The Old Curiosity Club discussion
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Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend
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OMF, Book 2, Chp. 04-06
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Ignoring the incorrectly placed closing period: that's in the same vein as my practice, when am asked on a form for my race, of checking the "other" box and writing in "human."
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I wisely skipped the "boofer" parts, there being a certain kind of inane sentimentality I have no time for.
As to repetitions, Dickens always uses it very cleverly to make readers recognize his characters, which was necessary in the light of monthly instalments and much time lying between individual chapters for the contemporary reader. So, Carker's teeth, for instance, did not annoy me at all, and neither do most characters' peculiarities of speech, quite on the contrary.
In the case of Riah, however, the repetition is more of a pedagogical character, and since it is not really subtle, it somehow falls flat and becomes annoying.
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I would always write "mum" into that call-in-an-emergency-field! What do doctors know that mums don't?
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I like all of them, but my favorites are #3 and #18. Thanks for this, Tristam!
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Like the inane sentimentality of the Christmas Carol!
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Tristram wrote: "I just looked the word up at "Leo" and found a lot of amusing examples, which I will submit here via copy and paste:..."
Hmm. Somehow I find Oscar Wilde's both wittier and funnier. I guess the paradox is usually smarter, and less expected. Thanks for the share though :)
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Off to look - I like him :)
Jean wrote: "Hmm. Somehow I find Oscar Wilde's both wittier and funnier."Must agree, Jean - Wilde's wit is wonderful. I love his comment on his deathbed in a cheap hotel - "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."
I vaguely remember seeing a mention somewhere that he was accused of imitating Eugene Wrayburn, but I haven't managed to find out where I saw this!
Judy wrote: "I vaguely remember seeing a mention somewhere that he was accused of imitating Eugene Wrayburn, but I haven't managed to find out where I saw this! ..."Really?! I'd be really interested to know more about that, Judy :) Did you mean in general, or with this deathbed comment?
Jean wrote: "Really?! I'd be really interested to know more about that, Judy :) Did you mean in general, or with this deathbed comment? ..."I think it was in general when he was young - but haven't been able to find the mention so far.
It would make sense though :)
Kim wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I never figured out how the Lammles expected to gain financially from taking on Georgiana. Has anybody figured that out?"Not sure if this has already been answered in another thread - but, just in case, it's mentioned in Chapter 5 that Fledgeby has signed a document promising to pay the Lammles a sum of money if and when he marries Georgiana. Lammle says:
"This fellow presumes on my having selected him out of all the young fellows I know, for an advantageous opportunity! This fellow presumes on my having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note of hand for a wretched sum payable on the occurrence of a certain event, which event can only be of my and my wife's bringing about!"
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Not sure if this has already been answered in..."
Thanks Judy. I missed this reference (and many other sundry points as well, no doubt.)
What you reference makes sense. The Lammles and Fledgeby each trying to outwit, use or put pressure on others for personal gain. A nasty bunch to be sure.
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Oh dear, would that not mean that Dickens, in a way, is responsible for most of the Wilde plays and for The Picture of Dorian Grey? Ghastly thought ;-)
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Not sure if this has already been answered in..."
I doubt that the Lammles would have been able to make Fledgeby pay that sum of money, though, because I cannot imagine that there would have been a court of law where Mr Lammles could have filed a lawsuit in order to make Fledgeby settle that "debt". All the less so because what the Lammles are doing was probably illegal.
Tristram wrote: "Oh dear, would that not mean that Dickens, in a way, is responsible for most of the Wilde plays and for The Picture of Dorian Grey? Ghastly thought ;-)"Tristram, you are wicked!
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Tristram, you are wicked!"
Some people indeed believe they have evidence to that effect.
Re Wilde and Eugene, I have given up looking for this now! Wherever I came across it seems to be lost in the mists of time. I did see though from Richard Ellmann's bio of Wilde that he wasn't a Dickens fan, so if someone did accuse him of copying Eugene it might have just been to annoy him rather than a genuine suggestion!
