Week 20: I have a bad feeling about this…

My history’s a little rusty, but even I know that a French aristocrat travelling into the centre of the French revolution isn’t the smartest plan ever devised. But I’m diving right in at the end of the instalment. The beginning has time flying again – the pacing of the story is rather stop-start isn‘t it? Another three years have gone by, and this time they’re thrown away in a line rather than the echoes of footsteps giving us information on deceased children along the way. The revolution is in full force by now, and after all the build up we can perhaps appreciate Dickens’s surprise at the aristocrats who never saw it coming – of course, the build up we have been experiencing is a condition of hindsight where the end has already occurred, and it is with that hindsight that Dickens perhaps treats the aristocracy unfairly in presuming them well-versed in foretelling their future. I particularly enjoyed the reference, when likening the aristocracy’s provocation of the mob to devil worship, to reading the lord prayer’s backwards – so that’s what they did before the Beatles started making records.

I was also intrigued by the continuing reduction of the aristocracy in Dickens’s narrative to the singular title/persona of Monseigneur. It has a dual effect: on the one hand it reinforces the anonymity of each nobleman and is therefore dismissive of their individuality, suggesting that who they are as a person is irrelevant to what they have done – or rather not done, en masse; a particularly significant judgment compared to Darnay‘s own beliefs that he will not be in danger from the mob because of his previous fairness and qualities as an individual. On the other hand, continuing to resurrect Monseigneur as a title for a multitude of characters is suggestive of the immortality of the class – kill one and another will take its place, a hierarchical hydra that shows the limit and futility of the fury and rage sweeping through Paris.

There are more doppelgangers and dual identities this week in Darnay and the Marquis St Evremond. Just as Dr Manette talked about himself in the third person, so too does Darnay try to justify himself from an outside perspective rather than coming to terms with himself. The idea that Darnay and the Marquis are two separate entities, their boundaries defined by the English Channel, results in a loss of self-awareness, further underlined by Darnay’s naïve optimism about the success and security of his trip abroad.

However, one simplification this week is that there are no longer any misconceptions about Stryver, whereas in his early appearances he maintained two personas as a great barrister and a ruthless manipulator resting on the laurels of Carton, now his hypocrisies and more odious characteristics are obvious to the central characters; interestingly this coincides with their greater appreciation of Carton’s true potential and worth; to know the one is to know the other.

It’s a shame that in arranging the contributions to this week’s edition that Dickens didn’t place “The Future” immediately after ATOTC as the ponderous, half-morbid, half-hopeful forecasting within fits in nicely with the tone of Darnay’s own musings over the fate awaiting him abroad and in book three. Instead, the instalment is followed by “North Italian Character” with its rather jarring, Stryver-like judgements early on that “The French never do so well as when their vessel of state is steered by a firm, a capable, and even a severe pilot”.

The fourth montly part of A tale of two cities

Well the revolution may finally be underway in the weeklies, but for those increasingly select few of Dickens’s readers who had opted for the monthlies, they’d have only just reached the halfway point. Here then are the first visualisations of episodes from weeks 13-16, and at last we can see a bit of the old Phiz bubbling up (pun intended) with “The Spy’s funeral”:

Crowd scene – check. Lots of dynamics – check. Probably the best illustration of the lot so far, my only criticism would be that it’s actually too reminiscent of early Dickens – the comic mayhem depicted in the picture is a little at odds with the scene as described by Dickens, which I read with more hints of malice and savagery rather than jolly fun and japes – or is that just me? On to the second illustration, “The Wine Shop” :

 

Barsard looks suitably oily in his posturing, nicely contrasted to the visibly indifferent Defarges. However, and this is a personal taste thing – I really don’t like the depiction of Madame Defarge, who looks more like a typical Dickens heroine than the sadistic devil woman we all know and love. I wonder whether Dickens gave any input on this matter?

 

The third monthly part of A Tale of Two Cities

Blimey, month three already? Here are the illustrations that would now be available to Dickens’s readers, and they offer quite different scenes.

