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Our Mutual Friend

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Our Mutual Friend

By: Charles Dickens
Narrated by: Jim Killavey
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About this listen

 John Harmon returns from exile expecting to receive an inheritance, but knows that he must marry a stranger, Bella Wilfer, in order to collect. He fakes his own death and takes on a new identity in order to observe her first.

Some of the memorable characters in this, the last completed Dickens novel, include Bella who, unlike other Dickens heroines, cannot be accused of unnatural virtue; the insolent barrister Eugene Wrayburn; the amiable Boffin; and the rascal Silas Wegg.

Not a little Dickens: peruse our full list of Charles Dickens titles.
Click here to see all the titles in our Charles Dickens collection.©1988 JimCin Recordings (P)1988 JimCin Recordings Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire

Critic reviews

"With a cast of characters that covers the whole spectrum of London life, Dickens weaves a tapestry of tales that are by turn funny, moving and tragic." (School Library Journal)
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This ebook has turned out to be a very disappointing experience. The voice of Jim Killavey comes across as electronic as if being read by a computer - possibly because it was originally produced 20 years ago.

In addition Jim Killavey does not have the breadth of characterisation that one gets from, say, Martin Jarvis or Gerald Dickens. This is further complicated by the fact that it is read in American english and therefore the London accents, or for that matter pronunciations, do not come across. In some sections it gives the impression of taking place in the wild west.

Having said that the diction is clear and after a while I stopped trying to translate back into cockney.

With the benefit of hindsight I would have been better off with one of the other ebook presentations of Our Mutual Friend.

Disappointing presentation

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The story is ruined by the narrator. Totally wrong for Dickens. I had to give up listening.

Disappointing version

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The robotic nature of this narration does a huge disservice to this novel. It sounds like a synthetic, computerised voice. I listened for five minutes, then tried a couple of later chapters but it is just the same. Unlistenable and a total waste of £2.99
Very upsetting because I have not experienced this problem with your add on narration before.

Horribly disappointing

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Would you try another book written by Charles Dickens or narrated by Jim Killavey?

This is the fourth Dickens audio-book I have started and the only one I have abandoned. I had thoroughly enjoyed all the others and through complacency I failed to listen to the sample before buying this - such a bad mistake. The narration is so bad I gave up listening 20 minutes in. I was driving and carried on in silence for another hour rather than have this astonishingly bad rendition distract and annoy me.I'm sure Jim Killavey is a super person - but this sounded like a cross between Kryten and Stephen Hawking. It destroyed the image of Dickensian London and replaced it, as others have said, with the Wild West.I have bought another version - its that bad.This is the only review I have written to date as I would like to help others avoid making the same mistake.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

In ways I would not have been able to imagine. This isn't just about an American accent - it sounds like it has been run through a computer programme making much of it incomprehensible and the rest unpalatable.

Did Our Mutual Friend inspire you to do anything?

Buy a better copy and start again.

Avoid at all costs

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Couldn't agree more with everything that Keith says. Well, it's taught me to listen every time to the samples. I just can't listen to this- so am going to pay again for another version.

Very disappointed

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