Cocktail Talk: Our Mutual Friend, Part I
In the past (relatively speaking), I had a Cocktail Talk from Our Mutual Friend, by your-pal-and-mine Mr. Charles Dickens (really, check out all the Charles Dickens Cocktail Talk posts, and revel in my love of his work). It was a post focused on the pub in the book, and as usual with Dickens – who loved a good pub – a fantastic bit of bar description. Now, in the present (relatively speaking, as it slips away and shows up again as I type), I’ve just finished re-reading (third time? Fourth? They’ll be more) Our Mutual Friend, I realized it was mad to not have more, because there are so many good Cocktail Talk-style quotes in this book about dust (you’ll need to read the book to understand that), wealth, society (still incredible relevant on those points as a reflection of today’s society), jealousy, violence (those too), love, and trust. More, too, really. It was the last finished novel for the 1800s Chuck D, and if not my favorite (I suppose, if forced to pick, it might be Bleak House, but that’s impossibly hard to pin down), right up there. Heck, there are so many good quotes in it, I might just turn this blog into an Our Mutual Friend site, starting with this rum note:
“Bring me round to the Bower,” said Silas, when the bargain was closed, “next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.”
–Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
