ambrmerlinus

Chapter 5: The Wood-Sawyer

One year and three months later, the situation in France has yet to improve.

pg. 272: Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and gray; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine

Despite all this, Lucie Darnay keeps behaving as though all is well and normal.

pg. 272-273: Little Lucie she taught as regularly as if they had all been untied in their English home.

WHY IS THE CHILD IN FRANCE WITH YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE!?

( Under the cut: dancing! Evil dancing! )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

Book III

Chapter 1: In Secret, wherein the best-laid plans of Charles Darnay go wrong and absolutely no-one is shocked.

( Who am I supposed to be rooting for, again? )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

We're running into that "I want to quote the entire chapter" problem again.

Chapter 20: A Plea tells us that the very first person to visit Charles and Lucie Darnay when they return from their honeymoon is Sydney Carton. Literally. He's there within hours of their arrival. I assume this is because Carton was dying of loneliness while they were away. It may also be because the Darnays are too bland to have any other friends.

( Vive le Revolution! )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

( The Tale of Five Jacques, and How Not to Treat Mental Illness )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

In Chapter 8: Monseigneur in the Country, we continue following the murderous Marquis on his journey to his château.

pg. 118: Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up a steep hill.

...Firewooded up a steep hill?

The village surrounding the Marquis' château is very, very poor. How poor is it?

pg. 119: All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten.

That's quite poor, that is.

( Seriously tho, if your villagers are reduced to eating grass, you might want to re-think your expensive lifestyle. )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

In Chapter 4: Congratulatory, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Mr. Lorry, and Mr. Stryver all stay behind after everyone else has left the courthouse to congratulate Charles Darnay on not getting drawn-and-quartered. Hence the chapter title.

Darnay thanks Stryver for defending him in court, provoking this exchange.

pg. 87: "I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as another man's, I believe."

It clearly being incumbent on someone to say, "Much better," Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again.

Say what you will, I think Dickens is hilarious.

( Read more... )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

Chapter 5: The Wine Shop brings us to France, and predictably, a wine shop.

A barrel of wine is dropped in the street and smashes open on the pavement, spilling all the wine. All the passersby pounce on it, drinking it with their hands and soaking it up with rags. It is, of course, red wine, which makes for a lovely visual metaphor.

pg. 37-38: Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees – BLOOD.

The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.

Subtle.

( Wherein a doctor breaks my heart and the best character is introduced. )

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For more Dickens, check out the Rant of Two Cities tag. Alternatively, you can start from the beginning.

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. My copy is published by Signet Classics and boasts "8 pages of photographs from the CBS Hall of Fame presentation." Prince Humperdinck is on the cover.

WHY ARE YOU READING THIS?

1.) I quite enjoyed the Wishbone version.

2.) I've also enjoyed many other stories about the French Revolution, including but not limited to the webcomic Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis; Tom Hiddleston's narration of the YA novel The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner; and that one song from The Scarlet Pimpernell, Madame Guillotine.

3.) It was on a shelf at work so I picked it up.

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( A Rant of Two Cities )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
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5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29

Entries tagged with a rant of two cities

A Rant of Two Cities: Book III, chapters 5-9

A Rant of Two Cities: Book III, chapters 1-4

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 20-24

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 15-19

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 8-14

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 4-7

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 5-3

A Rant of Two Cities: chapters 1-4

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