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Fergus, Quondam Happy Face's Reviews > A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
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I read this book in my Junior Year of High School - the year of a Gathering Storm in my heart and head. The teacher who led us through its gritty, noble intricacies, the year I assumed the role of High School Head Boy, was also my home room instructor.
Am I wrong - you professionals out there may want to correct me - or do teachers of unexciting subjects like English more often get the nod in carrying out the role of home room supervisors?
Happened to me in more years of secondary school than not!
Well, anyway, let me at any rate proceed now to set the stage for yet another of my usual hyperbolic meanderings of a literary tenor...
***
My Mom, you must understand, was in love with Ronald Colman.
Who, you kids may ask?
Ronald Colman, the early Talkies mâtinée idol, played the swoon-worthy Sidney Carton, who is the hero of this book, in the 1935 version of Tale of Two Cities.
Mom loved the trait of nobility in guys, I guess, when at 10 Years old she saw this film and imagined herself playing Lucie to Colman's Sidney, and so musta already have been dreaming of her many future noble-hearted beaux!
Trolls take note - you'll never get leers from such noble damsels.
But watching that goopy old flick Spoiled the book for ME and Mom, alas!
Ruined it.
Why?
Well, it's like this...
Mom and I didn't understand the world of Realpolitik - I certainly didn't wanna face my Student Council (after a few rancorous and rowdy run-ins over student smoking rights) - nor did Mom look forward to facing her library board, who, being elected, represented (you Got it) the voters, not dreamy literacy.
We were two round pegs in two square holes. Mashed peas, anyone?
Further, watching the movie version never gets you in touch with a book! Have you ever read Dickens' Bleak House?
Bleak House is a very vivid, very Unsentimental portrayal of the London poor. And it IS Bleak. Without hope.
And such, dear readers, is Realpolitik. Hard, cold, naked human reality. Like the evening news at its most brutal.
Now, Mom and I visited the Evening News every night - but we could never Live in it. Because we both lived in a goopy, sentimental world, being slightly autistic: innocents manqués.
But we took the evening news straight up each night and digested it.
So, when she was diagnosed with cancer at 54, she was not unhappy.
Cause she saw the World was now Dystopian.
And she wanted OUT.
***
So that friends, is this book.
The Realpolitik of the French Revolution, seen from ground level.
It's not pleasant (though it is TRULY noble).
And it certainly doesn't paint a picture of a pretty adolescent dream world, like my Mom and I always inhabited!
You know... she musta smiled with me when, a year after she died at 55, I became a Catholic.
For I had found my own painless way OUT - to the other side of death.
Am I wrong - you professionals out there may want to correct me - or do teachers of unexciting subjects like English more often get the nod in carrying out the role of home room supervisors?
Happened to me in more years of secondary school than not!
Well, anyway, let me at any rate proceed now to set the stage for yet another of my usual hyperbolic meanderings of a literary tenor...
***
My Mom, you must understand, was in love with Ronald Colman.
Who, you kids may ask?
Ronald Colman, the early Talkies mâtinée idol, played the swoon-worthy Sidney Carton, who is the hero of this book, in the 1935 version of Tale of Two Cities.
Mom loved the trait of nobility in guys, I guess, when at 10 Years old she saw this film and imagined herself playing Lucie to Colman's Sidney, and so musta already have been dreaming of her many future noble-hearted beaux!
Trolls take note - you'll never get leers from such noble damsels.
But watching that goopy old flick Spoiled the book for ME and Mom, alas!
Ruined it.
Why?
Well, it's like this...
Mom and I didn't understand the world of Realpolitik - I certainly didn't wanna face my Student Council (after a few rancorous and rowdy run-ins over student smoking rights) - nor did Mom look forward to facing her library board, who, being elected, represented (you Got it) the voters, not dreamy literacy.
We were two round pegs in two square holes. Mashed peas, anyone?
Further, watching the movie version never gets you in touch with a book! Have you ever read Dickens' Bleak House?
Bleak House is a very vivid, very Unsentimental portrayal of the London poor. And it IS Bleak. Without hope.
And such, dear readers, is Realpolitik. Hard, cold, naked human reality. Like the evening news at its most brutal.
