A Tale of Two Cities

I read A Tale of Two Cities a few months back now. I was reading it for a really long time in patches, because of business and all, but then after this weird plot hump, I was reading madly and though still at the pace of a snail, I read like a very enthused and persistent snail, and then returned to the book to do it justice, as it does deserve that. So here's my take on it, finally. Two Cities was written by Charles Dickens and was first published in 1859. Let's summarise.

So the book is has two parts, the first is pre-revolution and the other post. A lot of people say Dickens tends to start late in his novels, but from what I've read of him, i don't think he does, but for this one, thus far in my reading. It's very very slow, but you get some important facts that will be weaved into importance by the end of the bok, and you get to know the characters well. There is no clear main character, like there are in other Dickens novels, but rather a collective cast. There's Lucie, the kind-hearted and beautiful blonde, her father, Doctor Manette, Mr. Lorry, the businessman who brought the two together after the Doc was locked in the Bastille for 18 years, Sydney Carton, the loser who's devotedly in love with Lucy, Charles Darnay, and Lucie's all-around-good-guy husband. The Doctor's the big mystery for the first bit of the book, being a traumatised ex-prisoner, who was torn from his Lucie when she was yet born, and he having no remembrance as to why he was arrested. Then you clear that up, Lucie healing him, and you watch Darnay and Carton be in lpve with Lucie, and Lucie settle in in Dover with Lorry's help. Then the revolution happens, bringing the issues for the rest of the book. Darnay helps a guy out in France because he's an ex-aristocrat there (big secret) and may help, but he ends up being arrested, no help from the evil Defarges, particularly Madame (she cuts a guy's head off at one point.) Doc proves himself useful, but in the end can't help, and you finally end up with Carton tragically saving the day. I'll leave it at that.

What shall we concentrate on? Characters, of course. As with my opinion of most Dickens novels, as bitter or judgmental or unfair this may seem to more adoring fans, I find the interesting characters limited. Actually, this is not my favourite Dickens novel.The multiple character thing was a kick for it, and the historical context was a bit too overplayed. You also get lots of imagery, showing a typical landscape of the time, like a street in Paris, and the description is always loaded with such obvious metaphors and symbols that it becomes hard to look at without a smirk...at times...let's qualify. Anyways, that sounded worse than it should've. Sorry about that Dickens, I know it's your birthday today and all. Sorry.

Moving on: the focus, being it a multi-character thing with snapshots of very strong characterising scenes for individual minor characters, I'll just analyse one of such scenes.

'I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.'

(XIX)

Awww right? That's Carton talking to Lucie. You know, I hardly ever like romantic speeches, unless they're Shakespearean but even then, it's more for the writing than the meaning. But this one, probably my favourite confessions of love. It's so sweet and honest and profound... but on with it!

'I wish you to know' Well that's said often enough, but usually it's not said so genuinely. to actually say something so that the other knows, without expecting return, is really rare. Of course it is a bit cruel to say then, since the other, being unable to act for the speaker, is forced to live in empathetic guilt. Lucie starts crying here because the situations all so sad, and she does do things for him afterwards, as in she's very kind to him and implores Darnay (her husband) to be kind to him too. This earns him the right to be near her, which you could imagine, is everything for Carton. I mean, reading Two Cities now can make you think they're all exaggerating how bad a person Carton is. I mean he's a drunk but he's smart, remorseful, and hasn't exactly killed anyone. On the other hand, nobody seems to care that Darnay's uncle is a ridiculously terrible person and that he's been hiding his identity. On top of that, early in the book, Carton saves Darnay's life. So yeah, a bit screwy, but in Dickens' tie and considering how pretty and fragile a girl Lucie is (she faints every few chapters), I guess being a drunkard's a lot worse. Getting back to the point, considering all this, asking Lucie to know that he loves her is already asking quite a lot, but his understanding of this shows the difference between him and just a typical rambling drunkard. He's got limits and views himself with sufficient, even over the top, disdain. So I like Carton; he's sincere, humble, remorseful, and sees things deeply (even if nothing physically will change, he cares that she knows and that's all he will ask for.)

