A Tale of Two Cities: An Introduction

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Wherein the Dickens Chronological Reading Club (Jan 2022-Autumn 2024) introduces our twenty-first read, A Tale of Two Cities.

(Banner Image: from the 1935 film starring Ronald Colman.)

By Rach and Boze

“You know that you are recalled to life?”

First, a personal note from Rach:

Friends, most of us have experienced it: that one book that changes your life. That one book that is the springboard to other obsessions, all of which lead back to the source. That one book to which everything else begins to relate. It perhaps speaks to one’s own particular need at a difficult moment or crossroads, though it still grows with the reader. That one book that comforts, challenges, inspires, surprises; that ignites the imagination and breaks your heart. (This is why Boze wanted me to take the lead on this particular intro, though, as in everything, we tend to constitute a sort of Single Dickensian Unit, and are tackling it together.)

My own beginning with A Tale—and I have read or listened to it several dozen times—began with an audiobook borrowed from our local library while, poor as a church mouse, I made Irish dance dresses for a living in my beloved, damp basement workshop.

I didn’t know what to make of it at first, other than that I adored the reader’s dusky voice, and the atmosphere he created with it. The power of the book, on the first read, only crept up on me as it neared its end, when I finally realized where Dickens was going with it—which is why we will try to avoid any significant spoilers here for those who are unfamiliar with the finale. (This is also why we will often omit specific character names in this introduction, so as not to give too much focus to any one of our ensemble characters.) But as with so many creative works, a powerful or perfect ending illumines and lifts all that has gone before.

Rach’s “Revolution Journals”

Well, I read and reread A Tale of Two Cities, listened and relistened to it, so often that I had the final pages memorized, and much else. I sought out old Victorian and Edwardian stage adaptations, and even contacted a descendant of the Edwardian actor-manager Sir John Martin-Harvey (who played the lead role in an adaptation called The Only Way for nearly forty years, between 1899-1937). I even wrote my own stage adaptation—just for the fun of it. (For notes on audio and film adaptations, please see below.) I began to seek out nonfiction books about the French Revolution, and for many, many months—nearly two years—had a daily “Revolution Hour,” during which I read and took extensive notes on Robespierre, Danton, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, the Terror of 1793-94, and anything related.

But the novel is an odd one for Dickens, perhaps more akin to his only other historical novel, Barnaby Rudge. And it has, arguably, a less successful female lead and less successful comic characters than in, say, Little Dorrit or Nicholas Nickleby. But it also has one of Dickens’s most complex and fascinating characters in addition to one of his most iconic villains. It also has some of his most thematically coherent writing; things come around full circle. Imagery, words, and phrases creep back into the story at the most fulfilling moments. In this regard, it is “a far, far better thing” than nearly any novel ever written.

If we might make three humble suggestions for a first-time reader, they would be these:

  1. Give the book time—it grows on you, and especially upon rereading.
  2. Try not to think of it as a “historical novel,” with detailed and accurate depictions of historical events (e.g. the fall of the Bastille). No “big names” of the Revolution are ever mentioned—e.g. Robespierre—and a few historical events—e.g. the September massacres—are focused more on the impact they have on our ensemble, than on the event itself. Rather, one might think of A Tale as a parable or fairy tale which happens to be set within the dramatic events of Revolutionary Paris, and in London.
  3. Spoilers of this novel are ubiquitous, so we’d recommend not looking up much in advance if you are lucky enough not to know the finale.

We’re so excited for our Club to begin this journey together! But first, a few quick links:

  1. Historical Context–Dickens’s Life at the Time
  2. The Novel’s Historical Context: Revolutionary France
  3. Thematic Considerations
  4. A Note on the Illustrations
  5. Reading Schedule
  6. Additional References & Adaptations
  7. General Mems for the #DickensClub
  8. A Look-Ahead to Weeks One and Two of A Tale of Two Cities
  9. Works Cited

Historical Context–Dickens’s Life at the Time

“Every human creature is constituted to be that profound mystery and secret to every other.”

Dickens in 1859, by William Powell Frith

In our ongoing Club discussion on “Dickens as ‘The Haunted Man,’” we can hardly do better than to consider the regretful, melancholy tone used for one of our leading characters in A Tale of Two Cities. Unfortunately, Dickens’s marriage to Catherine had been breaking down for some time.

Dickens intended A Tale of Two Cities to be the inaugural novel for his new periodical All the Year Round, and worked on it steadily through the summer and fall of 1859. It was a period of torpor and dissatisfaction, abetted by his recent separation from Catherine. According to Ackroyd, a “general feeling of dilapidation and weariness” had settled over him fog-like, and in a letter to Forster he wrote, “I am a wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that gets on somehow.”

from a larger sketch by Daniel Maclise

Thus the writing of the novel proved a welcome distraction. As the story took possession of him, he settled into a routine whereby he would travel up to London on Monday afternoons, spend Tuesdays working on the periodical in the office at Wellington Street, and return to Gad’s Hill Place on Wednesday where he would labor at the Tale until the end of the week. The sheer number of revisions and deletions in the manuscript at this stage suggests the care and thoroughness of his efforts. And help came from a surprising source—Thomas Carlyle, who, exuding a certain antipathy for fiction, had criticized several of Dickens’s earlier novels. At the time Carlyle was England’s leading expert on the French Revolution, having written a definitive three-volume work on the subject, and when Dickens informed him that he was writing a novel set during the period Carlyle sent him a small library of historical works. Dickens read them all, along with a number of unrelated books—Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni—whose images and scenes found their way into the story, refracted by his imagination. (“He was often susceptible to stray influences of this kind,” writes Ackroyd, which would open him to charges of plagiarism when people read the finished book and realized it had striking similarities to Watts Phillips’ recently opened play The Dead Heart. Though that might be akin to attributing the genius of Hamlet to The Spanish Tragedy or the Ur-Hamlet.)

The main idea of the story, however, according to Dickens, came from his 1857 experiences in acting the heroic role (to great effect) in Wilkie Collins’s stage melodrama, The Frozen Deep (Sanders 1). Likewise, Dickens’s fascination with the actress Ellen Ternan influenced the character of Lucie Manette, especially in the latter’s “hair, her facial expression and her earnest intense look” (Sanders 2).

Dickens’s earlier essays on the Revolution offer a glimpse into his politics, which are more nuanced than might be assumed from a casual reading of the novel. While he abhorred the mob violence of the Reign of Terror—and indeed, the crowd scenes in A Tale of Two Cities are probably the most famous depictions of that violence in popular culture—Dickens also felt that centuries of oppression had been responsible for stoking the mob uprisings. A decade previously he had written in the Examiner: “It was a struggle on the part of the people for social recognition and existence … It was a struggle for the overthrow of a system of oppression, which in its contempt of all humanity, decency, and natural rights, and in the systematic degradation of the people, had trained them to be the demons that they showed themselves when they rose up and cast it down for ever.” A timely lesson!

The Novel’s Historical Context: Revolutionary France*

*Note: Rach wants to post, in the coming weeks, a more in-depth “timeline” for those interested.