“The Stoppage at the Fountain”

“Mr Stryver at Tellson’s Bank”

I’ll confess to not being overly impressed with the illustrations this time round. While the first picture has an impact en masse, the individual characters within it lack detail. The second picture doesn’t quite meet the visual image conjured up by Dickens’s writing of Mr Stryver being too big for the bank – he actually seems rather diminuitive, while the other tellers are far more absorbed in their work than bothered by this boisterous and imposing intruder into their sanctuary.

Though I’m surprised that other scenes weren’t chosen for illustration – the murdered Marquis, for example, or Carton unveiling himself to Lucie, both seem to be more significant moments in this month’s collection – I’m impressed with the two chosen scenes as a pair in so much as the contrast they offer, with tragedy on a national scale in one illustration and comedy on a very personal level in the other, and the way they consequently convey the breadth of ATOTC and the different stories unfolding either side of the channel,

Week 13: Recalling “Recalled to Life”

And back to Jerry. Honestly, Dickens moves us around between characters and environments so much that it’s easy to forget plot strands or intrigues from earlier. I’m still waiting to hear more on the murder of the Marquis, then I get wrapped up in Carton’s self-loathing and the courtship of Lucie, and suddenly we’re thrust back into the world of Jerry and his family, and the solution to the riddle of the rust. The Jerry scenes are reminiscent of early Dickens; Jerry’s inexplicable anger and maltreatment of his wife remind me of Quilp’s persecution of his wife, while Jerry’s awful pride in the monstrosity of his child and the man he will become is like another Squeers and son. And he’s not the only ill-mannered husband in this week’s publication; Mr Marbell in “Roughing It” is a cold husband, cold father and a brute. The funeral of his neglected child, Gussy, threatens to turn into the same anarchy seen in ATOTC: “We shall never forget little Gussy’s funeral. It is well the police were there, or Mr Marbell had not been alive now.”

Returning to Dickens, what strikes me about the early sections of this week, comparing it with the previous adventures of Jerry at the courthouse, is how, despite the alienating effect of Jerry’s domestic scenes, Dickens uses him as an everyman character, presenting public scenes to which Jerry has no direct connection and therefore is able to view objectively, or at least in keeping with the general mob. Both then and here at Cly’s funeral, we see Jerry adopt the attitude of the crowd, which in turn becomes a sentient being in its own right, though made the more terrifying by its overriding ignorance. Many people cry out against the corpse without knowing why they are doing it. It is a scene that could easily be set in Paris, and the image of the coach surrounded by the angry mob makes an interesting contrast to its earlier companion scene in Paris where the Marquis is surrounded by a crowd no less angry, but stripped of the capacity to act; here in England the crowd acts in celebration of freedom of speech without truly understanding why (which prompts the question: can you imagine how Dickens would have reported the London riots last year?).

There’s a momentary parallel in the following article “The Track of War” when the author talks of “The jealousy on the part of the French of the presence of strangers”, likening it to Jack Cade’s rebellion during the reign of Henry VI, and made famous in Shakespeare’s play, where a clerk is killed for the crime of being educated. This throw-away comparison of French mentality to English, and the image therein of the angry mob, has added significance only when read in the context of the original magazine, coming hard upon the riotous funeral of Roger Cly. Intriguingly, this is one of two French-based articles this week, the other being “In Charge” – is Dickens deliberately complementing his novel by encouraging accompanying pieces on France, or were budding authors seeing an opportunity to get published by shaping their articles to reflect on the principal story?

After presenting Jerry once more as a man of the crowd, “the honest trademan”, Dickens then singles him out, having him stay on at the graveside when the rest of the mob have dispersed, and then alienating him further from other people by exposing him as a grave robber, the related scenes bringing to mind once more those three ominous words that began the book: “recalled to life”. How ironic, in retrospect, that Jerry should have been the one to deliver that message, and to have mused on its meaning when he himself is a resurrectionist. Given that the early hints of the rust were not mentioned until week 5, I wonder, did Dickens know when he wrote the first instalment that Jerry would develop in this way – was the irony planned, or did those dark, mysterious tones of the early chapters sow the seed that would see Jerry’s character evolve into this? There is a sense this week of the story expanding in its scope – in this episode, Jerry has broken free of the other characters: though Cly’s funeral reminds us of Darnay’s trial, ultimately we see Jerry acting independently to the bank and Jarvis Lorry, and pursuing his own subplot. So now that the various plots begin to expand and disperse, where is Dickens going to take them all – yet further apart into distinct plot strands, or  will there be any future convergences? If so, what significance, if any, could Jerry prove later on either to the approaching revolution, or the daily soap of Lucie Manette and her admirers?

