the man who first
recovered the body, are subject to mad passions, especially the latter.
There are dozens of subplots, all worth reading. Dickens mocks just about
every kind of people in London: business, politics, social habits. Most
characters are mean and ridiculous. The vividness of the situations is
witness to the enormous creative powers of this great writer.

Thre are too many characters to sketch them all here, but some
memorable ones are: Miss Jenny Wren ("I know your tricks and your
manners"), the dolls' dressmaker, smart, cynical, penetrating, beautiful and
handicapped, as well as her pathetic drunkard of a father. Silas Wegg, "a
man of letters and with a wooden leg", a sinister rascal who tries to
dispossess the Boffins through blackmail, and his associate, Mr. Venus,
embalmer and taxidermist, always sitting in his dark parlour, surrounded by
phaetuses in bottles. Bradley Headstone, who literally gets crazy about
Lizzie. Rogue Riderhood, the common criminal of the Thames. The most
outrageous one is an usurer, a petulant and despicable pseudo-dandy
called Fascination Fledgeby.
It's true: in contrast with most great writers of the XIX Century, Dickens
does not create human beings. He creates cartoons. In fact, at least for
me, some passages of the novel are more easily imagined as cartoons
than as people. But, as Anthony Burgess put it, "Language and morality
add dimensions to his cartoons and turn them into literature". This is an
enormously funny book, well worth your dedication through its many
pages. Some people criticize him for leaving subplots open and for not
tying it all up close circle. Who cares, his power with words is extraordinary
and his landscape of characters unforgettable.
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