The novel begins in 1775 (though one might say that the hidden prologue is eighteen years earlier, in 1757), the year after the coronation of Louis XVI in France. We begin, however, in England, on the Dover road. Mr Lorry prepares to meet the young ward of Tellson’s Bank, Lucie Manette, who is to accompany him on a secret mission to Paris. They are to identify and “recall to life” a long-lost prisoner who has been, figuratively speaking, “buried alive” in the infamous Bastille prison for nearly two decades. This unjust imprisonment was the result of one of the abuses of the ancien régime: a lettre de cachet, by which an influential person could consign a man to prison with only the signature of the king and one of his ministers, without trial or accusation. Whether true or not, it was believed that such lettres were bought and sold blank, and ready to use for personal vindictiveness.

In the following “book” (“The Golden Thread”), we jump five years ahead, to 1780, when Darnay is tried for treason at the Old Bailey in London.

“Storming of the Bastille,” by Jean-Pierre Houël

We get to know our characters over the years between that trial and “the rising sea” of July 1789 when the people of Paris rose up against the hated old fortress of the Bastille. The Bastille had long been a symbol of the worst of the old regime, but the people had a more practical purpose in mind: they sought weapons to protect themselves from what they believed to be King Louis XVI’s gathering of forces to disrupt a revolution that was already in progress.

So, though we might say that this is the symbolic beginning of the Revolution—and Dickens doesn’t busy himself with any of the political nitty-gritty of the period—the Revolution properly started earlier: when Louis XVI, beset by a huge national debt (in large part because of France’s contributions to the American Revolution) and after years of bad harvests, starvation, and popular unrest, called a meeting of the Estates-General, a gathering of clergy, nobility, and elected commoner representatives from all over France which had not been summoned since 1614, in order to seek solutions to France’s current problems. The “Third Estate”—the commoners, represented by such men as the lawyer from Arras, Maximilien Robespierre—grew in their radical opposition to the injustice of the reality that each “Estate” received one vote per Estate rather than by head. Hence, the commoners—far and away the majority of the French people—were always outvoted by the clergy and nobility, who tended to vote together. How would true reform be possible? The influence of the Third Estate grew, as some of the clergy and nobility joined them in acts of solidarity and protest. On June 20, having been locked out of their place of meeting and trying to avoid the rain, representatives of the Third Estate adjourned to a nearby indoor tennis court. Here, in the famous “Tennis Court Oath,” the representatives took “a solemn oath not to disband until they had written a constitution for the kingdom” (Connelly 31).

The Oath of the Tennis Court, by David

This was only the beginning of an increasing radicalization over the years: Louis became a figurehead with little more than a “veto” power while the National Assembly—followed by the Constituent Assembly and Legislative Assembly—sought to create, then revise and maintain, a constitution for France. The king tried to flee with his family, and then was imprisoned; finally, both he and Marie Antoinette were executed by the same means as were many other political prisoners, which was proposed as a more humane form of capital punishment: the Guillotine.

By the time one of our leading characters is “drawn to the Lodestone Rock”—i.e. back to Paris—to aid an old servant, he arrives in the midst of a relatively new law against emigrants, followed by the infamous “September massacres” of 1792, where roughly 1,200 prisoners were brutally murdered by the populace in Paris, in fear of internal treason and spies.

Our story ends in late-1793, some months after the revolutionary government (led by the infamous Committee of Public Safety that included Robespierre) took control of France as the latter fought wars internal and external.

The fall of Robespierre was to come about seven months after our story’s concluding events.

Thematic Considerations

“It could not be otherwise”: Fate and Inevitability; The Consequences of Irresponsibility

“Drawn to the Lodestone Rock.” “It could not be otherwise.” Dickens uses these or similar phrases with fascinating double-effect. Just as our lead villain is a kind of Fate incarnate, so Dickens repeatedly suggests that both in our own personal lives as in the larger society “all things have worked together as they have fallen out.” Our choices, year after year—or lack of choice, like “an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea”—shape our destinies in many respects, but they are not unalterable, as with Scrooge on Christmas morning. Ultimately, a life can change in a moment, and be redeemed. We should never underestimate the goodness that we are capable of, if given encouragement and opportunity.

In terms of the larger society, while Dickens is ever wary and distrustful of mob uprisings, he also understood that it was a natural consequence of all the many years of suffering, abuse, and neglect of the poorer classes on the part of the nobility—the latter epitomized in Evrémonde brothers.

In the following passage, “Monseigneur” represents the affluent, cruel, and irresponsible nobility of the “Old Regime,” with all of their excesses:

“Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels.”

“Tell Wind and Fire where to stop”; “The Sea Rises”: Vengeance and Its Antidote

The best of times and the worst of times; water and fire; life and death; preservation and destruction. Such dichotomies are everywhere present in the novel, with such clever repetition—such “echoing footsteps”—that it is impossible to do them justice, even as a starting point.

Nonetheless, a few things to look for:

  • Notice who the fire is, and who the water, in the final scene with our leading villain.
  • The stormy waves and the fall of the Bastille—versus the calm of the river in Chapter 9 of Book the Third: “The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness.” (We might notice a connection here with the Sea in Dombey & Son; with the river leading inexorably to the Sea, and what “the waves were always saying.”)
  • If the answer isn’t “Vengeance,” what is it?

“That profound mystery and secret”: Secrets

There are secrets inevitable in every life; there are secrets that hurt oneself (as in our hero), and there are secrets that hurt others. There are also secrets of courage and goodness hidden in unlikely places. Don’t we all love characters who surprise us?

A few things to note:

  • The many times that “secrecy,” “secrets,” or “solitude” is mentioned. E.g. Dr Manette’s solitary confinement; another character being imprisoned “in secret.” “My own solitary heart”; “the last avowal of myself was made to you,” etc.
  • The entirety of Book the First’s Chapter 3 (“The Night Shadows”). As we read further, is this relating not only to a general theme, but to a specific character? In particular, this passage:

“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 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.”

“All my life might have been”: Time and Memory; Depression, Use, Regret, Disappointment

We only allude to this here as something to be aware of; Rach intends to write a separate post during our 2-month journey on the themes of “Time and Memory in A Tale of Two Cities.” The theme of “Memory”—in this case, too often of a regretful, self-destructive kind, has been present since the beginning of our chronological reading journey.

“I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father”: Orphanhood, Surrogate Fatherhood

One of our favorite subjects when considering A Tale of Two Cities is one that we hardly ever hear mentioned, but which your co-hosts have discussed together on our dual reading: the impact of orphanhood, and surrogate fathers, particularly centering on one of Dickens’s benevolent older single gentlemen, Mr. Lorry. (Recall, these benevolent single gentlemen are recurring figures—often surprising father figures—in Dickens, from the very beginning of our journey. E.g. Mr Pickwick; Mr Brownlow.) Too often, adaptations belittle or neglect Mr Lorry’s importance—or worse, make him little more than a stock, gruffly comic, character.

The allusions to both orphanhood and surrogate fatherhood in the novel are so subtle and quickly passed over that they are easy to miss. But if we might make a note of a couple of moments to be on the lookout for:

  • In Chapter 9 of Book the Third: “Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before.”
  • Arguably, the novel’s emotional and spiritual centers are the dual scenes of the night walk of our hero, preceded by a conversation with Mr Lorry in the same chapter. (Book the Third, Chapter 9.)
  • Is there another man who becomes an unlikely kind of surrogate father?