The second monthly part of A Tale of Two Cities

It seems like we’ve been doing this for a long time already, and yet we’re only up to the second monthly part! However much you like Dickens, reading his work in the original format takes stamina. You can see signs already of how organisation is slipping – for the first few weeks it was clearly stated that the first monthly part would be available on a specific date – 31 May. But this week we are told, rather vaguely, that the second part will be published alongside the July magazines. Writing a novel, editing a journal, and overseeing the monthly editions of the novel obviously set Dickens working at a furious pace. Anyway, here are the illustrations from month 2 (thanks again to The Victorian Web):

 “The Likeness”

“Congratulations”

The most noticeable aspect here is the similarity in subject – both pictures show Carton and Darnay (although, given the way they dominate this month’s part, it would be hard to avoid them). That said, when you review the month’s writing as a whole, there is little alternative for illustration (the plot would have stretched from the trial up to the gathering at the Manette’s house). Certainly the trial is an obvious moment to illustrate, and the moment at which the likeness is revealed is arguably the most dramatic point. As for the second illustration, as I see it there are three alternatives Phiz could have depicted: Carton and Darnay in the pub, Carton and Stryver later that night,  or perhaps an illustration of the Manette’s house with all in attendance. What might these moments, if illustrated, have offered to the reader; how might characters have been represented or interpreted?

Though “The Likeness” is a busier picture, I prefer “Congratulations”; in particular Phiz’s rendering of Carton and Darnay so as to show both their similarities and differences; the first in their most basic physical traits, and the second in their bearing and dress. Job well done.

 

Jackals, lions, princes and villains.

Okay, first things first – the worst kept secret of ATOTC has finally been revealed, and we can now stop calling Miss Manette MM and go with Lucie – and what an anticlimax. The name is dropped into the conversation as though Dickens himself is unaware that he’s been holding back. I would have liked it preceded by a fanfare, or an em-dash at the very least. And in a two-for-one, the significance of the book’s title is revealed with Lucie likened to the “golden thread that united [her father] to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery”.

But the big story this week is Carton. The jackal. Or the lion – it’s very confusing. The popular, ignorant view depicts Carton as the scavenger, living off the meat provided by the lion Stryver, whereas the reader can see the opposite to be true; indeed, I felt quite indignant at how quickly the others forgot his role in saving Darnay. Despite his show-stealing moment of revealing himself as the defendant’s double, “Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the day’s proceedings; nobody had known of it.” We are led to disagree with popular opinion, and yet Dickens continues to refer to Carton as the jackal without correcting this, as though he wants to continue to press forward the significance of appearance rather than character. All this in an instalment obsessed with appearances. Carton meets his double and is reminded of what he could be. He then looks upon himself in a mirror and soliloquises (more theatricality in the novel).

It’s a very Shakespearean moment, and brings to mind a Shakespearean precedent for all of this. In Henry IV Part One the wastrel Prince Hal reveals his true inner-lion only when the stage has been emptied, and spends the rest of the time in company drinking and carousing. That play also sets up an interesting double between the disappointing Hal and the child of honour Harry Percy (Hotspur), their shared first name being the link rather than shared appearances, but the same contrast of character being regarded by themselves and others – Hal’s father says of Hotspur  “I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry.”  Compare this to Carton’s own observation: “A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been!”

That soliloquy has another Shakespearean parallel in Iago’s soliloquy early in Othello where, after all his wrangling in front of other characters, he at last reveals his true self and intentions with the line “I hate the moor”, much as Carton hates Darnay. So, the question is, will Carton be a Hal or Iago? Are we to realise his true worth, like Eugene Wrayburn, or see his interest in Lucie become a murderous obsession like Bradley Headstone? Is he to confirm himself as a jackal, or throw it all off and become a lion? It’s not just a tale of two cities, but of two identities, two interpretations.

