A Tale of Two Cities - Book 4 of 2012 for Mir

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A Tale of Two Cities - Book 4 of 2012 for Mir

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1mirrani
Feb 7, 2012, 6:48 pm

Boy, do I have some quotes... as I'm about 3/4 of the way through right now. :p One thing I have discovered is that the things I found that made me hit the highlight button weren't at all similar to, nor did they coincide with /any/ of the highlights from other people. I mean, it's Dickens! You can have several hundreds of people highlighting... but no one likes my stuff, I guess. Sometimes I wonder (if these things ever got to be "public" because I don't go online until I've deleted the highlights) if anyone ever would sit there and go "Who is the idiot who highlighted /that/ line?" or if they would actually contemplate what it was about the section that meant something to the person who'd selected it.

Anyway... on to quotes and whatnot...

You know I had to notice a good horse remark when I saw it. I just loved this and there's not really another explanation for why. ;)
"While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road." 3%

By itself, it's not as descriptive of what you typically read, however the way this is written, you can close your eyes and see every /bit/ of what the characters see out the window. You could probably compose a picture of it in paints, pencils or whatever medium you so chose...
"He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful." 3%

This simple little moment inspired me for all kinds of writing ideas.
"The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it." 3%

Another picture and more writing. Oh the images that come to mind for this, including some trips to "colonial" locations around my area, where you look at a chair near the fireplace and just /see/ this come to life in your mind.
"Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticing a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire." 3%

The following line brought to mind something Sheppard once said to Michael in Stargate Atlantis...
"A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of the cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut shell." 6%
To twist the Atlantis Quote... "Are you going to go through the whole play by play, or are we going to drink the stuff?" ;) This isn't to say I thought it was badly written, quite the opposite, of course, or it wouldn't be up here.

I couldn't help but be touched by the emotion this description holds, the actual essence of captivity.
"It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain." 10%

I had to stop washing the dishes in order to mark this one.
"When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become." 16%

This was one of two quotes I had to try and remember for the drive back to work from my break, so that I could mark it when I was able to hit the buttons.. This idea of rain was just awesome to me. It's amazing how you don't realize you can think of something a certain way until it's put in front of you in that light.
"The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some as it seemed, under the windows, some as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether, all in the distant streets, and not one within sight." 26%

The second of the car quotes and I'll start a new post for the next batch because this has gotten /entirely/ too long... I found this to be such an awesome description of character that it really struck me hard. Not only in a visual way, but in an emotional way. People say they'd love to be waited on hand and foot, but there's being fussed over and the extreme. We don't realize how extreme people take things some times.
"Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he must have died of two." 26%

2cedargrove
Feb 8, 2012, 5:42 pm

This post in and of itself is almost enough to make me want to read Dickens again - and after I was put off from it at such a tender age, that's saying something.

I love the quotes you have selected (and I'm not at all surprised to find a horse quote in there!)

I can only imaging what kind of writing ideas have come to you, but all of the first three quotes (yes, the horse one too) spoke to my imagination and conjured things to write from. Maybe I should have started with /this/ Dickens book instead of Great Expectations.

The 'colonial' quote made me think of Poe... it felt kind of Poe-ian to me. I could just see Jeff sitting there like that, and the Atlantis reference *grin* I love that you got that in there. Michael on your mind even while reading Dickens - and I say that because to have Sheppard on your mind would make me worry :)

The footsteps one - that was just amazing, and what a metaphor. Next time I have to teach metaphor, I'm using that, and than you Dickens!

As for the chocolate man quote - I actually did laugh out loud, and couldn't help but think of our recent visit to the Franklin hotel. They were not quite that bad - but almost!

3cedargrove
Feb 8, 2012, 5:43 pm

This post in and of itself is almost enough to make me want to read Dickens again - and after I was put off from it at such a tender age, that's saying something.

I love the quotes you have selected (and I'm not at all surprised to find a horse quote in there!)

I can only imaging what kind of writing ideas have come to you, but all of the first three quotes (yes, the horse one too) spoke to my imagination and conjured things to write from. Maybe I should have started with /this/ Dickens book instead of Great Expectations.

The 'colonial' quote made me think of Poe... it felt kind of Poe-ian to me. I could just see Jeff sitting there like that, and the Atlantis reference *grin* I love that you got that in there. Michael on your mind even while reading Dickens - and I say that because to have Sheppard on your mind would make me worry :)

The footsteps one - that was just amazing, and what a metaphor. Next time I have to teach metaphor, I'm using that, and thank you Dickens!

As for the chocolate man quote - I actually did laugh out loud, and couldn't help but think of our recent visit to the Franklin hotel. They were not quite that bad - but almost!

4mirrani
Feb 8, 2012, 6:25 pm

While I was reading I thought that the second section of my post would be shorter for lack of quotes, but it turns out that it's about the same...

