What: One of the best things about a gigantic banquet of a novel like Our Mutual Friend is that Charles Dickens gives us dozens of characters and storylines to bite into. If a particular set of characters doesn't grab you, no matter; a different group will be along in a few pages. Further, in Our Mutual Friend, almost all of the main characters either change in a fundamental way or are revealed to be something other than what they've appeared to be. Our hero, after all, ends up being a man with three identities.
Comparable to: Our Mutual Friend is in the same Dickens vein as Bleak House and Little Dorrit. They have multiple divergent tails to a story, but somehow tie up at the end in a very satisfying way. Also, each of those novels has a central unifying backdrop. In Bleak House, it's the High Court of Chancery. In the Little Dorrit, it's the poor house. In Our Mutual Friend, it's the Thames, which runs through everyone's lives in one way or another.
Representative quote: "So . . . wishing you well in the way you go, we now conclude with the observation that perhaps you'll go it."
You might not like it if: The book is roughly 900 pages long, and you reject that on a very fundamental level.
How to get it: So many ways. You should not have trouble finding this one. Also, I recommend watching the excellent 1998 miniseries in conjunction with your reading. It will be so much easier to keep track of all the characters if you can picture Anna Friel, Steven Mackintosh, Paul McGann, Keeley Hawes, Timothy Spall, David Morrissey, etc.
Connection to previous Wreckage: Dickens was a fan of Elizabeth Gaskell's work, such as the novel Mary Barton (Rec. #57).
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