Doubling

A single note only: this theme, which we have discussed with nearly every one of Dickens’s novels (and occasionally, the Christmas Books), finds its apotheosis here, in several pairs: two prisoners, one literal and one figurative; a pair of lookalike men who couldn’t be more different in personality; our lead villain who has several possible “doubles”—or rather, foils—of her own.

“What’s a Resurrection-Man?”: Death, Burial, “Buried Alive”, Resurrection, Being “Recalled to Life”

Thematically, it is another brilliant stroke to have the novel’s central theme—being “buried alive,” and being “recalled to life”—echoed in the nickname of one of our “comic” character’s secret & unlawful professions: the grave-robber or “Resurrection-Man.” (Also, see the duality between Dr Manette and our leading character.) Also, note the allusions to “buried,” “dig,” “dug out,” “recall,” “recalled,” and other words related to death, burial, and resurrection.

The theme comes to a fulfillment in Book the Third, Chapter 9, and in the finale, with its Scriptural references and repetitions. See John 11:25: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

Other Scriptural parallels not directly alluded to, but perhaps worth considering:

  • The parable of the 11th-hour worker—see Matthew 20:1-16.
  • The parable of the prodigal son–see Luke 15:11-32.
  • The parable of another pair of sons: the one who said that he would do the Father’s will, but didn’t, versus the one who refused at first, but ended up doing it—see Matthew 21:28-31.

A Note on the Illustrations

There is something bittersweet about the original illustrations for A Tale of Two Cities, as they mark the ending of one of the great literary collaborations: Dickens and “Phiz” (Hablot Knight Browne). Phiz had saved the day back in Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, whose initial illustrator had committed suicide. Attempts to find a replacement finally resulted in Phiz’s appearance on the Dickensian stage.

Now, however, the relationship had cooled. Between Phiz illustrating for a rival publication of Dickens’s, in addition to Dickens’s sense that Phiz’s work wasn’t quite capturing the current mood of his writing, A Tale of Two Cities was to be the last of his novels that Phiz was to illustrate.

Reading Schedule

*note: We will read A Tale of Two Cities over the course of 8 weeks (followed by a 2-week break), with a summary and discussion wrap-up every other week.

Week/DatesChaptersNotes
Weeks 1 & 2: 2-15 Jan, 2024Book I, Chs. 1-6; Book II, Chs 1-5Our portions during the first two weeks were published in weekly parts between 30 April and 18 June, 1859.
Weeks 3 & 4: 16-29 Jan, 2024Book II, Chs. 6-18Our portions during Weeks 3 & 4 were published in weekly parts between 25 June and 13 Aug, 1859.
Weeks 5 & 6: 30 Jan to 12 Feb, 2024Book II, Chs 19-24; Book III, Chs 1-5Our portions during Weeks 5 & 6 were published in weekly parts between 20 Aug and 1 Oct, 1859.
Weeks 7 & 8: 13-26 Feb, 2024Book III, Chs 6-15Our portions during Weeks 7 & 8 were published in weekly parts between 8 Oct and 26 Nov, 1859.
The Dickens Chronological Reading Club’s Schedule for A Tale of Two Cities

Additional References & Adaptations

Our Audio Recommendations…

Rest in peace, Frank Muller

The first audio recording that Rachel listened to—and which she has listened to the most, is that read by, surprisingly, an American, Frank Muller (rest in peace), for Recorded Books. Muller’s trans-continental diction is reminiscent of old-time radio, and he is incomparable for his ability to create an atmosphere with his dusky voice. His characterization is marvelous, especially his vocal portrayal of the lead character (always the smartest guy in the room) which hits that cat-like note of dissipated, depressed (apparently careless) incorrigibility, while intimating that sensitivity that is crucial to the character.

“[When Frank reads], the blind will see, the lame will walk, and the deaf will hear.”

~Stephen King

Boze and Rach have also listened/relistened to their beloved Anton Lesser’s narration. His ability to hit just the right tone never fails.

Rach is thrilled also to be finally listening to the narration of our marvelously talented Dickens Club member, Rob Goll, who has not one but TWO audio editions available—a solo narration, and a duet!

We also love the abridged/adapted BBC radio drama starring Charles Dance and Anna Massey.

A Tale of Two Cities on Film

This list is not comprehensive, as there have been innumerable stage and film adaptations over the decades, and its story has arguably influenced many other stories, from Casablanca to Batman: The Dark Night to Lost…and so many more. (Rach confesses that she could never bring herself to watch the Chris Sarandon version beyond the first court scene, as she kept seeing him as Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride. But please do share your thoughts about it if you’ve seen it!)

Ronald Colman (1935)

But here are a few of the most well-known film adaptations:

A Tale of Two Cities (1935) starring Ronald Colman. If you’re looking for a slightly gentler, avuncular hero, Ronald is your man. A beautiful film.

Dirk Bogarde (1958)

A Tale of Two Cities (1958) starring Dirk Bogarde. Rach confesses she became rather obsessed with Dirk—a fascinating character himself, who has written a lot of autobiographical material—after seeing his interpretation. A delightful and luminous Lucie Manette.

James Wilby (1989)

A Tale of Two Cities (1989) starring James Wilby and John Mills. This “miniseries” adaptation is perhaps the most “faithful.” A dual French/English production with a lovely musical score. Certainly, the best Mr Lorry (John Mills) of any adaptation, it also has a powerful Dr Manette, Madame Defarge—and even a surprising John Barsad, an unlikeable but key figure, whose character in this adaptation is given greater depth than usual. Wilby is both moving and melancholy. The religious themes are particularly strong at the finale.

However, has the perfect or definitive adaptation yet been made…?

General Mems for the #DickensClub

If you’re counting, today is Day 729 (and week 105) in our #DickensClub! This Thursday, 4 January, we celebrate our 2-year anniversary!

This week and next, we’ll be beginning A Tale of Two Cities, our twenty-first read as the group. Please feel free to comment below this post for the first and second weeks’ chapters or use the hashtag #DickensClub if you’re commenting on twitter.

No matter where you’re at in the reading process, a huge “thank you” for reading along with us. Heartfelt thanks to our dear Dickens Fellowship, The Dickens Society, and the Charles Dickens Letters Project for retweets, and to all those liking, sharing, and encouraging our Club, including Gina Dalfonzo, Dr. Christian Lehmann and Dr. Pete Orford. Huge “thank you” also to The Circumlocution Office (on twitter also!) for providing such a marvellous online resource for us.

And for any more recent members or for those who might be interested in joining: the revised two-and-a-half year reading schedule can be found here. If you’ve been reading along with us but aren’t yet on the Member List, we would love to add you! Please feel free to message Rach here on the site, or on twitter. And for any more recent members or for those who might be interested in joining: the revised two-and-a-half year reading schedule can be found here. If you’ve been reading along with us but aren’t yet on the Member List, we would love to add you! Please feel free to message Rach here on the site, or on twitter.

A Look-Ahead to Weeks One and Two of A Tale of Two Cities (2-15 January, 2024)

This week and next, we’ll be reading the whole of Book I (“Recalled to Life“), Chs 1-6, and Chapters 1-5 of Book II (“The Golden Thread“) of A Tale of Two Cities. Our portions during the first two weeks were published in weekly parts in Dickens’s new periodical, All the Year Round, between 30 April and 18 June, 1859.

