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 Dickens' Night Vision! September 2, 2008
The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged
grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or
twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter.
The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with
the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his
waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line,
and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a
sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty
boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his
boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and
he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue to
what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent
and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before,
was running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy
in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight head-way against it, or
drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his
daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face as
earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look
there was a touch of dread or horror.
Dickens's last completed novel opens in a dark world. The Thames is indeed a river of death. The opening plays on our attempt to apprehend the purpose of such night wandering. And any attempt at logical resolution is defeated by denial. How many times do we assuage fear through rational enquiry?
Yet the solution to this dilemna is our worst fear: death and ignoble death at that; the male fisherman trawls the river for bodies; suicides and murder victims for financial gain. Gaffer Hexman is a river vulture who travels out each night with his daughter Lizzie;a girl with a pure face; a vulture 'married' to an angel.
I doubt Dickens wrote anything more nightmarishly pervasive: London's River Styx transporting lost creatures to Hades via Dickens' own Charon, yet mysteriously accompanied by Persephone, who is just as lost as those she has been forced to seek...
One of the best novels Dickens ever created. Unmissable, especially at night!
 Not an easy read but ultimately worthwhile July 3, 2008
This was the first Dickens novel I read that I found myself harking back to my initial misgivings about the author.
The meat of the story is certainly interesting enough, but my mind did tend to wonder during the numerous visits to both the Veneering and Podsnapp households. I presume these sections would have been much more relevant at the time the novel was written.
Ultimately, however, the novel is redeemed through the usual Dickensian traits of superb characterisation, stoytelling and wit and whilst the characters in my opinion do not rival any of his greatest creations, there is enough to keep you entertained.
Darkly brilliant March 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A rich panorama of London life in the 19th century, this is one of the finest novels ever written. Henry James called Dickens' novels 'loose, baggy monsters', but this is splendidly constructed, a vision of a contradictory metropolis uniting the opposites of life in the most haunting way.
A timeless classic June 19, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
A previous reviewer, Rufusred, is spot on with his comments about this book.
This is my favourite Dickens' novel. What motivated me to read it was its mention in Lost Series 2 by the character, Desmond. He said that he had read every wonderful word Mr Dickens had ever written but he would save reading Our Mutual Friend until he was near his deathbed. This was a clever self-reflexive ploy by the scriptwriters of Lost
as reading Our Mutual Friend soon demonstrated.
In OMF, as in Lost, we are introduced to a large assemblage of seemingly unconnected characters, who become intertwined with each other following an event. In Lost, it is the plane crash and in OMF it is the apparent murder of John Harmon and the discovery of his body in the Thames (of course, it turns out that John Harmon is very much alive). The structure of Lost is very similar to the narrative structure of OMF. Each chapter is written in serial form and takes turns to examine a different character or character units, eg, the Veneerings, the Lammles, the Wilfers, the Boffins. Like the island in Lost, the Thames plays a central role in the narrative.
The characterisation is superb. The highlight for me was Dickens' portrayal of Bradley Headstone. His obsessional behaviour and his gradual psychological disintegration leading to one attempted murder and a simultaneous murder and suicide is brilliantly and viciously documented. There is little chance of redemption for this man; Dickens is merciless with him. Previous reviewers have drawn comparisons with Hardy's tone of darkness and cynicism. I would agree. For those who have read Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, one can draw parallels with Hardy's merciless portrayal of Michael Henchard's rise and fall and eventual suicide with that of Headstone's. The scene with Rogue Riderhood taunting Headstone in front of his students is loaded with frightening tension.
The plot itself is fairly ordinary but with all Dickens' work it is the quality of the prose, the characterisation, the humour, the pathos, the vision and the moral virtue that are the classic ingredients.
This book is timeless.
 Verbose, baggy and inappropriately comic. May 30, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've rated Dickens's last finished novel a three for its skill, coherence, imaginative characters, enormity of scope, and the haunting brilliance of some of its scenes and imagery. But I didn't enjoy it.
The second half is certainly better than the first, but this book, like many of Dickens's works, labours under three perennial Dickens problems: (1) the tendency to use ten words when three would have sufficed, (2) bagginess, in that it seriously lacks pace and (3) the seriousness of the subject and themes is continuously undermined by the tone which is, almost without exception, humorous (and this kind of sarcasm - or irony, or whatever - is not the type to induce belly laughs, trust me).
I ploughed on. And on. After an inordinate amount of time, in which I started and finished many other books, I eventually finished it. Maybe in another five years I'll brace myself and read another of these verbose tomes, which certainly aren't devoid of genius.
In the meantime, I'm sticking to lighter fare.
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