Where Lizzie, Bella, and Jenny Shine

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can see why this is many readers' favorite Dickens novel, or one of their favorites. I think I'd place it about 3rd (behind A Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House, if anyone wants to know), though I have a couple books yet unread. Overall, I liked it, though it went on a bit. It's one of his very long books at ~325,000 words, and though that's a bunch, it doesn't read as ponderously as a couple others. So--somewhere between "Great story!" and "quite a bit too long" is 4 stars.

Much of the story is a real pleasure, and most of that (for me) has to do with cheering on certain characters. The scenes with the protagonist ladies--Lizzie Hexam and Bella Wilfer--are my favorite, because it's easy to root for them while watching them make their way through the traps laid out to destroy them. Both of them are highly moral young women--at least they both are by the end--and they're very sweet. The Boffins, who take Bella in for most of the book, are a mixed bag, though there's a bit of a trick there (not to be too spoilery on this 150-year-old book) and they turn out to be kinda cool. One of the best characters is the disabled Jenny Wren, who is very young with an old drunk father who she treats like her own child. She tends to see through people better than others and seems to be the most centered character in the story. (Her HEA is hinted at more than spelled out, but I think we're meant to rely on it.) Oh, and the main male character, the "mutual friend" of the title, is ultimately interesting and very sympathetic, with a cool arc that is rewarding for the reader.

The villains, however, are numerous and tiresome. Bradley Headstone, a teacher friend of Lizzie's brother, falls in love with Lizzie and harasses her to the point of stalking her. Then he stalks another man who is also stalking Lizzie, a useless gentleman named Eugene Wrayburn. Headstone tries to kill Eugene and frame another ne'er-do-well, but that doesn't turn out great. What bugs me is that Lizzie in fact falls in love with Wrayburn, her richer stalker, for reasons I can't fathom. (It struck me about the same as if Elizabeth Bennet were to marry Mr. Wickham at the end. Noooo!) Anyway (spoiler), he becomes a better person because of her, so I guess we'll allow it...

Headstone--the poorer stalker--is blackmailed by the guy he tried to frame for an attempted murderer, and their mutual ending was appropriately final. I approved of that. And Silas Wegg (more spoilers--sorry) fails in his effort to blackmail the Boffins. The Lammles con each other and then fail in their next two cons before disappearing from the story. Mr. Fledgeby abuses his Jewish front-of-office guy while forcing him to abuse the unfortunates whose debt he holds, though Fledgeby at least gets a good beating from the con artists before they bail. And the wealthy Veneerings spend every scene they're in looking down on everyone else.

And all this is nice, but it really was long, filled with extravagant birdwalks. There are so many scenes with so many other characters that don't amount to much, and those scenes are filled with pointless dialogue about random things that I think are meant to be comic in effect but read now like padding and irrelevant detours. TBH, it seemed that most of their stories were here to try the reader's patience. Dickens does like to have his characters sit around and talk shit until you don't know or care what they're even on about anymore, as it has nothing to do with the plot or the main characters.

But here's why it still kinda works: he would fill 50 pages with tedious nothings and then have a hot 20 or 30 pages of story again where you're learning things about the characters that matter and wanting to learn more, and maybe seeing them triumph over one of the villains, and it's fun again. Fair enough. Well played. But I still could do without the long tedious part, personally.

Anyway, the good parts are good, so... recommended, overall.

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Where the Plot is Small Town England

Perlycross: A novel by R.D. Blackmore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Less famous than the author's big hit, Lorna Doone, Perlycross is well worth reading and almost as good as the other. Where Lorna Doone offered a good share of action to go with its 19th Century style romance, Perlycross gives us more of the novel-of-manners vibe, or coming closer to a George Eliot examination of small town characters.

I liked it--almost gave it a 5 instead of 4--but honesty requires I say it was a *touch* less entertaining than I wanted. Good not great. (I missed the action, tbh.)

