A Tale Of Two Cities, Four Month Read Along. (Title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

Oh can I join this? I know it's late but it is one of only two Dickens books I have ever read, and I studied it for GCSE and always loved it. I can easily catch up!

@Benvenuto haha yes I cried about the Desmoulins… and had a bit of a crush on Danton. Robespierre was.. inscrutable.
Amazed by the achievement of such a novel at such a young age. I only read it last year, I will re read it at some point, it deserves close attention.
Laclos was only a bit part but quite funny.

@MotherOfCatBoythanks v much - I have read A Place of Greater Safety but I missed the reference to Laclos (so clearly need to reread). All I knew about Laclos prior to this was that he was in the army & knew a lot about guns.

I first read A Place as a teen & have reread it as an adult - both times I adored the parts about the Desmoulins, liked the bits about Danton & resented having to read about Robespierre.

Thanks @MotherOfCatBoy , the Mantel novel is on my list of books to be read one day! She talks about it in her excellent memoir Giving Up the Ghost. It sounds like she put an absolutely extraordinary amount of research into it.

I think I need to read it over a summer when my mind is freer, as it sounds like a brilliant and demanding read.

@Benvenuto @cassandre if you haven’t already read it, you might enjoy Hilary Mantel’ s A Place of Greater Safety, where she includes Laclos as one of the circle of dodgy hangers-on around d’Orléans during the Revolution. Cast of thousands, very confusing to start with, but utterly gripping once you get into it.

This month went utterly off the rails, and I feel bad as I had cheered the faster schedule, but now am behind! I’ll try to catch up and throw my hat in mid month.

@cassandreLes Liaisons is a brilliant novel especially re plot & I’m enjoying listening to it - but the actors reading Merteuil & Valmont just aren’t quite charismatic enough for me (this wasn’t helped by the fact that I recently read an article about Christopher Hampton’s work which had a stunning photo of Alan Rickman looking suitably charming & villainous). And if you are not bowled over by their charm and their machinations, their idleness becomes very, very apparent.

Interestingly, I also listened to a podcast on the Marquis de Lafayette, and Laclos popped up in that as a Machiavellian adviser to the Duc d’Orlèans.

Very good points @Benvenuto . My post may have sounded passionate but I wasn't actually trying to get you to change your mind about Dickens and Hugo - to me, readers having different preferences about books is what gives life (or reading) its spice!

Dickens does have a frustrating tendency to create 'Angel in the house' women characters.

I do think that both Dickens and Hugo were genuinely invested in arousing public sympathy for the poor and downtrodden. Hugo was a Romantic with a capital R and sometimes I find his prose over the top for that reason, but his heart was in the right place.

I love Liaisons dangereuses (I was part of the MN read-along that we did of that novel awhile back). I agree that aristocrat idleness is one of Laclos' big points of critique. The society portrayed is so insular and bubble-like: a snapshot of a particular point in time. That whole social system was completely blown apart by the Revolution.

I still haven’t changed my opinion re Hugo v Dickens - not least because Lucie is idealised rather than a more realised character. The class point that @DesdamonasHandkerchiefmakes (upper classes for tragedy; lower classes for comic relief) is also in Hugo’s favour.

That said, there is lots of interest in this book. Judging by Monseigneur, Dickens also isn’t on the side of the aristocrats re the Revolution. Monseigneur might be exaggerated for dramatic effect, but he does capture the idle lifestyle & power of pre-Revolutionary aristocrats. I’ve been listening to an audiobook of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and what has really struck me is how little the characters seem to do (all the work is done by those working-class characters who aren’t worthy enough for a tragedy - Valmont even refers to one of them as a comic valet from a play).

I was also really struck by how extensively Dickens described Carton’s drinking - that is quite something for a Victorian novel.

Thank you @SydneyCarton - that makes sense with the muddy boots and rusty fingers. Still feel a bit sorry for the fact he hangs around all day in the off chance of a message and some money.

I think Jerry only gets paid when there’s a message, but he has another more profitable side hustle which is the main cause of Mrs Cruncher’s worrying and praying. The side hustle also proves to be a source of information which comes in handy later on (if that’s not too much of a spoiler).

Thank you @DesdamonasHandkerchief for keeping me on track and providing the summaries and analysis.

Although I did read this years ago, I have absolutely no recollection of any of the plot so waiting to see how it all unfolds.

I too dislike Cruncher's attitude towards his wife but am a little sympathetic towards him otherwise as he seems to have to hang around in the hope of being needed for messages - does he only get paid if he actually carries a message or does he get paid a wage?

I feel Sydney Carton has a lot of unfulfilled potential which has been exploited by Stryver, who I really dislike. Sydney is the brains whilst Stryver is only the frontman.

Am I going to be disappointed in Charles? Totally agree that I would want to know now who he really is, not on the morning of the wedding (if there is one).

Very readable!

@LadybirdDaphne I remember a joke about Dickens (possibly by the Mary Whitehouse Experience??) giving away plots by calling his characters things like Mrs Lovely, and Mr Complete Bastard, and how if he'd written Cluedo there would be someone called Mr MurdererInTheKitchenWithTheLeadPiping

I’m slightly behind as I still have 3 chapters to go, but I am really enjoying this.

Re Cruncher and his rusty hands, I wasn’t sure if it’s literal rust or if it’s actually blood? Or am I reading too much into the other blood themes of the novel and it is just rust?

Raced through this segment, it’s very readable and page-turnery compared to other Dickens. I think the plot is more straightforward without such a massive cast of daftly named characters, which helps. Of course there are some daft names (I see you Cruncher - I do have an inkling of what he’s up to, given notorious criminal doings of the times). Some nominative determinism too with the ever pushing himself forward ‘Stryver’.

Sydney Carton is a nicely nuanced character - not malicious, but a sensitive intelligent young man who hasn’t lived up to his potential and has fallen into less than ideal company.

Sounds like my A level syllabus. The most modern thing we studied was Keats’ Odes.

The Oxford English professor John Carey wrote in his autobiography that when he came to Oxford to read English as an undergrad in the 1950s, the syllabus stopped at 1832. So even Dickens would have been too daringly modern to be included in the syllabus. That has definitely changed!

Ha, I'm not sure of the exact requirements! I'm sure things have changed in that students have a wide choice of different authors/periods/genre to study, and 20th/21st century literature would be among the options. But there is probably a requirement to spread your choices across the centuries, and do at least one pre-modern option (if not more). That said everyone should study medieval literature anyway because it's so amazing 😂

I'm pretty sure that if you read Italian at Oxford, the Dante module is compulsory!