A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (Book the First: Recalled to Life)
I have unpleasant memories of A Christmas Carol (6th grade), Great Expectations (9th grade), this book (9th?), and maybe Hard Times (not sure). Last year I decided that any opinion formed at 12-14 is worth revisiting and read Our Mutual Friend. I was horrified to discover that I enjoyed its plot, characters, and messages in spite of the things I'd hated about Dickens in the past - the wordiness, the melodrama, the weird attitudes toward women (in Our Mutual Friend some of the characters including her husband band together to teach a woman a lesson like she's a naughty child).
I'm rereading A Tale of Two Cities 18 years later and what a surprise - my teenaged self's judgment may have been wrong. It's interesting and worth reading, and I'm enjoying it. I like the characters and I'm interested in what's going to happen to them. It's also got a lot of humor that I know I missed at fourteen.
Summary and comments about the first book under the cut.
Chapter 1 The Period sets the scene in 1775 with the famous opening: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
The monarchs are, of course, George III, Charlotte Sophia, Louis XIV, and Marie Antoinette. While the nobility rests easy in their assumption that nothing will change, the public indulge in an interest in spiritualism. Meanwhile, earthly messages have come from the American colonies, "which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race" than any communications received via spiritualist means.
France is a place of economic turmoil and religious oppression. There are trees in the French and Norwegian woods already marked to become guillotines later. England is the victim of a crime wave where the death penalty is applied indiscriminately to petty thieves and atrocious murderers.
Chapter 2 The Mail - In this violent climate, the passengers treat each other with suspicion as they plod alongside the mail carriage in the the murky cold weather. Dickens sets a suspenseful scene well; the steaming mist is "like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none" as a lone horseman startles them all, including the trigger-nervous guards. The bank messenger Jerry tells Mr. Jarvis Lorry, one of the passengers, that Mademoiselle will be waiting for him in Dover. Mr. Lorry sends him back with the puzzling reply "Recalled to life."
Chapter 3 Night Shadows
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbor is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
The messenger Jerry and Mr. Lorry both worry over his message. Jerry is merely puzzled, but Mr. Lorry has uneasy dreams of digging up a man, unsure whether he'll care to be brought back to life after nearly eighteen years. (Quite a coincidence that it's been ~18 years since I first read this book.)
Chapter 4 The Preparation - Descriptions of his person and behavior reveal Mr. Lorry to be an orderly, methodical, slightly vain man who has denied an emotional interior to become the reserved, anxiety-free representative of a bank. He awkwardly breaks the news to Mlle. Manette that her father, long presumed dead after his arrest in France, lives and has been released from prison. Although he carried the "orphan" to England himself, Mr. Lorry hasn't seen her since; he strongly prefers to treat all things as "business." Mlle. Manette fears the returned ghost of her father and swoons. Her red-haired female companion comes to her add and soundly scolds Mr. Lorry.
Chapter 5 The Wine-shop - A raucous, celebratory crowd of the poor descend on a broken wine cask, drinking ravenously even when it mixes with mud. The festive, slightly out of control atmosphere of the cold and miserable poor sating themselves foreshadows the later violence when the streets and the people will be stained with a different red substance. France is portrayed as a land of hunger, want, pollution, poverty, and depravity.
M. Defarge, the owner of the wine-shop, is presented as a strong, implacable, and good humored man hiding a hot anger. Mme. Defarge with her knitting is steady and watchful but shrewdly never sees anything. They are Mr. Lorry's contacts. M. Defarge has been keeping his former master Dr. Manette locked in a garret for the confused ex-prisoner's own peace of mind.
Chapter 6 The Shoemaker - Dazed, confused, faint of voice, lost, and old before his time, the prisoner works as a shoemaker and can only identify himself by his former location in the Bastille - 105 North Tower. His daughter instantly declares that she'll care for him. I have a heart of stone: I find the daughter's passionate speech as implausible as the way Mr. Lorry broke the news to her, but both are much much more enthralling than real life. I'm not moved so much as amused. Of course, no one in Dickens is every going to sensibly sum things up in terse sentences: "I'm your daughter. I'm sorry, but your wife passed away years ago. I'll take care of you from now on." or "Prepare yourself for a shock. Your father has been alive in prison this whole time. We're going to meet him in Paris."
