Our Mutual Friend

You know that moment when you're chatting to a stranger and you suddenly realise you have mutual friends? The excitement as you work out how close you've been to each other in the past? Well, that is sort of what this novel's about. But mostly not. I'm not going to run through the plot in detail with you, because it's extremely long, very convoluted and I'll almost certainly misremember some detail, thus destroying your whole impression of the novel.

The basic idea is as follows. Man goes missing, presumed dead. A large legacy, intended for him, goes elsewhere. The woman he was ordered to marry by his, now late, father is left widowed without having ever been married. The new legatees, to compensate her for her disappointment, effectively adopt her. Strange man shows up, no-one knows where from, and shows an unusual interest in the girl and the legatees. Do you see where this is going? (I don't feel bad about making it obvious, as Dickens does himself and, indeed, tells us he intended to!)

Spoiler alert! In brief, the girl learns a lesson about the value of money, the fortune returns to its rightful owner and he falls in love with and marries the girl. So much for the main plot. However, this being Dickens, there are about 500 other, smaller plots going on in the background, into which I will not go. Suffice it to say that they include a character rather more villainous and grotesque than humanly possible as well as one more angelic and beautiful than one might reasonably expect to come across in one's lifetime, I suppose to create a balance.

The point, though, is not really the plot, it's the writing and characterisation. Which are fabulous. I think that this is one of Dickens' more underrated novels - the characters are, for the most part, very real and the writing is hilarious. I found it hugely entertaining, and sped through it faster than I have many a shorter novel (Wuthering Heights springs to mind here). It also contains one of my favourite moments of any novel. The exposition of the central mystery is fantastic in its clumsiness.

You can clearly see Dickens sitting there thinking "Hmmmm, I need to explain how such a misunderstanding came about... How to do it subtly and naturally? How? Oh, sod it, I'll just shove in a soliloquy!" Our main character simply, under the guise of "thinking it through", tells the reader, in detail, what happened to him - it's brilliant!

I also really liked Bella and found her little sulks and her obsession with money completely realistic for a girl in her circumstances. In her, Dickens creates a believeable difficult teenager (and a rather less irritating one than many - Harry Potter in "The Order of the Phoenix", to name but one). I also enjoyed Eugene's monents - more, I think, than Dickens did, as he, bafflingly, dislikes Eugene until his near-deathbed reformation.

In conclusion (a phrase I've always wanted an excuse to use), the writing is compelling and very very funny, the characters are generally believable and likeable (this is no "Old Curiosity Shop") and the plot entertaining, if not always completely convincing. A fantastic way to get into Dickens, and a great read!