Five words done. Phew. We'll skip 'that'. 'you have been the last dream of my soul.' You have been the last dream of my soul. You have been the last dream of my soul. You have been the last dream of my soul. That's just beautiful ain't it. You have been the last dream of my soul. Alright, so I love that he says 'have been' instead of 'are'. Are is true and well, but the 'have been' is great because it doesn't say how long it's been that way but that he's been loving her quietly as a dream. That's just very nice. That you dream of something separately, alone and quietly and it turns out so beautifully in text. And the 'dream' is nice too when you think into it. A dream is not an aspiration or imposition or plan or goal or anything really; it's air slipping through your ears in a particularly colourful way. You enjoy it, and hope on it sometimes, but in the end you know that it's air, and that it won't amount to anything, probably, but you love it and need it and grow from it anyways. A dream is the world your sleeping self walks through, that it creates or itself, instantaneously, and reacts too honestly, for no one can see you. It is the mirror of your mind at it's most creative, showing everything you feel in a form that can almost fool you to be honest. When you wake from a dream, if it is wonderful, you try to remember it, and often you cannot because there is so much fiction in it and it has been so ingrained in you that before you know it, it's fallen into the quicksand of your identity. If it is really wonderful, it will find it's way above the swirls to once again grant upon your mind the playhouse of a million wishes unknown, desires unadmitted and thoughts unexpressed. Dreams are a perfect honesty that surpasses reason, or expression. They are beyond expression and hope but what you honestly want, and in the end of the day, when none of those dreams seem possible, you get to live it in the comfort of a bed, and you get to hope at least for a night, that perhaps dreams are worth more than air, which certainly they are.

Next sentence. The degradation. I love when people say 'but that'. It always trips me up. Don't know why, never will get used to it. Well, the goodness of Lucie 'stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me.' Again, this is the LAST dream. This is a comeback spark, an underdog rising, the Red Sox coming out of nowhere for the Series. Don't know who Babe was for Carton, but he's been broken, and it sees to him that he's gone, beyond repair, and yet now there's a spark and he knows that maybe there's something left standing after the storm which is now only beginning o make it's appearance. Shadows are very much like dreams. An every-shifting form of truth that is frank and honest, but momentary, being created and killed by the sun, being blown by no wind but the movement of the earth. A shadow again, an elegant image, and Lucie has made it rise. She has resurrected something from Carton's former societal self, whenever that existed. But shadows and dreams, but better than a blank canvass presenting a cold sleep.

'Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever.' Same sort of stuff really. I can go on, but this blog is about to reach the pinnacle of decadence, and I feel embarrassed enough already. However, as promised, these blogs go unedited. First write, and that's it, so let's push on forward. Yeah, so the remorse, mmhm, never...again, mmhm, whispers, yup, dreams, shadows, whispers...mmhm...old voices like old shadows, mmhm, old, like resurrect, like never-again-and-yet...mmhm...impelling upward, yeah, that's heaven, or maybe Carton's lower than the rest of society and upward's just normality...maybe, like he could stand upright again instead of hiding amongst the shrubs...right...mmhm, and silence, of course, we need silence..........shhh...... there you go, right, and thought for ever but not...again, right. So overall good sentence, right? It provides the time to get these ideas down if they weren't already. Moving on.

