I'm So Mad At Dickens!!!

It’s a good thing Dickens is gone, cause I might give him a knock on the head if he was still alive. Ok, it’s not that bad, but whatever you do, don’t do this!!!

So I’m listening to Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend (spoiler alert). I was liking it a good deal for the first half of the book (no surprise there), but then he made me very upset. Here’s what he did. He had this one character who I really liked, might have been my favorite character in the whole book, and who had come into a fortune. The guy was an incredibly generous old soul with goodwill towards all. He and his wife were both this way and complimented each other splendidly. He also had a very evident simpleness about him which was very endearing and some neat mannerisms. This is how he was for a whole half the book.

Then, Dickens did it. Without any warning whatsoever, he suddenly changed this awesome character into an absolute miser. Proud, distrustful, thinking himself very cunning. The whole point was the alluring affect of money which was well used in the context of the plot, but I was not ok with it for two reasons. First, I just loved the guy. There are a couple characters in this story that really keep you interested and he was one of them. It was his goodness and simplicity that made him so interesting. I simply could not forgive Dickens for doing this to such a character. I felt injured and like a good 20% of the story’s draw had just gone away. The second reason is that it was totally out of the blue. I would have expected better from Dickens. It was totally and obviously without hint. It was jus BAM, now he’s a miser. There was no gentle transition. No screaming and kicking transition. It was terrible.

Don’t let me keep you from this book though. It’s quite masterful. Even despite this terrible catastrophe, I’m totally planing to finish it. Just please, don’t do this in your own story.