Feel free to comment below for your thoughts this week and next, or use the hashtag #DickensClub if you’re commenting on twitter. If you’d like to read it online, you can find it at a number of sites such The Circumlocution Office; you can download it from sites such as Gutenberg.

Works Cited

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

Connelly, Owen and Hembree, Fred. The French Revolution. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, Inc, 1993.

Sanders, Andrew. A Companion to A Tale of Two Cities. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015.

49 Comments

  1. I’m sorry to say I’m not going to be contributing to the discussion of this book as much. You see, it’ll be my first time reading A Tale of Two Cities all the way through. (I’ve tried to do so a couple of times before but have never gotten into it. I’m not sure why when it has that iconic opening chapter and those mysterious second and third chapters.) Because of that, I won’t have collected as many thoughts from regular rereads as I have with most of the books we’ve been discussing. If something really interesting occurs to me, I’ll comment about it.

    This is actually a really bad time for me to do this reading group. I got a bunch of books for Christmas and for my birthday which I’m eager to read. Given my track record of not being able to get into A Tale of Two Cities, I’m scared my mind will be wandering to them, especially since I unfortunately already know the broad plot. On the other hand, I think that plot I already know sounds great and I’d like to love the book and this reading group may be an incentive for me to force myself to read it.

    BTW, are we never going to do a zoom meeting about Little Dorrit? That’s understandable given the timing but it still makes me sad.

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    1. Totally understandable, Stationmaster! We’ll just love to hear your thoughts as you’re able to pop in, *if* you’re able to! But I too got so many books that I’m excited about, that I fully understand the conundrum! 🙂

      As to the Little Dorrit discussion, I am totally open to doing that! But since we’d just decided to put off thinking of it until the New Year, we haven’t talked about the timing yet. I wanted to post a poll–or just a casual group question–about some dates that would/wouldn’t work, and just what the overall mood is. I just chatted with Boze, and he and I are totally up for a separate Little Dorrit chat during our ATTC read.

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  2. Friends, the Stationmaster brought up a good question…do we want to schedule a chat for Little Dorrit, though we’ll be in the midst of A Tale of Two Cities? Boze and I are game, but we want to be sure it works for everyone who is interest, and WHETHER there’s enough interest!

    Another possibility of course is to combine LD and ATTC chats…but as it is we already have so much to talk about within our hour, that I’m not sure how well that would work.

    Thoughts?

    So, I guess the questions are:

    1.) Who is interested in setting up a Little Dorrit chat? Separate, or together with the ATTC chat?

    2.) If you’re interested: are there any Saturdays in Jan/Feb that will NOT work for you? (Or, are you interested but Saturdays do not work at all?)

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    1. *Definitely*, please, a separate chat just for Little Dorrit. We all have so much to say. I know I think it’s his most outstanding book, tho for some reason the one I love most dearly is Our Mutual Friend. (London, as chief character?)

      For me, no Saturday in Jan/Feb is a bad Saturday for talking with dear friends about Little Dorrit.

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      2. Yes. London and, above all, the River!

        (Dickens & water as symbol & instrument of destiny – how about that, Rach? Particularly given the storm scene you love so much in David Copperfield. I might think about that …

        I wrote something about London as deterministic in OMF a while ago; I’ll see if I can knock it into shape.

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      4. I’ll have a look, Rach. It may not be good enough. But I can show you & you can say kindly, Not this time. XxX

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  3. Hey, all – re Zoom chat time (and I’m all in with a LD chat!!), 1/20 & 2/3 are no good for me. Otherwise I’m available. I didn’t get to comment enough on our last section of LD because of my move – I have, as Lucy says, so much to say!

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  4. In honor of Dickens Club’s anniversary, I’d like to share some thoughts that have to do with Dickens but not with A Tale of Two Cities specifically. They may seem irrelevant at first but bear with me.

    I read a thesis somewhere that men are deeply moved by stories about men struggling to do the right thing while enduring great physical suffering whereas women are deeply moved by stories about women struggling to do the right thing while enduring great emotional suffering. It occurred to me that if that’s true, it explains part of the wide appeal of the musical Les Misérables, which features men and women struggling to do the right thing while enduring great physical and emotional suffering. The whole package! Could the same thing be said of Dickens’s stories? In some cases, maybe. Oliver Twist endures physical suffering from being born in a workhouse and later from being a runaway and he endures emotional suffering from the lack of love in his life. To a lesser extent, the same could be said of Little Nell, another runaway, one who does have a loving adult in her life but one who causes her grief, nonetheless. Esther Summerson mostly suffers emotionally with her physical suffering being confined to her bout with smallpox but that physical suffering was highly dramatic. The same could be said about David Copperfield’s time at the blacking factory and on the road to Dover. With most of the other leads I can remember, the emphasis is mostly on emotional pain. It’s true that Nicholas Nickleby and Little Dorrit technically suffer from poverty early on. But Nicholas’s sufferings are minimal compared to those of some other impoverished Dickens characters. (If you see Smike as the main character, the “struggling to do the right thing while suffering” dynamic still exists.) As for Little Dorrit, she’s so used to poverty that it ends up paling compared to the emotional suffering she later experiences.

    I’m interested in animation so last year I received multiple suggested posts on Facebook about the 25th anniversary of the movie, The Prince of Egypt. It reminded me that there’s a musical number from that film, which I think sums up the philosophy Dickens conveyed in his books like A Christmas Carol, Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit and Great Expectations. In fact, it sums up Dickens’s overall message better than any song I can think of from any musical based on a book by Dickens. Here are the lyrics. (You can read them online, so I don’t think I’m violating copyright by posting them here.)

    A single thread in a tapestry,
    Though its colors brightly shine,
    Can never see its purpose
    In the pattern of the grand design.

    And the stone that sits on the very top
    Of the mountain’s mighty face,
    Does it think it’s more important
    Than the stones that form the base?

    So how can you see what your life is worth
    Or where your value lies?
    You can never see through the eyes of man.
    You must look at your life,
    Look at your life through Heaven’s eyes.

    A lake of gold in the desert sand
    Is less than a cool fresh spring
    And to one lost sheep, a shepherd boy
    Is greater than the richest king.

    If a man lose everything he owns,
    Has he truly lost his worth?
    Or is it the beginning
    Of a new and brighter birth?

    So how do you measure the worth of a man,
    In wealthy or strength or size,
    In how much he gained or how much he gave?
    The answer will come,
    The answer will come to him who tries
    To look at his life through Heaven’s eyes.

    And that’s why we share all we have with you
    Though there’s little to be found.
    When all you’ve got is nothing,
    There’s a lot to go around.

    No life can escape being blown about
    By the winds of change and chance
    And though you’ll never know all the steps,
    You must learn to join the dance.
    You must learn to join the dance.

    So how do you judge what a man is worth,
    By what he builds or buys?
    You can never see with your eyes on Earth.
    Look through Heaven’s eyes.
    Look at your life,
    Look at your life,
    Look at your life through Heaven’s eyes.