This reminded me so much of wandering places in Europe. I could so picture any of the buildings in this place.
"It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stones urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago." 30%

I more liked the idea behind beginning of this, but to understand it, you have to have the end of it.
"All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away?" 33%

I just loved the idea of being highly fraught with nothing. :)
"Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing." 33%

And loved this too, if not the purpose behind it..
"It portended that there was one stone face to many, up at the chateau." 33%

People don't talk like this any more. We're at a loss in this world because of it, too.
"'I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.'"39%

People don't talk this way part two... And they should, because if we even /thought/ this way there'd be less unhappy goings on between people to each other. We'd all stay devoted, we'd all stay close, no matter what bitterness or need we had, because we wouldn't just set it aside, we'd turn it into the energy to do something productive and proper. Okay, I'm rambling.
"'My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" 39%

Loved the emotional visual here as well as the actual visual.
"On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with close doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder--for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient or the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked like accomplices in a horrible crime." 54%

Not for the morbid part, you understand, but for the thought behind it.
"When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, 'Now am I left, as if I were dead.' Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, 'And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death.'" 67%

As we get into the killing of prisoners and such things, I have to keep saying this, but I'm not picking this because of the deaths caused, but because of the way the visual is described. To take something so horrible and turn it into something readable is hard to do, I'd think.
"The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away." 69%

While reading this section I came across the thought for myself: Would you be strong enough to go and stand on the same iffy corner day after day at the same time, just looking at a building that you only could hope was at that same moment allowing someone inside looking back at you? Don't know that I'd be that strong.
"From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away." 72%

More of that strength...
"In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall." 73%

And finally, a segment of a quote...
"...all secret men are men soon terrified..." 79%
that more than the rest struck me as something a lot of people can relate too, because who hasn't tried to hold something back... No, we're not all undercover FBI agents or whatever, but ... you know what I mean.

I will post the last quarter of the book tomorrow, so this post won't get to be too long. From here I'm going to have to look at my list to see what is next for me to read. Time to move on into another world... sad, but true.

5cedargrove
Feb 8, 2012, 7:00 pm

The repetition of 'stone' in the first quote had me going for a while - until I read the gorgon reference at the end of it... then I read it again with a new eye, and it was totally different; very effective. I'm thinking this is maybe what I missed the first time I tried to read Dickens - the clever stuff!

Having just been writing up my meditations about mornings and beginnings and things of that ilk, the quote about routines and the return of morning captured me a lot... as did the quote you made in reference to people not speaking in such an eloquent way as then. I'm 100% with you on that, and I loved that quote. It touched me... as did the quote you made afterwards - which actually nearly moved me to tears.

Okay, the next quote did it... the crime one - it has me thinking I should definitely give Dickens another try. I can't think why I didn't like him before - other than that I was perhaps too young to appreciate him? The two after also, as you say, show great skill in turning something a little morbid and gruesome into something lyrical enough to be read. Yeah, I think definitely it's an age thing.

The 'strength' quotes you give are very touching. As I read the first one I didn't of course realise that she was looking at a prison wall - which of course is explicitly stated in the second quote. There are so many thoughts and ideas that come from that, that I don't even know where to start. Waiting like that - it really /is/ a strength.

I'm glad you've been enjoying the book, and as I said before, your quotes have helped me gain a new appreciation for Dickens and a desire to try again and read some of his work. :) I am looking forward to seeing what you quote for the last part of the book. (And I'm going to try not to post this more than once).

6mirrani
Feb 9, 2012, 5:59 pm

And my final active post for this thread comes today. From now on I'll try to do better about posting as I read, but with so many vet appointments this week, it just wasn't always do-able.

I would like to think that I were capable of bringing someone hope in this way...
"When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy blood into his fa e, brightened his glance, and animated his heart." 83%

A quick, but meaningful line...
"The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the deer." 83%

I liked this way of saying that things were happening at the same time.
"The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined." 94%

I loved how this was worded, but not just because it was horses mentioned, thank you. :p
"Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled." 94%

Again, not the act of these words, but he actual wording of them. How else do you describe such death in a way that people can feel it in their hearts? Numbers are just numbers.
"Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror." 98%

More of the same, really... this time dealing with a single death.
"The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsetps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three."99%

And as is true to form, I found that everything leading up to the most popular end quote was more meaningful to me than the end quote itself. I'm not going to go into detail on that one, you're just going to have to read it for yourself. :)

7cedargrove
Feb 15, 2012, 6:39 pm

Oooh, the end quote comment was just not fair. Now I /am/ going to have to read the book for myself. LOL

8mirrani
Feb 16, 2012, 5:47 pm

Well it's in your inventory, you know. ;) And here's my forgotten review:
http://www.librarything.com/review/74169515

9cedargrove
Feb 23, 2012, 9:39 am

You tempt me! Inventory here I come. :)