Week Six: Double Trouble, or Blue Fly Thinking

Blimey, we’re straight into it this week aren’t we? No drawn out introduction, no scenic descriptions, just right on with the scene as if the week’s interval hadn’t happened. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the TV tradition of a recap before each new episode – from this point forward Dickens is assuming anyone reading knows the story and there’s no need to lead them in gently. So straight in it is, and what we get is a court report featuring some typical Dickensian descriptive names: the defence, Stryver, certainly is striving to acquit his client, while the devious Barsad is missing a vital “T” from his name. The chapter’s title, “a disappointment” is wonderfully ironic given that the disappointment in question is that a man is NOT killed, much to the annoyance of the blue flies hanging around looking for carrion – remind me again, is this scene set in England or France?

For those of us left wondering what week what any of this had to do with the story we’d been reading up to then, Dickens puts in some links back to the events of book one. The accused, Darnay, was on the mailcoach the same time that Lorry received the message from Jerry, and on the return boat from France along with Lorry and the Manettes. Dickens expressed frustration with the constraints of writing ATOTC in such small parts, and you can see why here. This week and last week’s instalments work much better together than apart – the abrupt ending last week, matched with the equally abrupt beginning this week; the linking of the scene to the story thus far being delayed until this week; and the use of Jerry as framing device for the two parts together, opening last week and closing this week – all these point to Dickens’s powers being thwarted by the format.

Incidentally, did you note the repetition of a previous episode, when the apparently devil-may-care Carton shows sudden compassion for MM – “Don’t you see she will fall!” – just as the impartial Madame Defarge, who sees nothing, was the one to rush for Dr Manette’s possessions when he cried out for them in part four? Both these characters, hiding their compassion behind a cool exterior, make a welcome change from MM who gushes forth like a torrent much to the detriment of the poor accused. For someone who first calls the prisoner a gentleman, and tries to explain how “kind and good” he was, she nonetheless drops him in it through her naïve telling of the whole truth – why oh why does she mention the joke about George Washington? After her moment of strength on meeting her father, Dickens is plunging the character back into the role of damsel in distress, with little to no sense of worldly knowledge. That, to me, justifies the chapter’s title of “a disappointment”.

Countering that disappointment, is the very intriguing strand in this week’s instalment of the doubles of Carton and Darnay, “so like each other in feature, so unlike each other in manner”. The double in literature is an area of personal interest; while Dickens’s hero Shakespeare had used the device of the lookalike several times for comic effect, in more recent years across the continent it had become a horror device; the idea had already featured in E.T.A Hoffman’s The Devil‘s Elixirs (1815), which hinges upon the idea of the double as does his later story The Doppleganger (1821), in turn inspired by Jean Paul’s Siebenkas (1796-7). The double also featured in James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), and later in Dostoevsky’s The Double (1846). In each of these stories the double is a crime against nature, looking like the hero but thwarting his every move: the evil twin. Compared to these extreme examples, Carton and Darnay seem rather tame, but, like these other literary doubles, the fascination lies in the contrast of similarity in appearance with opposition in spirit and morality. I eagerly anticipate the development of this theme.

Of the rest of this week’s ATYR, while Proctor’s continuation of trade songs reminds us in its reference to busy bees of the blue flies, it is the second article “The confessor’s handbook” which I think reflects best on ATOTC, with some some nice links to the courtscene in the writer’s considerations of the “penitent’s moral guilt” and the observation of the justice system:

“Just as well might an attorney be supposed to be duly educated for the business of his profession by an abstract reverence for the principles of justice, and the possession of personal integrity!”

The first monthly part of A Tale of Two Cities

Well it’s 31 May, which, as the advertisements on the back page of ATYR have been telling us, means the first monthly volume of ATOTC would be available today. This offered any latecomers to the journal the opportunity to catch up with the previous instalments, as well as giving them time to pick up this week’s copy of ATYR and carry on reading! However it’s equally likely that readers of the weekly and monthly parts were distinct from one another – the publication of ATOTC in both formats was a gamble that didn’t quite pay off, with sales of the monthly volume proving disappointing, presumably because everyone was reading it in ATYR first.