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  5. Have we now reached the ultimate “Dickensian doubling” with Mr Carton and Mr Darnay? I loved the scene with the two of them eating dinner together after the acquittal. The whole thrust of the narrative would seem to point to their becoming friends, but as Sydney asks the other man:

    “Do you think I particularly like you?”
    “Really, Mr Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, “I have not asked myself the question.”
    “But ask yourself the question now.”
    “You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.”
    “_I_ don’t think I do,” said Carton. “I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding.”
    (ATTC, II.4, 88, in Penguin Classics ed., 2011)

    Only at the end of the chapter, when Sydney is left alone and we see him peel back the outermost layer of his caustic wit, speaking to himself in the mirror, does the reader begin to understand why Sydney spoke up at all in in Mr Darnay’s defense:

    “Why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow” (89).

    Sydney’s self-hatred, burning beneath the impenetrable exterior of sarcasm and indifference, makes us read his one moment of real participation in the trial in a new light. He spoke up for Mr Darnay because he perceived a likeness between Mr Darnay and himself; he drew the whole court’s attention to that likeness (ruining a witness for the prosecution and perhaps swaying the verdict in Mr Darnay’s favor) in a momentary flash of . . . what? Hope? That perhaps if Mr Darnay were released as innocent, he, Sydney, might also have a glimmer of hope for a better future?

    Yet soon after the verdict, he has sunk back into his morose self-hatred, saying to Mr Darnay outside the court: “I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I” (87).

    Sydney feels himself doomed to a life of no consequence, still doing other boys’ school-work and not his own. I think Sydney’s self-hatred and feelings of inferiority must make him extremely relatable to modern readers. It certainly makes him extremely interesting. We’ll see how his “double” reflects this quality of his—like his own image in the mirror which Sydney surveys so minutely at the end of ch. 4!

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  6. Dear friends! I am so excited by the conversation begun already and wanting to take up some of the ideas that Father Matthew got going here! But first, my apologies that I didn’t post Daniel’s comments, which he sent to me from a different computer (where he was unable to log in to his wordpress account). Thank you!!!!

    From Daniel:

    ***

    Dear Inimitables and Inscrutables All!

    I have just begun listening to Simon Callow’s rendering of A Tale of Two Cities. It is very good, indeed–including an introduction by Callow regarding the circumstances of Dickens’ life at the time.

    Here are a few quick observations/comments.

    1.) Passion project: Rach, your brilliant introduction teems with deep esteem, gratitude, and appreciation for this singular work by Dickens. Thanks for sharing the many fruits of your years of living with this work and its remarkable atmosphere, plot, and characterizations–including its depiction of the capacity for true, deep, and abiding transformation. As you posed in your opening, “Don’t we all love characters who surprise us?”

    2.) “a parable or fairy tale”: That is such an excellent way of capturing what Dickens does. He sets this moral tale/parable in a very highly charged situation, where people’s characters are revealed, tested, and (at times) almost miraculously changed.

    3.) “a meeting of the Estates-General”: I was not aware of this immediate catalyst for the revolution and its atrocities. That shows how this salt (unrepresentative voting) was rubbed in the proverbial wound of intractable injustices.

    4.) Scriptural parallels and allusions: That much for sharing the many allusions to Scripture in the work–many more than I was aware of.

    5.) Rob Goll’s audiobooks: Wonderful news about the highly informed and animated work that Rob does–in this clip, with a female reader. Bravo, Rob!

    6.) Film adaptations: “. . . has the perfect or definitive adaptation yet been made…?” I assume that you, who are truly an expert on Tale, think not!!!

    Thanks for this exceptionally rich introduction and context-setting. Our experience of (re)encountering this marvelous work is much fuller for your work!

    Daniel (aka. Wellerism)

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    1. Daniel: I second everything you say about Rach’s introduction. It is absolutely superb! Think she like/loves this novel? Oh my!

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  7. Best/worst; wisdom/foolishness; belief/incredulity; Light/Darkness; hope/despair.

    The opening lines in ATTC with their perfect expression of dichotomies are so well known—and if ever there was an iconic opening to a novel, it is here—that perhaps there is a risk of a reader becoming insensitive to them, almost like, when watching a production of Hamlet, half of the audience starts silently mouthing “To be, or not to be” right along with our melancholy Dane.

    But what a setup for the dualities present in the story…! They might speak as much of our leading men here (Darnay/Carton) as to the times. That is one of my favorite things about this book: the contrasts, the imagery, specific words and phrases emphasized/repeated all have multiple applications.

    I agree with Fr Matthew’s question, that we have “reached the ultimate ‘Dickensian doubling’ with Mr Carton and Mr Darnay”—and yes, isn’t that post-trial pub scene marvelous? When I worked on my stage adaptation (for fun) years ago, that was by far the easiest scene to work on, as it completely wrote itself. Every bit of characterization & conflict is right there in dialogue form.

    I’ll never forget when I first read this novel—and I had already read some Dickens, but only a few (e.g. Pickwick & Dombey), and probably had Carker and Jingle in mind—but I remember saying to my roommate: “I’m trying to figure out whether this Carton is going to be the baddie, or whether he’ll turn out alright. Either way, he’s far and away the most interesting character.”

    I love what Fr Matthew wrote here: “Sydney feels himself doomed to a life of no consequence, still doing other boys’ school-work and not his own. I think Sydney’s self-hatred and feelings of inferiority must make him extremely relatable to modern readers.” I love that he drew attention to what could almost be a throwaway line: “Even then [in school], I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.” And Stryver takes full advantage of this, and is no true friend to Sydney. This is another brilliant piece of dialogue—the scene between Carton and Stryver. Here, as congenial as they are with one another—for better or worse, they’re utterly accustomed to one another—we see how essentially *alone* Sydney is. There is dialogue that reveals a lot both by what is said and unsaid, and clearly Stryver does not understand Carton at all. We find out later that Sydney’s parents had died when he was young, and it seems that he had no one (until, perhaps, an unlikely friendship that will grow throughout the novel) to encourage him and his abilities.

    Where did Sydney come from? Probably from some self-loathing in Dickens himself, self-confident as the Inimitable generally was. Sydney is a bit “like lightning from a clear sky,” as C.S. Lewis wrote of Tolkien’s writing. Yet we can see early prototypes, perhaps: perhaps a comic, vague intimation of him in Dick Swiveller (The Old Curiosity Shop), who has much more potential than we first see; in Lord Verisopht (Nicholas Nickleby) who finally wakes up to the “low habits and low companions” that have kept him from living the life he wishes he had, and he makes the ultimate sacrifice in his defense of the Nickleby siblings.

    Yes, as Fr Matthew writes, there is something that speaks to the modern reader about Sydney. It is a great mystery of the human heart why some of those who are most talented and gifted have an almost insurmountable self-doubt or self-loathing, a misperception of their worth. Perhaps it stems from not only a misperception of themselves, and an essentially isolated situation without encouragement and genuine friendship or family, but it is also an essential struggle with the world, and with meaning beyond it. As we’ll see later, the fact that certain words from his father’s funeral still haunt Sydney years later, there is an existential struggle going on here that is mixed up with his own sense of unworthiness. Sydney embodies this half-despairing, half-hopeful struggle for *meaning* during any “age of anxiety,” as I’ve heard ours called. What a way to end our reading during this first portion:

    “Sadly, sadly the sun rose; and it rose upon no sadder sight that the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”

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    1. Rach, thank you for such an insightful, well-written response! I can tell it’s going to be EXTRA fun reading this novel with you … “truly an expert,” as Daniel rightly says!