Now, Mom and I visited the Evening News every night - but we could never Live in it. Because we both lived in a goopy, sentimental world, being slightly autistic: innocents manqués.
But we took the evening news straight up each night and digested it.
So, when she was diagnosed with cancer at 54, she was not unhappy.
Cause she saw the World was now Dystopian.
And she wanted OUT.
***
So that friends, is this book.
The Realpolitik of the French Revolution, seen from ground level.
It's not pleasant (though it is TRULY noble).
And it certainly doesn't paint a picture of a pretty adolescent dream world, like my Mom and I always inhabited!
You know... she musta smiled with me when, a year after she died at 55, I became a Catholic.
For I had found my own painless way OUT - to the other side of death.
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November 20, 2022
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Fergus, Quondam Happy Face
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rated it 5 stars
Nov 21, 2022 06:27AM
Oh, Queta, I've immersed myself in so many books over the years which I've forgotten, but ones like this stand out - because I was young and impressionable back then! Fact is, though, Mom and I completely misunderstood it. Ah, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter!
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Excellent review my friend. Every December I read at least one, and usually two full length novels by Charles dickens; in addition to this, I yearly read a Christmas Carol, at least once. Dickens is one of my favorite writers. And yet, as much as I love him, I have never been drawn to read this particular novel. There’s something in me that really resists reading it.
That’s the case for me, too! It remains a legend in my eyes, though, for my rather ASD-ish reading of it in the sixties - even though picking it up again helped alert me to what had made my reading skewed. Everyone now hates Dr. Asperger, of course, but he has revealed Myself to me 🙃❗️
In the dreamworld of my late mother, Fergus, nightclubs were elegant just like in the movies. My father said the reality was different and wouldn't take her. Seeing them in old movies, I think of her innocence. Now, I'll think of your mother next time Ronald Colman is on the screen.
Thanks so much, dear friend. I know our dreamworld LIVES - no matter how few now agree - so I thank God for tear jerkers. They shine on for us idealists forever!
I was very impressed as a teen with Carton’s heroism!
When I was in high school we read "A Tale of Two Cities," then saw the movie. I liked both of them. Your review is great and reminded me back in time. I haven't thought of this book and Ronald Coleman in the movie. My mother thought he was quite handsome. Sorry your mother died so young.
Yes, her death was a major blow. But at the time I only felt peace, as her horrid suffering was now over! And now I only fondly recall those earlier days of watching great films like these with her, so time has healed my pain.
Good memories of your mother is wonderful. Sickness is so horrible, all kind of sickness. You believe in God, so you know she has gone to a beautiful place and you will see her again.
Yes, that's true - I do! Like on Sunday, when a dear workplace friend died, and I was depressed. Then I quickly realized her sunny, positive attitude will brighten even Heaven!
Sydney Carton , the most noble of MEN
Great review as usual Fergus, mate (believe it or not), I struggled with this - I think I need to try again one day!
My mother was in love with Ronald Coleman, too. It was his voice, I'm sure. That love encouraged me to watch the film, then read the book. It started me on a lifetime of great appreciation for Dickens. Thank you for sparking that memory.
Ah, how nice - thanks so much, Judith! My Asperger's continues to act as a deterrent to plunging fully into Dickens - his stories being an extension of his childhood trauma, one that was thereby successfully sublimated - while the horrors of my own personal history have never been so easily resolved, alas.
A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favourites. Fergus, in one sense the story is about overcoming childhood trauma. Mr. Lorry, for example, is a perfect example of caring and compassion as the antidote to harshness and injustice.
Just about to start reading this book, Fergus. Loved the review.
My thanks to both of you! Here, adopting less than his usually sentimental view of life, Dickens takes off his kid gloves, and it works!
Hi Fergus, I am just now reading this great book. Sometimes I wish I had your teacher to help. What a read.
Yes, indeed - it is that! On the Obscure Reading Club (a GR reading group specializing in forgotten lit) we are reading a cute potboiler of his, Master Humphrey’s Clock. It is Dickens in a lighter, more sybaritic mood - as in The Pickwick Papers!
