Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The major villain in this last completed novel by Charles Dickens is money. All of the many characters react to its presence or absence, most changing (for good or bad, as the case may be) because of its influence. The heroes are those who remain remain unchanged, resisting the lure of wealth and its attendant social status, and those who change for the better, as they realize that money does not buy happiness.

Maybe I have just read too much Dickens lately, but I was disappointed in this novel, as I noticed so many instances of Dickens' stock characters and situations. For example:

*The two love-interest females are both overwhelmingly beautiful and men fall in love with them at first sight.
*The main female characters all are excessively attached to and loyal to their fathers.
*We have a sorely mismatched couple, with the woman being foolish and disagreeable and the man being made of finer and better stuff.
*We have the pathetic death of a simple yet honest innocent.
*And I could go on with instances and characters I have met lately in other Dickens novels. Suffice it to say, it does somewhat detract from a novel when so much can be anticipated. But it is interesting in the aspect that these repetitions perhaps reveal to us something of the psyche of the author.

Contrary to most Dickens novels, the beginning is very slow, taking many pages (actually about 200) to actually enter the main plot. The writing of this portion is somewhat unwieldy and difficult to follow. It took me a week to read this part. The center portion of the novel (about 350 pages)is much the best, with actual events, rather than philosophizing, and a very suspenseful story line. I read this part in a day. But then comes the ending(about 250 pages), the denouement, which is not credible or logical, given the previous behavior of the characters. What a letdown!

I believe if I had read this previous to, rather than subsequent to, several other of the less-well-known Dickens novels, I would have like it better.

Dickens has provided some really perceptive moments here, some memorable characterizations, some very funny bits, some very dramatic bits, some bits filled with pathos and melodrama, but this is not Dickens at his best.