#262 A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Author: Charles Dickens
Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Genre: Novel
Year: 1859
Pages: 300
Origin: read on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 5 nods out of 5

 

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ A few simple words, and yet they remain enduringly famous as one of the most memorable opening lines to a novel:

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.’

 

These very words – as well as the French Revolution historical setting – drew the Worm back to another foray into the world of Dickens. Recent reads in the past five book reading seasons have included the equally excellent Hard Times and David Copperfield. What would A Tale of Two Cities have to offer?

Set over a period of years, the book is set during the French Revolution era; the two cities under consideration are that of London and Paris. In London Lucie Manette is reintroduced to her father, Dr Manette, and in time she marries the son of a French aristocrat, Charles Darnay. Also in love with Lucie is the cad Sydney Carton, who remains distant despite becoming a family friend. The novel gathers pace and shape after the fall of the Bastille in 1789; as Carton states: ‘this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes.’ Darnay returns to his homeland in order to help a former servant, and in doing so he is imprisoned as an enemy of the people. The Manettes attempt to help Darnay, yet their attempts are not entirely successful, with Darnay facing the guillotine. In an attempt to help the Manettes, Carton nobly changes places with Darnay and faces death at the novel’s end.

Dickens focuses on a couple of key themes: death and resurrection (particularly with the first book being named ‘Recalled to Life’), the right and wrong of the law, as well as the idea of love conquering all. Due to the weighty themes there is a noticeable lack of humour, however, the usual Dickensian wit is present: ‘Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience’, and regarding the guillotine: ‘it was the best cure for a headache.’

The novel reaches a dramatic highpoint which differentiates it from other reads, principally that of David Copperfield. Rather than drawing out a meandering plot for hundreds of (unneeded) pages, A Tale of Two Cities is precise in its intentions and execution. Plot is of higher importance, rather than the characters of which Dickens is so well – and justly – famed. Perhaps it is because of this, rather than the “serious” nature of the novel, as to why A Tale of Two Cities stands out in the back catalogue of Dickens’ works. It obtains the maximum 5 nods from this reviewer, the same reviewer who now doubts that it will be bettered when he next returns to Dickens in the year ahead.

 

Read it here

 

#255 The Sound and the Fury (1929) [Revisited]

Author: William Faulkner
Title: The Sound and the Fury
Genre: Novel
Year: 1929
Origin: a fantastic and astonishing birthday present
Nod Rating: 5 nods out of 5

 

The Sound and the Fury is the Worm’s most favoured novel. Yes, it was reviewed only three or so years ago on this very blog (scoring 5 nods out of 5). In almost five years of reading and reviewing on this blog Faulkner’s novel is the first book in which the Worm has returned (although there have been temptations in other directions). At the time – June 2011 – the Worm was positive in his applause: ‘a breath-taking must-read of a novel’. And he remains incredibly positive about this novel. It is set in the American south in the 1920s, centring on the Compson family; divided into four parts, each one is told from the viewpoint of one of the Compson brothers, each building on their obsession with southern values and their vivacious sister, Caddy.

So, why return to this novel, the Worm hears you ask. Principally the return is due to a new reading experience. In the summer of 2012 the Worm was presented with a particular edition of Faulkner’s novel; the key difference being that it was printed in coloured ink, just as Faulkner had initially intended (the idea was scotched due to the price of printing it in this manner). The colour itself was used in order to differentiate between the vast and jutting time shifts in the book’s first section, otherwise italicised in editions between the 1930s to the present day. Faulkner himself rued his overturned choice: ‘I wish publishing was advanced enough to use coloured ink… I’ll just have to save the idea until publishing grows up to it.’

It was interesting re-reading this novel with Faulkner’s idea fully realised. The shifts in time flowed more easily (as is needed in Benjy’s opening section; on first reading many years ago the Worm was almost dissuaded from ploughing on after becoming annoyed in the first ten pages). Furthermore, it was also a thrill knowing that the book was limited in number (only 1,480 copies printed); the book now takes pride of place in the Worm’s make-shift library.

Of good value was an accompany commentary volume: another 230 pages offering notes and description on the novel. The Worm re-read this novel slowly, centring on pages at a time, rather than whole chapters or tens of pages at a time. In this way, he completed re-reading the book in the space of eighteen months, using the commentary volume in order to add even greater depth to his understanding. During this reading process – completely new to the Worm – he was reminded of a documentary in which a book-reading group met up once a month to read two or three pages of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. The Finnegan’s Wake Society is worldwide, with one group in Brisbane, Australia, predicting that it would take them until 2039 to complete the book!

The Sound and the Fury is a book that has been enjoyed at every reading; the Worm fancies creating up a society to rival that of Finnegan’s Wake. But, of course, he is much too greedy a reader to move at the dictates of others. However, the Worm is generous enough to suggest to everyone to pick up a copy of this book whenever the opportunity presents itself: only a few reads are so intense that the reader is unable to shift them from their mind.

 

Read the original review of The Sound and the Fury here

Further information on this edition of the book here

#252 Herland (1915)

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Title: Herland
Genre: Science Fiction
Year: 1915
Pages: 150
Origin: read on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 5 nods out of 5

 

Some of the greatest reads are those stumbled upon by wonderful accident. Many moons ago the Worm had the pleasure of taking a university module on dystopian fiction; it involved the novels of George Orwell, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter, whilst also including movies including the big hit The Matrix. In particular, the book of Atwood and Carter, dealing with issues of feminism, led the Worm to come across a tatty copy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland in the library. It was consumed in a flash, and – in the spirit of all great reads – changed the philosophy of its reader.

Years later the Worm decided to return to Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the past year her rousing short story – The Yellow Wallpaper – was read and enjoyed, but it failed to hit the highs of this earlier novel. Allow the Worm to outline the plot: three male adventurers come across a lost and forgotten land populated only by women. They first travel to the land firmly believing that they will conquer the females, and each of them – according to their profession – has a particular idea of femininity. Terry is the macho one of the trio and the man who has the luck with the ladies back home in America; his stance is shown in his words: ‘You’ll see… I’ll get solid with them all – and play one bunch against another. I’ll get myself elected king in no time – whew!’ Jeff, meanwhile, upholds female virtue, idolising their innocence. Vandyck, the novel’s narrator and affirmed “sociologist” is the middle-ground between these values and notions, leading the way for the demolition of these ideas as the novel progresses. The gender attributes they believed definite and carved in stone are revealed to be interchangeable. Rather than pathetic whelps the women of Herland hold an array of “masculine” qualities (such as intelligence and strength) whilst also being loving mothers.

Perkins Gilman has great fun in putting the male characters into the submissive position (being held prisoner after entering Herland). All of this leads Vandyck to reflect: ‘This led my very promptly to the conviction that those “feminine charms” we are so fond of are not feminine at all, but merely reflected masculinity – developed to please us because they had to please us.’

All of this is shown to illustrate the waging battle of the contemporary period in which the novel was written. 1915 saw the suffragette movement in the western world in full flow; Perkins Gilman was a vocal campaigner of this cause, putting the Sci-Fi genre to great effect. Although with heavy strands of socialism – then untainted by the later Soviet experiment- Herland is a novel that fights for what has been labelled “first wave feminism”: the recognition that females are equal with males and should be treated so in society.

Herland is an important novel: a great read that truly does change perceptions. The mystery is how it was forgotten for so long. The Worm utterly endorses it to the full maximum of 5 nods in order to correct – in a very small way – the mistreatment of Perkins Gilman’s interesting and intriguing legacy.

Buy it here