'I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight.' Great, we're almost there, you nonexistent readers. Don't you love when people say 'sloth'? It's so funny. I bet the animal came first. You know, I think Conrad, yeah yeah I know Conrad says Sloth frequently. These pet words man, like Dickens' 'incessantly', are so fun. Anyways, yeah we have again unformed ideas, i.e. dreams, shadows, whispers, voices, and then 'afresh', 'anew'. We all know. The meat is the last part. Isn't it great? I have had unformed ideas of...fighting out the abandoned fight.' Fighting out the abandoned fight...Fighting out the abandoned fight...Fighting out the abandoned fight...Fighting out the abandoned fight...you've got to memorise that. That's wonderful. So there's obviously a contradiction going on there. If you're fighting it out, it's not abandoned. Then how do you do it? Well, simple: Just abandon one and then say psych! So Carton abandoned love, a long while back it seems, but now, knowing he's beaten already, he's going to tap the executioner on the shoulder and say 'hey man, I know I already threw the towel, but you wanna just step back in the ring and you could beat on me a bit more?' That's the part when the guy, let's call him Apollo Creed, says 'Buddy, you kiddin' me? I dun mind, yu know, bu' you, you betta mind cus you're gon' ha' th' shi' knocked outta ya. What are yu, suicidal man? O' jus' stupid?' Then Rocky's all, 'Nah man, I jus' had this dream, yu know, where I win. I jus' beatya. I beatya! (laughs) and I know that ain't possible. It's jus' a dream, ya know? Jus' a shadow, a wakko whisper in my mind that I thought yu beat outta me las' time round but this time, ah man, I dunno man but there's somethin' goin' on that tells me tha', well, things not bein' all good and all lately, I jus' gotta fightya. I lost, I kno, to yu. You gon' kill me, I kno. But I dunno. Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I' dum. But I ain't suicidal...nah, not that. I' livin' here. Livin'. So ge' in the ring an les figh' the abandoned fight. Beat the shi' outta me, but lemme figh the abandoned fight.' And the guys like, 'Alrigh' Rocky' and they make it to the last round and times called and sure enough, he loses but he fought, and that's what counts. And by Rocky I mean Carton. Sounds like something that should come out in Dead Poet's Society doesn't it: Fighting out the abandoned fight.

One more sentence. Let's see if I have another digression left in me. Come on....tangent. 'A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.' But I wish you to know that you inspired it. That's just inspirational in itself isn't it. Gosh it's so much easier to write correctly. Anyways, there's the 'I wish you to know' again. How sweet. We've gone full circle. She is not the dream then, but the prospect of love with her is. He's grateful for her having made him a dream, one he is very pleased with, which ends in nothing, as most dreams do, but has helped him live again, to fight out the abandoned fight! Ha ha!....aw don't you just love Literature? I love you, literature dear. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing. Ends in nothing. Well, he understands, we've gotten that. Often one may protest too much but this, I think, is not one of those times. He, I believe, actually believes he's going down a dead end labelled dead end just because he likes the idea of hoping it's not one. And leaves the sleeper where he lay down. Where he lay down. Nothing's changed, yet again, and well, when has the sleeper ever woken otherwise...unless he's been sleepwalking. But there's just a worth in that meaningless statement because of the idea of lying, isn't there. It's so pathetic. You're like a beaten animal, that spent a bit of time writhing and then just gave in, lay there a bit. So it's a beaten animal now, maybe a half a gazelle carcass left by Apollo or something, there dreaming beyond the grave, prancing about and obtaining the crazy romantic dream of abandoned heroism and when he wakes, what is he but a dying piece of meat? Well, the difference is that those moments of prancing were bearable, and you have inspired it, and you have inspired it. Now I don't think Lucie's nearly special enough to merit such a tribute. She's nice and wonderful, and generous and hardworking, and i I met here in real life, I probably would be a huge admirer of her, but in a book, she's just another amazing person that's pretty easy to write by now. Well, aside from that, the speech is great, huh. Everything;s so evocative...has you talking...for ages, Well, hope you enjoyed some of that. The tangent wasn't there was it, this last time. Oh well. King Lear is coming soon, so maybe there.

For now though...

Read folks, Read.


Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.

"Buried how long?"

"Almost eighteen years."

"I hope you care to live?"

"I can't say."

Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave.

"Buried how long?"

"Almost eighteen years."

"You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?"

"Long ago."

(III)


A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard to say which was which.

(VI)


'Father,'said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep at arm's length and to have the stool well between them: "what's a Resurrection-Man?"

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, "How should I know?"

"I thought you knowed everything, father," said the artless boy.

"Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, "he's a tradesman."

"What's his goods, father?" asked the brisk Young Jerry.

"His goods," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is a branch of Scientific goods."

"Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?" asked the lively boy.

"I believe it is something of that sort," said Mr. Cruncher.

"Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I'm quite growed up!"

Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. "It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit for."

(XX)

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always.

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's dominion.

But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.--"Like me."

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, "I am the resurrection and the life."

(XXXIX)

I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy.

(XL)

'There is prodigious strength,' I answered him, 'in sorrow and in despair.'

(XL)

'I am weary, weary, weary - worn down by misery. I cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand.'

(XL)

It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.'

(XLV)