Book I, Chp. 01-06

[Tristram]

Mary Lou wrote: "I'm known at my dentist's office as the Reader, and told that I'm the only person the people there know who still reads actual books. So, all of us here are "unusual" together. And I don't think we..."

All I can say then is that there should be lots more of unusual people! :-)

[Tristram]

Kim wrote: "The Last Dickens Novel Phiz Illustrated

Aware that his friend Browne's essentially comedic and theatrical style of illustration was beginning to look somewhat dated to his serious-minded Victorian..."

The tastes of the time might have changed but for me, Phiz is as much of an Inimitable in his craft as Dickens is in writing. It is true, the generally light-hearted and detailed style of Phiz's always seemed to lend itself as much to the illustration of 18th century novels - Fielding, or Smollett - as to Dickens, but I regret it deeply that Dickens decided to terminate the artistic cooperation with Phiz, who showed that he could also do "dark plates". I am also dismayed to find that Dickens found it in himself to stop working with a man who accompanied him through so many successful novels. I'd be too sentimental and loyal to do such a thing, but Dickens was probably a businessman foremost. As far as I know, Phiz took it very ill, saying that "Dickens probably thinks that a new hand would give his old puppets a fresh look."

[Julie]

Tristram wrote: "Dear Curiosities,

Now we are starting with Dickens’s second historical novel, according to some readers the one with the best story but at the same time the most un-Dickensian (for want of humour)..."

Well, I have done my re-read, and I would say still Part 1 of Tale of Two Cities is my favorite, favorite Dickens. Short list of things I like best:

1. The narrator. Okay, fine, Tristram, it's overboard to have a character write "Blood" and then the narrator point out yes indeedy, there will be blood, but I excuse this on the ground that it does such great chronological positioning ("The time was to come...") and we kind of need this, because this isn't just a historical novel but a historical novel that skips around in time, so it's really confusing what time we're in at any particular moment. As you point out yourself (and I had the same take), it's easy to read that this is a novel about the French Revolution and think the historicization at the start of it is taking us right into the French Rev, so I think the narrator's purpose here is to remind us NOT YET. And there are just so many gorgeous, gorgeous descriptions here, from the big-picture philosophical musings (the opening, the part about not knowing each other) to the detail of people scraping so far down into the dregs of the spilled wine that they leave criss-cross marks on the ground in the emptied puddles. LOVE THIS.

2. The gothic spookiness: the coach on the road, the horrific staircase up to the prisoner's tower, the dream Lorry has on the road (does ANYONE do creepy dreams as well as Dickens?) and the way it's repeated as a question at the very end of the section. LOVE THIS.

3. I really like the Defarges. I like it that I don't know if I can trust them. I can't honestly remember how Mr. D's story works out right now and I don't know reading him here whether I will end up loving or hating him but he is intriguing: obviously some really good impulses, obviously plenty of reason for them to be turned in the wrong direction. LOVE THIS.

4. It kills me when they ask Manette what his name is and he says "One Hundred and Five, North Tower." Every last time, it kills me. I don't think Dickens said one single thing about the effects of imprisonment in the entire spankin' long novel he wrote about it right before this that hits as hard as those 6 words. LOVE THIS.

5. Lorry and his 'just business, I'm just here to do the business!' He obviously cares about the Manettes and I think he's adored Lucy since she was a tiny tragic thing, but he just tucked it away as more than he could deal with at the time and nothing he could do about it anyway. Well, now he's got to deal with it. I want to see what he'll do next. I agree there's potential for comedy with Lorry but he's also no buffoon: it's a delicate comedy. LOVE THIS.