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Thanks for trying to track it down anyway, Judy.
Sorry to have been so vague, Jean. If I see anything interesting like that in future I will have to remember "When found, make a note of"!On Wilde, his own children's stories like The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant are just as sentimental as anything in Dickens - I remember crying floods of tears over those as a kid! I loved them all the same.
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What's wrong with Wilde? I thought there were only two people, both of them Curiosities, who did not like Nell. ;-))
Tristram wrote: "I doubt that the Lammles would have been able to make Fledgeby pay that sum of money, though, ..."I'm not sure about that but it does sound as if it would have been difficult to take him to court over it!
This reminds me, I've been wondering whether there were ever any real wills anything like the one requiring John Harmon to marry Bella Wilfer? It seems a bit far-fetched! I just did a bit of googling and found info on some very eccentric wills, but nothing similar to the one in OMF.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but I really dislike Oscar Wilde's children's stories! It's hard to credit they're by the same author.
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That's a start, for sure.
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I'm not sure about that but it does sound as if it would have been difficult to ..."
I'm no lawyer but I would say that you may put into your will whatever conditions you want but there is still a legal portion your children [1] are entitled to - even if they don't fulfil the conditions. Another debatable question might be to what degree those conditions run counter to the law, and making someone marry somebody else at least runs counter to modern Western standards. So maybe, such a will would be called null and void today and would probably not really have stood on firm ground in a Victorian lawsuit.
[1] In the Victorian age, maybe this was limited to the eldest son?
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Judy, this is the only thing I can find (so far);
From Charles Dickens by Donald Hewes,
Social Class in Victorian England, page 37:
But Pip, in Great Expectations, idles his time away in London when he is given money by an unknown selfishness.....The true gentleman in that novel turns out to be Joe Gargery.....Another reformation is that of Eugene Wrayburn in Our Mutual Friend, who - unlike Pip - was born into a privileged world. He is an idle and world-weary young barrister........Later readers of the novel compared Wrayburn to an Oscar Wilde character.
Kim wrote: "Later readers of the novel compared Wrayburn to an Oscar Wilde character..."Thanks, Kim - although the reference I vaguely remember from many years ago seems to have disappeared, it's interesting to see how often Wrayburn has been compared to Wilde's characters.
I suppose probably this way of speaking was starting to come in by the 1860s, and Dickens picked up on it brilliantly in Eugene.
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Today, maybe, but in the 1860s?
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You're right there, Everyman. Those Victorians were still labouring under the delusion that a person can spend and settle their own money as they like and see fit. :-)
What always beggars belief for me, is how an aristocrat could buy a stately home, and then decide the view was not so good, so employ Capability Brown to landscape it and proceed to eliminate and move an entire village which might be blocking their view! Quite a lot of our "pretty" villages were created that way. I've just learned of another artificial one here in Dorset - Milton Abbas.
Jean wrote: "What always beggars belief for me, is how an aristocrat could buy a stately home, and then decide the view was not so good, so employ Capability Brown to landscape it and proceed to eliminate and m..."Interesting. And to think, when I go to England it will be to see those lovely villages more than the big country estates! :-)
The Old Curiosity Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary (other topics)Dr. Faustus (other topics)
The Jew of Malta (other topics)
The Merchant of Venice (other topics)
Collected Classics, Volume 3: Emma, Far from the Madding Crowd, the Locked Room and Other Horror Stores, the Mill on the Floss, the Picture of Dorian Gray (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Oscar Wilde (other topics)Oscar Wilde (other topics)
William Shakespeare (other topics)
Oscar Wilde (other topics)
Dickens does seem to be more repetitive in this novel than in his others. In addition to Riah, note the getting-to-be-really-too-much-if-it-hasn't-already repetition of boofer lady.
And we still have half the book left to endure even more boofering.