Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A sinister masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed novel. It is perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money.

Opening with a father and daughter scavenging for corpses on the Thames, the chilling tale unfolds around drownings, disguises and doubles, violence, murder, and triumphant love. Young John Harmon, presumed killed on his return home to England, is very much alive. The heir to a dust merchant's fortune, he goes to work under an assumed name for his father's current heirs, the amiable, elderly Boffins, who are about to be blackmailed by the unscrupulous one-legged Wegg.

So begins the intrigue in a novel that is quintessentially Dickensian in flavor, in its grotesque caricatures, its rich symbolism, and the astonishing realism of its heroine, Bella Wilfer, among Dickens' most splendid female characters.

(P)1999 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Redemption

I read 3 other reviews of this work and they all gave it 5 stars and for reasons I can relate to. Robert Whitfield, the narrator is a true master. In fact, I found this work by searching for books he narrated. The story is a 'good' one and makes for good, though light entertainment.

The problem I find with this work is that Dickens redeemed two character without clearly explaining why. Bella Wilfer is a spoiled, petty and very materialistic young lady. It is hard for me to buy her transition into a simple, generous, caring and loving wife and mother. I get the feeling that she was redeemable because of her great physical beauty.

Eugene Rayburn is the other character I can find NO redeeming qualities in. He is arrogant, hostile and insolent. In his case, Dickens made no attempt to explain why he was redeemable. At the same time he choses to villify the love-smitten and passionate Bradley Headstone and the formerly loving brother Charlie Hexom.

We often make allowances for works written in earlier periods because of advances in social thinking and awareness, among other reasons. And yet even today, woman are still charged with the need to be "beautiful". This work would have been infinitely better had the author invested more time in discovering the inner beauty verses the physical beauty of his characters. And while anyone can be redeemed in theory, their path to redemption should be clear and understandable.

Beautiful read and reader

One of the very best Dickens I've read and the reader is superb: subtle, smooth and does the voices wonderfully.

Wonderful story, great social commentary

At first, I felt story took long to unwind. But I stayed with it, and with the help of Wikipedia , was able to follow along .

This author’s crusade of for the poor of. England us laudable. Even though it was many years before they all closed.

He writes a wonderful story and often had me in tears. I highly recommend. Simon Vance’s narration adds a great deal to the story.

Excellent Narration

I enjoyed the narrator and his ability to create and represent so many various characters. The only drawback was the editing of the recording. There were several instances where the narrator tried different vocal variations on a sentence or portion of the sentence and both recording were left in the final copy. That should be remedied prior to publishing the story for purchase.

Our Mutual Friend

This is a wonderful reading of Charles Dickens's last and greatest finished work -- truly an extraordinary performance by Simon Vance.

My very favorite Dickens

I can't even tell you how many times I've listened to this book. It gets better every time. The first time I actually enjoyed it much less than the subsequent listens. The characters are all flawed and yet there is something likeable about them. I really think it does boil down to characters with Dickens.

Evil often stops short at itself and dies

"And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never."
- Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

Dicken's last finished novel, but not my last Dicken's novel (I think I still have 5 left to read before I'm done with Dickens). I liked it. It might have been closer to 3★ than 4★ EXCEPT I liked that Dickens seemed to reform somewhat his era and his own bias towards Jews. Mr Riah is a better character than was typically included in 19th century novels and better than Fagin in 'Oliver Twist'.

Like most of Charles Dicken's romances it is a social and an economic critique and satire. He also dances on themes of education, status and society, poor laws, inheritence, love, virtue, etc., etc.. Like many Dickens novels, it is a bit baroque with all the characters and those characters often bend toward caricature (Boffin, the Golden Dustman; the peg-legged Silas Wegg; Jenny Wren, etc). I loved them all, but while there sentiments are often VERY human, they still seem like dolls dressed-up, not fully formed people.

Some of my favorite characters in Dickens novels are those that move between being good and being bad (or if not bad, selfish/indulgent/exasperating/human). I loved Bella Wilfer. While she is nowhere near bad, and quite obviously the primary heroine of the story, she is an imperfect heroine at first. She is more interesting and dynamic for it. I also adored Sophronia and Alfred Lammle a match made in Dante's inferno for sure. Finally, I adored Eugene Wrayburn, the 2nd hero/barrister with zeros cases. A Russian bride whose daugther went to the same school as my kids, when I was teasing her about Putin, God, and something about the Russian Orthodox church once called me a pofogist (I'm still trying to figure out what the exact word). My best guess was she was trying to say I was both absurd and apathetic. This unknown word describes Euguen Wrayburn (for most the novel) and I love him for being like me (my wife would argue with that, but my friend the Russian bride certainly thinks it is true).

Finally, I did enjoy the imagry of this novel. The water plays a huge role, so does money (obviously), boats, and dust heaps. Dust heaps and money. Water, boats, and baptism. And throughout the measure of it, people getting by, and people being exceptional. It was C. Dicken's last finished novel, and certainly not his best (I could easily name four or five I liked significantly better), but I don't regret a day or a dollar I spent on it.

I give the audible performance only 3-stars because there were many (more than 10) poor edits where lines were repeated.

A great experience

I never had a book read to me since I was 5 or 5. it's very different from reading print. The reader did a wonderful job, and the strange, vivid story was absorbing.

Enjoyable Way to Experience This Story

Simon Vance is great! There are occasional editing mishaps where the beginning of a sentence will be repeated, but with such a large book it's honestly negligible. Almost all the characters were most enjoyable even if they occasionally act in slightly unbelievable ways. (see the ending)

Late Dickens at his best

One of the three great masterpieces of Dickens's late career, along with Bleak House and Little Dorritt, superbly performed.