6. THE PLOT! As I read through the comments I'm reminded we come to Dickens with different premises. I like the stripped-down Dickens: I liked Hard Times, too. Although there are exceptions, my least favorite Dickens chapters tend to be those where supporting characters are just sitting around doing nothing except parodying some side thing Dickens got annoyed with the week he wrote the installment. There are plenty of exceptions to this, but on the whole I infinitely prefer the opening to this book, where we get just a few characters and they all seem necessary to the story (Jerry being a possible outlier), to the opening of Little Dorrit, where we get a whole cast but can't exactly figure out what they're doing there or who we're supposed to care about exactly and why. This book is off and revving. There is no way I would fail to turn the next page. LOVE THIS.

[Julie]

Mary Lou wrote: "And then there's Lucie, the next Mary Hogarth in a long succession of them. So soon after Amy, I'm not sure I can manage Lucie. She's already swooning, for heaven's sake. Will she show some of Dolly Varden's backbone? Mr. Lorry is careful not to shock the poor delicate flower, and her servant (a woman seemingly with some gumption, thank the Lord!) is overly protective of her, as well."

Normally I am right with you on this, Mary Lou, but Part-One Lucie I can take. Her alarm seems to me entirely reasonable. And I like that she's very conflicted on all this: before she sees him she actually refers to her father as "it."

Okay, sure she falls into line as soon as she does see him, and sure her speech is "stagey," as Tristram points out, but it hit me anyway unlike pretty much all the rest of the Mary Hogarth heroine speeches. Maybe because for once the drama is warranted, and maybe because there is such a reckoning going on here. Lucie has just had a great deal dropped in her inexperienced lap and her response is look, there is a *lot* to cry about here. She's calling for weeping for herself as well as her father and mother. This is no Amy Dorrit, and she's got work to do and she gets right to it.

[Peter]

Julie wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Dear Curiosities,

Now we are starting with Dickens’s second historical novel, according to some readers the one with the best story but at the same time the most un-Dickensian (fo..."

Julie

Welcome back. I totally agree with you.

[Julie]

Tristram wrote: "I actually also have a more down-to-earth question: I cannot make head or tail of Mr. Lorry’s going down to Dover when he receives, on his way, a message from his employers and answers them with the above-quoted words. Obviously, the letter contained an inquiry as to what he found out with regard to Dr. Manette. But if he is leaving London, why did he not first of all see his employers and tell them what he had found out? That does not make a whole lot of sense to me, but maybe you can give me one or two hints."

I think I can explain this. His employers already know everything. "Recalled to life" is their codeword: it's not news. The update on the road is because they've been talking to Lucy and she asked them to please make sure Lorry waits for her before he gets on the boat, so she doesn't have to go by herself: the original plan was that they would meet in Paris:

“I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of his waiting for me here.”

Remember the message from Jerry is "Wait at Dover for Mam’selle."

Here again, Lucy is more sensible than other Dickens heroines who would have insisted 'don't bother about me! I am of no consequence!' It was kind of a stupid plan to send a 17 year old girl alone into a country on the brink of political upheaval. Maybe the bank doesn't know she has no one to go with her, but at any rate, Lucy puts a stop to it.

[Julie]

John wrote: "Peter, with regard to your question about the opening words, it does strike me as so prescient for the world of today. I did not fully understand the historical significance of it, but it sure ring..."

Me too, John.

[~ Cheryl ~]

Julie wrote: "Well, I have done my re-read, and I would say still Part 1 of Tale of Two Cities is my favorite, favorite Dickens. Short list of things I like best:..."


This is why I always wish there was a 'like' button on these posts! Your list was worth reading twice through. Such good observations!

[Tristram]

Julie,

It's so nice to have you back in our reading circle! Those six points you made I can almost wholly subscribe to. The Tale is an entirely different Dickens novel, not as meandering, or let's say: vast, as the bulk of Dickens's work and still it is incredibly densely woven. The atmosphere of gloom is as thick as in Little Dorrit and Dickens's philosophical excursions are indeed spot-on.

Thanks for clearing up that point about Mr Lorry's message. What you said there has, as we say in German, hand and foot.

[Julie]

Tristram wrote: "Julie,

It's so nice to have you back in our reading circle!"

Thank you--I missed it!