There is a central plot running throughout, where the remains of the local lord disappear the day after his interment and all the signs point at the nearest doctor. Though he is not charged, he remains under suspicion, and the ramifications are many, especially regarding his romance with the daughter of the deceased. Her mother, a proud Spanish woman, will not believe his innocence, dooming their hopes to marry.

The main charm of the novel is its cast of characters: the one-armed schoolteacher famed for his strict discipline; the retired doctor who loves fishing more than anything and catches nothing; the giant wrestler who gets caught up in the supposed body-snatching; his crazy mother who recounts how many of her children ended up on the gallows; the wrestler's sweet daughter who gets a second chance in another home; the young doctor's headstrong sister; and, above all, the clergyman in Perlycross who wants, more than anything, to finish a restoration and improvement of the church but continues to face losses and setbacks. Truly, he is the central character, the main POV character, participating in all the events of church and town where he observes everything and counsels everyone.

It's not an overly saccharine view of the world we get here--there is plenty of evil and unkindness and prejudice and hard feelings--but there seems to be a balance found in the book's pages. There's a feeling that this is about the best we can hope to do in the world; this is society at its most congenial, with folk of goodwill trying constantly to shore it up. Despite the cynical voices and chauvinism and poverty and even crime, the people get on pretty well, thank you. Nothing's perfected in Perlycross, and people are about as ignorant as you'd find anywhere, but there's a rhythm to life, a kind of settled pattern that works well enough and affords most people a decent chance at happiness. It's not idealized or sanitized, but it still has genuine attractions.

Ironically, the theme seems to be that all those norms and settled patterns are changing, and since it was set about 60 years earlier than it was written (published 1894) and is clearly modeled on the author's upbringing and hometown, I'm sure some of the glow I sensed is nostalgia for a better time. And I'm fine with that.

Hard to say why some novels become popular and get adapted to film or TV while others, perhaps just as deserving and entertaining, fade into obscurity. Maybe it's luck. Timing. I dunno. But this novel is hard to find in hardcover and has never, as far as I can find, been adapted, but I'd happily watch a movie or tv series made from it.

Recommended for readers of Eliot or Scott.

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I Liked Pip in the End

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think this novel does some amazing things. I understand why some people would rank this so high.

But it's less pleasant to read (IMO, always) than most of his other novels, at least until near the end. Splitting the difference between how much I liked it and how I felt about the themes and character development, I feel it deserves about 4/5 stars.

The main problem for me is that Pip is pretty much a jerk for most of the novel. It's not entirely his fault, of course, but it doesn't make him a great protagonist. That's the same for Estella, to an even greater degree, and it's kinda the point of the novel: wealth, real or in the offing, is bad for people. The wealth Pip is expecting damages him, warps the people around him, and hurts his relationships. This makes him a drag to follow around as a reader. (Do I have to say "In my opinion"?) When he starts to see things more clearly, when he starts to have some moral intuitions that push him a new way, I like it more. I really prefer him when he is more sympathetic.

I like the ending of the novel in general and the very very end specifically, though Dickens originally had a different ending that I definitely would have liked less. Now I sorta wish I knew what the "real" ending was, whatever that means when speaking of fictional characters in a fictional tale...

Anyway, still worth reading, even if only to be able to know what people are talking about when they say stuff about Miss Havisham. :)

Recommended.



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It Doesn't Sound Like an Adventure Novel

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed it. Beginning to end. Did not expect that.

I acquired this book in a random way (castoff in the library of the school where I taught) and only started to read it because I had finished all my other "classic" type books. But then--it was good.

This story is told in first person by a young gentleman farmer, John Ridd, who is intelligent, hardworking, brave, honorable, and physically impressive. It's a clear voice, that of a man who is self-reliant and confident, who speaks up when he has something to say, who thinks fighting is often necessary, but he's also sensitive for a tough rural man and shows tenderness to the women in his life and apologizes when he's wrong. Sometimes he's full of insight, and other times the reader is aware of his blind spots and prejudices. He seems real, and he is sympathetic.

