Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Vance

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.

Right up there with "A Tale of Two Cities"

This was Dickens' last finished novel, and he was at the height of his powers. The plot deals with the death of an heir to a fortune, and the effects of this fortune being settled upon a working-class couple. Along the way we have a couple of love stories, greed, jealousy, mistaken identity and murder. The threads of the plot are woven together beautifully and the characters are very much alive. I didn't want the book to end.

Simon Vance, as usual, does a superb job with the narration. His reading of the characters brings them to marvelous life. There is plenty of humor in the book, and Vance presents it with exactly the right touch of dryness. And his reading of the darker parts of the novel is extremely effective and affecting. I think this is one of his best narrations.

On to the next Dickens/Vance audiobook! Perhaps "Little Dorrit."

Trenchant Social Satire by Dickens

As he aged, Charles Dickens sharped his skill as a satirist. In his last book, Our Mutual Friend, he displays a skill that will probably never be surpassed in the English language. He skewers Victorian hypocrisy mercilessly—and being Dickens, gets away with it. Anyone else would have ended up in The Tower.

The British have always excelled at making fools of themselves, and the book’s characters have done this brilliantly. The narrator for the audio book, Robert Whitfield, is also brilliant; he knows how to speak the English Language.

The Victorians loved to make fun of themselves in a light-hearted manner, such as in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. This was one of their finer virtues. We Americans, by contrast, are an inferior lot. We never make fun of ourselves in a light-hearted way, but prefer self-righteousness. We take ourselves much too seriously.

Come to think of it Mencken might be an exception, or even the economist John Kenneth Galbraith; but I can’t think of any contemporary examples. We have lost our sense of humor—and that is a dark matter indeed.

Dickens at his worst

Meandering plot with cartoons instead of characters. Took me a year to get through-even listening.

Classic Dickens, Extremely Well Read

This is a great story whether read, listened to, or watched on BBC version. I have done all three and never tire of the story. The characters are at times caricatures (as always in Dickens), but always bring to mind people we have known. Reading Dickens is like reading a manual on human nature and foibles. This is one of the author's best works, in my opinion. You will love and hate these characters.
The narration is superb and well-fitted for this book.

Great book - poor edits

Simon Vance is an outstanding narrator but this version has dozens of rereads that were not edited out. I am astonished this made it through quality assurance.