      When Sydney first enters Stryver’s room in chapter 5, Stryver actually calls him “Memory.” Tolkien studies have left me “allergic to allegory,” so I won’t suggest that Sydney is some kind of representation “in persona” of the faculty of Memory, or anything of that kind. But given all that we’ve discussed about Dickens and memory (e.g. in our podcast on The Old Curiosity Shop last year and your essay on same), it seems worth paying careful attention to the first character we’ve met who is actually called “Memory!”

      I love your comment about reading Dickens in an “age of anxiety,” and the “half-despairing, half-hopeful struggle for *meaning*” which characterizes such an age. On darker days, everything in this disenchanted world seems to contribute to the impression that there IS no deeper meaning, yet it is our nature to strive! There is a heroism about the hopeful in an age of anxiety — even if that hope is half-despairing. (Somehow I’m reminded again of Tolkien and his Northern heroic ideal of struggle against insurmountable odds; even if defeat is certain, as with Beowulf and the dragon, the most noble thing in the world is to fight on.)

      Thanks, too, for your reference to the “doubling” present from the first lines of this novel’s iconic opening (which raises goosebumps on the back of my neck to read! I remember my dad quoting it to me when I was a boy.) I’ll be on the lookout for other high contrast “pairs” and mirror images as we go forward.

      What do we make so far of Mr Lorry’s strange reply in ch. 1: “Recalled to Life”? He applies it to Dr Manette; later, we see Cruncher apply it to Mr Darnay. The one man is “recalled” from prison, the other snatched from the gallows. If the central motif of Little Dorrit was freedom and imprisonment, might this novel be setting up an even greater theme: death and resurrection?

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    2. Rach, as you write about CD–“self-confident as the Inimitable generally was”–I immediately flash to some of his many letters of the 40’s and 50’s where he continually refers to his dark moods and restlessness, all of which signified to me at the time of my reading them some character or personality issues which suggested he wasn’t as comfortable in his own skin as we might think. That he was as driven as he was–in both his creative life as a novelist, and in his creative life outside his “writing self,” literally CONSTANTLY putting on private dramas in London and in various other communities throughout the country, suggests to me his abiding need for constant adoration and approbation! He is one of the most restless humans I’ve ever read about, literally a kind of whirling dervish, constantly seeking new places where he can write, always talking about some unknown force within him which makes him unhappy and, interestingly, shows himself to be acutely aware of how unstable he is psychologically. Given the letters’ revelations about his personal and public behavior, I feel his characterization of Sydney directly mirrors sides of himself that only those closest to CD, particularly Forster, really knew about. Ultimately, then, there is a lot of self-doubt in Dickens, himself, which drives him toward the need to succeed, to be liked (loved?) by others. And I feel that this doubting and moody trait of his probably transferred right over to Sydney and HIS shortcomings and brooding temperament.

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    3. I actually interpret the opening paragraph (“It was the best of times. etc.”) as being humorous. I feel like Dickens is mocking political pundits who are always declaring every year to be either a golden age or a dark age and how it doesn’t seem to occur to them that it could be just another year like any other, featuring some great things and some terrible things. Mind you, I don’t know how common that interpretation of the opening is but it’s the only one that makes sense to me when I read it aloud.

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      1. Oh I think so too – he compares it to the current period, just as every age is full of the dichotomies here. Dickens always criticized those who looked back on “the good old times, the great old times”, as though there aren’t abuses in every age

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  8. Wow, wow, wow…SO many marvelous thoughts to grapple with here, Fr Matthew! Thank you so, so much…and I can’t tell you how much I’m loving this conversation already!!

    First of all, I LOVE that you took special note of Stryver’s nickname for Sydney: Memory! That is precisely one of the areas I wanted to touch on in a separate post…but honestly, the discussion surrounding it here is already so rich, that I don’t think that post will be necessary, unless to pull together and highlight points from the group’s conversation! How marvelous. This “Memory” is such a recurring theme—yes, I loved our conversations on it re: Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop, etc—and it is interesting how Sydney is the first (only, that I know of) to actually embody the idea in Dickens. In fact, one of the titles that Dickens toyed around with before he landed (happily) on “A Tale of Two Cities” was “Memory Carton” (along with other possibilities: “The Doctor of Beauvais” or “Buried Alive”). Clearly, this theme, though such a recurring one, is perhaps more central to this story even than to his other novels?

    As to Mr Lorry’s mysterious line, “Recalled to Life”—such a marvelous phrase for the story’s theme! The way I read it is that it is a kind of “code phrase” between himself and Tellson’s Bank (as Dr Manette was an old client of his, and Tellson’s is both a French and an English house, so Mr Lorry becomes a go-between)—a code phrase for the whole secret (secret, again!) business of going to find and restore Dr Manette. In Chapter 4 of Book the First, Lorry explains to Lucie:

    “[Dr Manette] has been found under another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, because it would be dangerous. Etter not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove him—for a while at all events—out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, an even Tellson’s, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter…This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, ‘Recalled to Life’; which may mean anything.”

    Clearly, the whole guilt of his unjust imprisonment makes his sudden “resurrection” dangerous, especially when we find out the position in society of Manette’s enemies…but more anon. And I think the phrase haunts Jerry particularly, as we will see later—due to his nightly occupation. He doesn’t want any bodies coming out of their graves before he can get to them! 😊 (Jerry, as we will see with the abusive treatment of his wife, is not religious, but is rather superstitious!) So it’s again a brilliant use of the phrase when, as Fr Matthew says, Darnay is acquitted—he has been saved from a death of hanging/drawing/quartering for treason.

    But YES: *death/resurrection*. (And the heroism so like, as you say, Fr. Matthew, Tolkien’s idea of heroism: fighting on even in the face of *apparent* despair or hopelessness.) I would agree with the idea that death/resurrection is the core theme 100%! Beautifully put. While trying not to get too far ahead, I wanted to share some pieces of a marvelous passage from Ackroyd’s biography—things which I think we can intuit already from the text:

    “Could it be that Dickens himself felt that he was also close to the end of his own full circle [referencing a later line from Mr Lorry], returning to the anxieties and loss of childhood? … [In A Tale of Two Cities] he invokes the image of the small stream being absorbed into the sea; but with it, too, there is hopefulness in the refrain repeated throughout the narrative, ‘I am the resurrection and the life…’ In his letters during this period he describes his working out of the story as equivalent, in little, to the ways of ‘Providence’ and of ‘divine justice’; so, if there is resignation here, it is compounded with hope” (Ackroyd 866-867).

    And again:

    “And of the story itself? In some ways a dark one, filled with images of horror and of destruction, of dirt and disease, of imprisonment and violent death. The central image is one of resurrection but this encompasses the stealing of dead bodies from their graves as well as the more spiritual resuscitation which Sydney Carton so much longs for. This is a world of enormous shadows, of the setting sun, of night … And yet in his fiction (as opposed to his journalism) Dickens never really adopts an attitude without at the same time embracing its reverse … The force of the novel springs from its exploration of darkness and death but its beauty derives from Dickens’s real sense of transcendence, from his ability to see the sweep of destiny” (Ackroyd 868).