During their departure for England, Mr. Lorry mulls over his concern whether Dr. Manette will ever be happy to be recalled to life.
All in all, the first book is an exciting, well-paced opening.
I'm rereading A Tale of Two Cities 18 years later and what a surprise - my teenaged self's judgment may have been wrong. It's interesting and worth reading, and I'm enjoying it. I like the characters and I'm interested in what's going to happen to them. It's also got a lot of humor that I know I missed at fourteen.
Summary and comments about the first book under the cut.
Chapter 1 The Period sets the scene in 1775 with the famous opening: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
The monarchs are, of course, George III, Charlotte Sophia, Louis XIV, and Marie Antoinette. While the nobility rests easy in their assumption that nothing will change, the public indulge in an interest in spiritualism. Meanwhile, earthly messages have come from the American colonies, "which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race" than any communications received via spiritualist means.
France is a place of economic turmoil and religious oppression. There are trees in the French and Norwegian woods already marked to become guillotines later. England is the victim of a crime wave where the death penalty is applied indiscriminately to petty thieves and atrocious murderers.
Chapter 2 The Mail - In this violent climate, the passengers treat each other with suspicion as they plod alongside the mail carriage in the the murky cold weather. Dickens sets a suspenseful scene well; the steaming mist is "like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none" as a lone horseman startles them all, including the trigger-nervous guards. The bank messenger Jerry tells Mr. Jarvis Lorry, one of the passengers, that Mademoiselle will be waiting for him in Dover. Mr. Lorry sends him back with the puzzling reply "Recalled to life."
Chapter 3 Night Shadows
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbor is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
The messenger Jerry and Mr. Lorry both worry over his message. Jerry is merely puzzled, but Mr. Lorry has uneasy dreams of digging up a man, unsure whether he'll care to be brought back to life after nearly eighteen years. (Quite a coincidence that it's been ~18 years since I first read this book.)
Chapter 4 The Preparation - Descriptions of his person and behavior reveal Mr. Lorry to be an orderly, methodical, slightly vain man who has denied an emotional interior to become the reserved, anxiety-free representative of a bank. He awkwardly breaks the news to Mlle. Manette that her father, long presumed dead after his arrest in France, lives and has been released from prison. Although he carried the "orphan" to England himself, Mr. Lorry hasn't seen her since; he strongly prefers to treat all things as "business." Mlle. Manette fears the returned ghost of her father and swoons. Her red-haired female companion comes to her add and soundly scolds Mr. Lorry.
Chapter 5 The Wine-shop - A raucous, celebratory crowd of the poor descend on a broken wine cask, drinking ravenously even when it mixes with mud. The festive, slightly out of control atmosphere of the cold and miserable poor sating themselves foreshadows the later violence when the streets and the people will be stained with a different red substance. France is portrayed as a land of hunger, want, pollution, poverty, and depravity.
M. Defarge, the owner of the wine-shop, is presented as a strong, implacable, and good humored man hiding a hot anger. Mme. Defarge with her knitting is steady and watchful but shrewdly never sees anything. They are Mr. Lorry's contacts. M. Defarge has been keeping his former master Dr. Manette locked in a garret for the confused ex-prisoner's own peace of mind.
Chapter 6 The Shoemaker - Dazed, confused, faint of voice, lost, and old before his time, the prisoner works as a shoemaker and can only identify himself by his former location in the Bastille - 105 North Tower. His daughter instantly declares that she'll care for him. I have a heart of stone: I find the daughter's passionate speech as implausible as the way Mr. Lorry broke the news to her, but both are much much more enthralling than real life. I'm not moved so much as amused. Of course, no one in Dickens is every going to sensibly sum things up in terse sentences: "I'm your daughter. I'm sorry, but your wife passed away years ago. I'll take care of you from now on." or "Prepare yourself for a shock. Your father has been alive in prison this whole time. We're going to meet him in Paris."
During their departure for England, Mr. Lorry mulls over his concern whether Dr. Manette will ever be happy to be recalled to life.
All in all, the first book is an exciting, well-paced opening.