This is the story of plain man's love for a beautiful woman, Lorna Doone, who comes from the family of his enemies. It might sound a bit like Romeo and Juliet, but it's more like a Western. Think of John as a regular farmer and the Doones as the rich, bullying ranchers who run everything in the area. They are beyond the reach of the law in 1600's west country England, and everyone around them has to make room for them. Even John, who wants to get justice for his murdered father, must treat them respectfully.

Part of the charm of the novel is learning about the contradictory ways of the people in that area at that time. A man they might seek to kill in one moment will be their honored guest at another. Depending on the situation, the people can be patient and polite or argumentative and ready for a brawl. In some ways, they lived simply and were proud of it, but in other ways they showed a real appreciation for good living. So--complex, like real people. When events occur in London or elsewhere in the country, it takes days to reach them, often in garbled form, and those events feel curiously remote. The reader gets a sense of what it would have been like to live in a distant, rural area in those years.

The subtitle, "A Romance of Exmoor," is meant to suggest something more like a story of chivalry than a modern "romance," but in fact both are true. There is romance in the modern sense, but it is also a novel of action, violence, and bloodshed, along with some mystery. It's an entertaining mix.

I think this is an excellent novel, and I wonder why that should come as such a surprise. Lots of good characters, lots of fun action. Why isn't it more popular? And no spoilers, but I can say that the novel has a very satisfying ending. I recommend it.

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Where I Give Faint Praise to a Beloved Author

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked some of these stories. A few are rather creepy--better, IMO, than similar H.P. Lovecraft-type stories--and some are more like fairy tales. All of them are entertaining reads and better, I thought, than the Dr. Jekyll novel it's packaged with.

I discovered that I liked Stevenson's adventure novels, finally reading them in my fifties, when I was surprised to find that they're such fun. Dr. Jekyll was interesting and worth reading, but it was not as much fun. The short stories were better, but not quite as entertaining for me as, say, Treasure Island.

"The Bottle Imp" was probably my favorite, the only 5-star in the bunch for me. "Olalla" was engaging, with some great atmospherics and a cool setting, but ultimately unsatisfying. "Will 'o the Wisp" and "Markheim" were interesting for the characters and their decision-making, and probably useful in a classroom, but not too exciting. Again, IMO.

Others will certainly see it differently.

I wanted to be familiar with Dr. Jekyll, and I'm glad to get a feel for his short stories. Worth looking at, I think. However, I'll probably look for another of his novels next time. Just now learning there's a sequel to Kidnapped. Did not know that. :)

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Your Assigned Reading for Next Class--Dr. Jekyll

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really like Robert Louis Stevenson (I read and loved Treasure Island and Kidnapped--and was almost surprised to discover how much I enjoyed them). I'm also interested in the original story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and found a nice version at the bookstore.

But it wasn't that great to read.

Yes, it's worth it. Especially because it's not that long--a novella at best. Interesting to see the original. But there is virtually no suspense, no action or plot.

The story is told kinda like H.P. Lovecraft stories, where the whole point of the story is to relate some element of strangeness, some amazing truth, and the way it comes to the reader is as someone's recollection after the fact. (Dr. Jekyll includes several forms of this, including the main character's long letter at the end retelling everything we already kind of knew.) It removes all narrative tension, IMO, making it blasé reading.

I repeat--I genuinely like the author. I was surprised when I found myself enjoying his adventure novels exactly as if I were his target audience, never mind how many years or generations separated me from them. But Dr. Jekyll is a different sort of read.

Still worth it, IMO. You could read it all at once, probably, or read it like I did--fifteen minutes or so at a time, in 4 or 5 bites. (Less time, probably, for many readers.) I still find it a pleasure to experience firsthand stories like this that have long since penetrated popular culture and left their mark.

For that purpose, I recommend it. For pleasure reading, for genuine fun, I point you toward his adventure novels.

I mean, if you like fun things. :)

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