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  9. It’s interesting that both Dickens’s historical novels (Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of Two Cities) begin, more or less, with dark, mysterious scenes of roads at nighttime. The scene in Barnaby Rudge has more energy and the one in A Tale of Two Cities has more elegance, which may reflect the two books on the whole though it’s probably too early to make that judgement.

    I know Lucie Manette has the reputation of being one of Charles Dickens’s most boring leading ladies, but I think it’s interesting how in Chapter 6, she goes from being the one most scared of her long-lost father to being the one least scared of him. I can’t say if she’ll be that interesting throughout the whole book, but that particular scene does interest me.

    A Tale of Two Cities is famous for its portrayal of the bloodthirsty French mob gathered the watch the aristocrats’ executions, but Gillen D’Arcy Wood makes a good point that Dickens shows a similarly bloodthirsty English mob at the trial of Charles Darnay. The message of A Tale of Two Cities isn’t quite as simple as “England=good, Paris=bad,” which should come as no surprise given Dickens’s fears of patriotism leading to complacency. (I gather the book is going to portray France as being worse than England in some ways, but I also imagine Dickens meant it to serve as a cautionary tale for his fellow citizens, not necessarily something to make them feel secure about their own culture.)

    A Tale of Two Cities has the reputation for being Dickens’s least humorous book and I was afraid it would be a bit of a bore. But so far, I find Jarvis Lorry and Jerry Cruncher to be amusing and Dickens is including plenty of funny asides in his role of narrator. It may be far from his most hilarious work but that just goes to show how funny Dickens’s books typically are.

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    1. It’s the central story of Carton that I’m reacting to, so I’m feeling that Dickens picked the revolutionary setting because it enabled his plot, viz. self-ruin, then (not-self)-redemption. It’s seeming to me above all to be a meditation on what is the meaning of a life. Again we get the ideal of the good life as ordinary and useful:

      To Mr Lorry: “You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?”

      imagined futures of happiness: lives that are “peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy”

      Little Dorrit: “.. and then went down. Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness …”

      And yes, I think it’s not particularly nationalistic or anti-French. In fact, as we go through, every time something ghastly is described, CD has just indicated that this is the inevitable eventual result when people are treated brutally enough for long enough. He seems to be describing the Parisians as temporarily out of their minds, all on drugs because of the situation. Except for TD, of course. He doesn’t seem to me to be blaming people for being inherently vicious. And in fact his distaste for the roaring of the streets doesn’t seem to come from blame, either.

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  11. A QUERY TO OUR CLUB – IS THERE ANYONE FOR WHOM THIS READING IS THE VERY FIRST READING OF “A TALE OF TWO CITIES”, OR HAVE WE ALL READ IT AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE?

    I ask because “A Tale of Two Cities” is a novel which can’t be forgotten – what I mean here is that once it’s been read and the ending is known every subsequent reading is colored by that knowledge. The ending is never again a surprise (this is not to say that the ending IS a surprise because I think Dickens foreshadows it all along, but then, this is a conclusion reached because I know the ending) – and one does not forget the ending as one might forget the ending of some other mystery novel or romance or family saga (and “ATTC” is certainly all of these). And even if one hasn’t actually read the novel, one has most likely seen an adaptation of it or heard enough about it to know the ending. So it can be hard to discuss this novel, or certain aspects of it, as we have done with the other novels because we know where we’re being led. But somehow with this novel knowledge of the ending seems to serve to enrich it and its meaning. While the ending may be known, how we get there is ALWAYS worth the journey because, I think, THAT is the real message. We must learn to read the clues of our history and study how they lead/led us to a particular outcome so that we can take steps to if not avoid them then to mitigate or ameliorate them.

    Dickens’s opening paragraph, “It was the best of time, it was the worst of times . . .”, explains the problem with reading history in a nutshell. Each of the dichotomies is true for someone in this novel – it all has to do with one’s point of view, with one’s perspective. Perspective, as we shall see, changes over time as one gains new insight and new experience. What may be absolutely true for us at one point in time can be completely turned on its head in the future. Those unwilling or unable to consider new insight/experience, who remain stagnate, either wallow in a no-man’s-land of inactivity or become consumed by the emotions that fester under their particular trauma. What we have to do is be aware of this changing nature and be open to possibilities – we must grow. This is hard to do in cases of real and extreme trauma. I think what Dickens is hoping for is that we find a way to deal with such trauma in a nonviolent, i.e., rule of law, manner so that we do not devolve into either personal or public chaos.

    The other aspect of this novel that seems slightly different from those that have gone before is the biographical aspect – we seem to be talking a lot about the influence of Dickens, the man, in the innards of this story more so than in any other with the exception of “David Copperfield”. But with “DC”, it seemed more superficial, if you will – certain isolated experiences from his biography are used as a framework for David’s experiences. Here, Dickens’s very soul seems to be on display – we see the struggle of his midlife crisis as he dismantles his marriage and tries to figure himself out. There is chaos in him and the only outlet he has for it (besides his obsessive walking) is his writing.

    Again, I’m curious if this is the first reading for any of our Club members because I’m interested in reading/hearing your “fresh” perspectives.

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    1. Not me. We read it at school in early teens & I think many did. It was a complete waste, as I was too young for the complexities. I just thought it was sentimental.

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      1. I second that, Lucy. I was too deeply into Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac, and Steinbeck–at the time (Jr. in High School)–so that TOTC really paled to me by comparison. I really have no memory of it–isn’t that strange….

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    2. It is a great question, Chris. As far as I know, perhaps only the Stationmaster is coming to it a bit more fresh? I think he said he had a hard time getting into it before…but I can’t recall whether he’d read it through. But I’m pretty sure all the rest of us have. Though I know we do have a few readers who are still reading along with us but not commenting. It would be so interesting!

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      1. To continue, then, my coming to it now is basically “fresh,” though not so in the sense that I now have had all the experience, thanks to this group, of reading most of Dickens before this novel. So while I’m reading A TALE, I find that many of the characters, their interrelationships, their situations, their dialogues–all seem very familiar.

        More particularly, this novel–in its “dramatic aspects”–and narrative “plotting” reminds me a lot of BARNABY RUDGE, but maybe not as arresting or interesting. But that’s my VERY humble feeling so far (to the end of BOOK TWO).

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  12. Just to say quickly, I am astounded by ATTC. It is not what I expected or remembered at all (having read it too early at school). Lots and lots to think over.

    Among which, one major topic is the appalling harshness of this portrayal of mental illness – as a sign or marker of one’s own fault, almost a sort of innate, individual original sin. It’s an incredibly harsh world view, that poor Carton is immovably, irremediably stuck in his very bad place and that the only remedy for shame and self-blame can be something external (ie love for someone else), or some external transfiguration (divine grace and motivation). That’s not something we’d assent to today. I’m finding it quite a hard worldview to get used to.

    Of course, it’s necessary for the story to work. But the painting of this moral landscape is so harsh.

    Surely, this must at least be in part how Dickens sees himself, or part of himself, as he writes this.

    Thank goodness we don’t, mostly, think like that any more.

