Our Mutual Friend

Yet again, Dickens has impressed me. I haven't read half of what Dickens wrote, but every time I read some of the back catalog, I see how much he has changed writing for the better. No wonder that Dostoyevsky patterned his writing after Dickens.

We view writing of the Victorian time as being stilted and melodramatic, but what is literature in general? Would anyone really say a quarter of what is said in any written work? The point is to make a statement about an attitude that is consistent with an era. Our thoughts are so much more complex than our spoken words that we need literature to give us the educated version of our times.

I haven't quite figured out what Dickens meant by Our Mutual Friend. Did he mean Death? The Grim Reaper isn't a friend, but he is certainly an acquaintance of us all. I like that the title isn't spelled out. We can each make our own interpretation of the book and learn from it.

Amy