The main addition in the monthly volume was the coverwork and two illustrations by Dickens’s long-time collaborater Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). For the first time, readers could see the characters they had been following for the last five weeks visualised. Sadly, this would be the last time Phiz and Boz would work together. In her biography of Phiz, Valerie Browne Lester notes how critics were somewhat damning of these illustrations, feeling that Phiz was increasingly out of date in his style.

“The Mail”

The cover work gives, for the first time, clues as to the novel’s tone and structure, in contrast to the plain text that keeps us guessing in ATYR. We can see London and Paris at the top and bottom, and familiar scenes such as Dr Manette and the courtroom scene of this week, as well as portraits of (we assume) MM, and revolutionary scenes that offer weight to the various forebodings Dickens has included in his descriptions thus far of France.

“The Shoemaker”

So what do you think? Do the pictures convey the characters as you imagined them? Are they sufficiently interesting or was the initial criticism of them justified? Do they add to our enjoyment of the story – are they indeed worth a thousand words, even Dickens’s words? And are they the scenes you would expect to see illustrated? Personally I’m a little disappointed Phiz didn’t offer us a picture of the spilt wine in France… 

 

(all these pictures are available from Victorian Web at http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/pva109.html – but those wishing to avoid spoilers should beware of visiting this site while still reading the story as picture titles obviously can give clues to future plotlines!)

I’ve lost the [golden] thread…

Is it just me or have we started over this week? Before we begin reading we are told by the chapter heading that we are now “five years later”. You would expect, as Hazel says, that we would see a continuation of the characters we saw last week, but instead we go right back to the first week’s installment with talk of Lorry and Jerry. Are we supposed to remember Jerry? It’s been four weeks, after all, and there’s no helpful prompt from Dickens to make the connection (you know, here’s that Jerry again, last seen scaring mail coach passengers on the way to Dover). So what was a minor character is now a major character, and what were major characters are now minor – Lorry and (we presume ) the Mannettes are seen but not heard, and reported to us only through the perspective of Jerry.

Coming back to structure, the sense of a new beginning (or revised beginning) makes perfect sense given that this is both the first two chapters of book two AND what will eventually be the first chapters of the next monthly part, but again we come back to Dickens shooting himself in the foot with a very short Book 1 – is it too soon to be taking the approach of a new beginning when we’re still settling into the story and getting to know the characters?

All that aside, there’s a lot to like in this week’s installment. The Cruncher domestic scenes threaten to be melodrama with the virtuous wife and the monstrous husband (who was it who criticised Dickens for giving all his characters verbal ticks? I wonder whether Jerry’s constant naming of his wife as “Aggerawayter” in every sentence is going to grate); however the young Cruncher adds an interesting aspect to this, with he and his father as two spiky-haired monkeys rendering a marvellous mental image. The courtscene itself shows a man in dire straits again (now that Manette is no longer buried alive), and the connection made between Charles Darnay and the Manettes are a neat way of involving the audience in his fate and informing us of where our sympathies should lie in this scene, only to then be contradicted by the news that they are witnesses against the accused. Intriguing enough to keep us guessing until next week…

The shoe’s on the other foot now…

Okay, after all the comments and speculation last week, I’ll try and keep this one brief. But in the light of reading part four, I would say MM has been rather vindicated, wouldn’t you? She certainly shows spirit and fortitude in approaching her father and sending Defarge and Lorry back when they are fretting over the knife. And some proactive behaviour at last when she takes the lead on getting her father out of Paris, while Lorry just blows his nose. I guess when her father was still theoretical, there was room for fear, but on seeing him, love conquers all (someone pass another sickbag to Mr Booley). I still stand by my admiration of Dickens’s description of MM’s fear in part three as a fantastic way of shocking the reader and building anticipation for part four, and the idea isn’t completely abandoned in this week’s episode as we see MM move from fear to love:

with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope

We see here at last MM stepping forward and taking control and becoming a heroine indeed. Good for her, and shame on us.