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    1. Lucy,
      The issue of mental health in ATTC is really interesting. Surely in the 18th and 19th centuries there were few other options on the spectrum between sane and insane, with the exceptions perhaps of simply being old (senile) like Mr Namby or “eccentric” like Mr Turveydrop. We know Dickens could be sensitive to mental health issues – think of his treatment of Mr Dick whom Dickens clearly loves and takes pains to show us that though he might have mental health issues it certainly isn’t necessary to institutionalize him. But I think you are correct in that here in ATTC mental health is harshly treated. I think it is another example of an institution (bureaucratic or social) that was in dire need of reimagining or overhauling. [Whether Dickens went so far as to “champion” mental health issues/treatment is another question, especially in light of the recent revelation that he tried – and failed – to have his wife Catherine committed to insane asylum as a way of getting rid of her. (See 2/22/19 “Unmutual Friend: How Dickens tried to place his wife in an asylum.” by John Bowen, TLS #6047.) Perhaps Dickens own mental health during this period was not conducive to allowing him to think about how other people might respond to his (dare I say crazy?) actions.] Here in ATTC I think Dickens is keen to show how trauma affects a person’s mental health and how loved ones and caregivers need to be aware of and sensitive to those effects.

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      1. I too was thinking of Mr Dick on this subject. So often with Dickens, his mind and heart *knew* the answer–what was right to do–though he didn’t always act it out himself. I agree that his own mental health was suffering. (And poor Catherine!! Argh.)

        I think that is one of the tragedies of ATTC, though it is mitigated by Sydney’s relationship with one of the characters as it progresses: Sydney’s utter aloneness. Stryver is absolutely no companion, and has no real sympathy for him or understanding of him. He essentially, while seeming to give Sydney some friendly advice, takes full advantage of Sydney’s brain and lets his health suffer for it. Lucie, as we will see, has compassion, and does speak up for him, but she’s also made uncomfortable by his state of mind and doesn’t really know what to do to help. Darnay is pretty oblivious, as we’ll see…both he and Stryver are essentially like, “you summon no energy and purpose. Look at me!” And perhaps Dickens himself (who, though God knows I have no qualifications to diagnose, seemed to have something of the manic-depressive in him) on some days didn’t understand it either. (Of course, it is interesting that he gives his first name and his initials to Charles Darnay.) As Lenny said above, the man had a frenetic pace and seemingly boundless energy. There’s that old lie that one should just snap out of it and pull oneself up by the bootstraps.

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      2. But it seems to me that there are “mental health” issues that run throughout, but the person who I feel is most impacted by trauma and most “studied” by the novel thus far is Dr. Manette. His movement in and out of the present presumably to some netherworld where he finds solace (of some kind) as a shoe mender is really quite carefully studied by the novel, generally, and by Lucie, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross–specifically. However, as we come to the ending of BOOK TWO, though, it seems that both he and Sydney are aware of their own psychological problems–as they both confess in their different ways this self awareness.

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  13. As we close out the first 2 weeks and while finishing up our wrap-up, I just want to say a huge “thank you” for graciously putting up with my (too lengthy!) enthoosymoosy for this book in the intro, friends. I still wish that Boze had done most of it, as I’d be ***so curious***. But we’ll be getting back to his intros in March with Great Expectations, & I like my place as “research assistant” 😉 and the intros have been a huge joy to read ever since he took over after Pickwick & Oliver! 🙂

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    1. My gosh, Rach, you are selling yourself too short, here. Your (and Boze’s) introductory comments are always wonderful to read and give us members of the group sooo much to contemplate and look forward to. Do not hesitate, then, to do what you guys have been doing. I’m sure your collective enthusiasms are very much appreciated by all of us!

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      1. Aww, thank you so, so much, Lenny!! 🙏 We’re having great fun with it all. I’ve often wondered whether it is possible to be *too close* to a book. It means, on the positive side, that so much thought over the years has been put into it; on the other hand, do I have any objectivity? I feel like Keats writing about Fanny when I write about this book–minus the genius. 😂 Anyway, it is absolutely fascinating and enriching to be sharing this reread experience and hear many different perspectives & impressions. The beauty of the Club! 🖤📚

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  14. Some scenes towards the end are striking me as almost unbearably moving. They’re very understated. Mr Lorry figures in one conversation. I keep listening to it because every time, there is more. Anton Lesser outstanding at that.

    Are there people who don’t know what is going to happen at the end? It’s so iconic, this story, like Christmas Carol.

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    1. Part of me wishes I didn’t know what’s going to happen in the end. Maybe the knowledge is why I haven’t been able to get into the book before. Then again, maybe if I didn’t know I would be less likely to get into the book because, knowing the broad plot of A Tale of Two Cities, I do think it sounds like a great story even if the writing doesn’t always grab me as much as in some other books Dickens wrote.

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  15. What a cracking introduction Rach!! I love the masterful way you navigate through it all while avoiding spoilers.

    Just caught up with all the wonderful comments and have almost got through to the end of the first two weeks reading. Possibly won’t have time to collect my thoughts in time to add to the discussion this section, but hope to keep up over the coming weeks and add some love into the mix for this wonderful novel.

    With two audiobook versions, it is perhaps unnecessary to add that I have read it before or that I am aware of the ending! (Thanks Rach, for the nod to my versions – I hope you have enjoyed listening) 😀

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    1. Aw, Rob, thank you soooo much! It was great fun working on it with Boze, & I can’t stifle the enthoosymoosy, much as I try and restrain it, or at least order my thoughts a bit 😂❤️

      And I am LOVING your narration!!! I was trying to keep this one as the one I am reading in pace with the group (as distinct from the rereads beforehand in prep for the intro) but heck, I’m already ahead, so I might just do double time on the first one (your solo narration) and then the final weeks relisten to it with the duet version. Just marvelous!!!

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      1. Awhhh, glad to hear you’re loving it. I think of all my audiobooks A Tale of Two Cities is the one that I am most satisfied with. Decisions with regard to character and pacing and the emotional tone and general narrator point of view and other such audio matters. It is a daunting prospect to have to portray a large range of characters, but I find that my vocal choices with this one are all quite spot-on (and for a worrier with perfectionist tendencies this is quite a thing to think)

        It also threw up some tricky artistic decisions in Book 3 which I will elaborate upon when we come to that section. The duet version is largely the same as the solo version with regard to the narrator and the male characters… the change is that the female roles are removed from my version and replaced with a genuine female voice. Amanda and I have worked on many audio projects together and I loved her portrayals of the females in the novel.

        Great Expectations, like A Tale of Two Cities is another where I am satisfied with all aspects and decisions with regard to character and such like. It too has a solo and a duet narration – this time my duet partner is Anna Grace (she absolutely nails Estella, which I have to admit I probably didn’t – though I tried my best of course. Miss Havisham is not so scary for a male narrator as Estella is!)

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  16. ATTC seems to me to be very much an older writer’s book, not one that could have been written (or usefully read) by someone young. Carton and Mr Lorry in that conversation (part 3 ch 9) are looking back over their lives for what matters and what is real, not working their way forward as Clennam and Amy do when they find the quiet centre of life through the uproar. Everything has already happened. Hence the darkness in the story. The darkness is already there.

    What has my life amounted to being a much darker question than what can it become.

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