Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Peter Silverleaf

Our Mutual Friend, written in 1864-1865, is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quoting from the character Bella Wilfer in the book, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life". Most reviewers in the 1860s continued to praise Dickens' skill as a writer in general, but did not review this novel in detail. Some found the plot both too complex and not well laid out. The Times of London found the first few chapters did not draw the reader into the characters. In the 20th century, however, reviewers began to find much to approve in the later novels of Dickens, including Our Mutual Friend. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some reviewers suggested that Dickens was, in fact, experimenting with structure, and that the characters considered somewhat flat and not recognized by the contemporary reviewers were meant rather to be true representations of the Victorian working class and the key to understanding the structure of the society depicted by Dickens in the novel.

Contents:

Book the First: The Cup and the Lip

Book the Second: Birds of a Feather

Book the Third: A Long Lane

Book the Fourth: A Turning

Public Domain (P)2022 Bookstream GmbH

That was a slog

That was a slog! I’m in a Charles Dickens book club so I have listened to most of his books. The story was ok but it’s difficult to tell because of the problems I had with this audio version. The narration was not good. Each character sounded the same so it was difficult to follow who was speaking in a conversation. The chapter markings were meaningless. Each “chapter” was two minutes long. If I wanted to go back and listen to a chapter I couldn’t do it. I have enjoyed other Dickens novels such as Bleak House and Dombey and Sons. I will give this story another chance but I will listen to a different version.