Excerpts: A Tale of Two Cities

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 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, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received. for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

One of the best beginning lines in literature!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing tress when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history.

This is one of the distinct characteristics of this book;it has these ominous,indirect hints about the Revolution that is to come. It gives me goosebumps!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rags and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; hunger was shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge- who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

Saw nothing indeed :D Only Dickens can describe it so superbly!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Lorry: I hope you care to be recalled to life?

Dr Manette: I can't say.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Stryver: I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?

Sydney Carton: I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Defarge: It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment, without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to the rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and the return of the 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?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Defarge: It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eyes lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next;and he felt assured that should she take it into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played out.

One of the most enjoyable things in this book is the descriptions of Madame Defarge's character and manners and their effect on others.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man: You work hard, madame

Madame Defarge: Yes, I have a good deal to do.

Man: What to you make, madame?

Madame Defarge: Many things.

Man: For instance-

Madame Defarge: For instance, shrouds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Madame Defarge: You have seen both dolls and birds today, now, go home!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well- thousands of acres of land-a whole province of France-all France itself-lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line.So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star.

You can almost picture this, zooming out from the chateau to look at the world as a little speck from far away. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day.


Again the ominous hint :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madame Defarge: "Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister expression! Good day, one and all!"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Barsad: "A pretty pattern too!"

"YOU think so?" said madame, looking at him with a smile.

This lady gives me the chills!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge.

The frequent personification of Saint Antoine gives a different feel to the situation..as if the town itself has come alive to demand justice and revenge

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to , it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.

Brings out the finality of death quite well!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

The last lines of courage for Sydney Carton when he is called to the guillotine

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

The last thoughts of Sydney Carton and the last lines of the book!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Tale of Two Cities is one of the best written of Charles Dickens' books. One of the highlights of the book is the significant, ominous hints Dickens keeps throwing throughout the first half on the upcoming Revolution and his description of the Revolution when it comes. The other is some really wonderful characters, which is kind of his specialty across all his books. I don't know if any other writer has devised as many quirky characters as him (think Miss Havisham, Uriah Heep, Mr.Dick, Betsey Trotwood, and Daniel Quilp)! Here it is Sydney Carton and Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge is one of the scariest people ever and just gives you the chills whenever she makes an appearance! :D The book is definitely a masterpiece, especially for anyone who enjoys the journey of reading and not just the destination!

A Life Well Lived: J.R.D. Tata

Finally done with 'Beyond the Last Blue Mountain', a biography of J.R.D. Tata by R.M. Lala. It was every bit as wonderful as I expected it to be! For a long time in life, I had no role models and felt quite some pressure when we were asked to write essays about our role model and all :D I couldn't understand that concept of keeping someone as a benchmark for how you want to live your life (I was all about individuality you see). But JRD changed all that! He is one person whose life I would happily hold as a benchmark for my own because it was just so damn fantastic! Every time I read the book, I was almost overwhelmed by how there could be so much good in one person: in terms of capability, wisdom, attitude, everything!

They don't make leaders like him anymore: people who can balance excellence with humility and humanity. India owes him so many of her finest institutions like TIFR, BARC (which benefited from TIFR talent), TISS, Tata Memorial Hospital, NCPA etc. We also owe him our foray into civil aviation and atomic energy and truckloads of self-belief in ourself as a country :) Here is a great example of how humble a person he was, related by his driver:

If he was having lunch at Air India, he would inform me or say, "If I don't come by 1.15 you can go for lunch". If he unexpectedly made a lunch date, he would come down himself, 22 floors in the lift, tell me not to wait, and go to lunch. Sometimes I went to lunch and if he came down after that, he would take another car and come to Bombay House. Never once did he take it up with me.

I think the Air India connection is another reason why I like JRD so much. My daddy had his entire career at Air India (so different in its good days) and my childhood at Air India colony and school was a special time (for some reason, most of the people from Air India colony are super-attached to it even now...there was something special about that place). I also strongly identify with JRD's love for Mumbai: it is something like Scarlett O'Hara with Tara :D Even now, while I miss my home, I also miss Mumbai as a city very much. And the cherry on the cake was when I found out that JRD was also a fan of Disneyland and one of the last plans of his life was a trip there :)

While JRD's life is too awesome to make a boring book, due credit must also be given to R.M. Lala for researching and writing it really well. His language is very good too, as was that of many Indians when those stiff-upper-lip Brits were around :D I will finish this write-up with the last lines of the book, so beautifully written by the author:

And as the evening mellows and the shadows lengthen, somewhere above in the sky, in an invisible Puss Moth, is a voyager still pressing ahead to cross beyond the last blue mountain where a glorious sunset awaits him.

A Curious Book about a Curious Boy

Such is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Finally read this book that I had been wanting to read for quite some time because it is praised so much. I liked it too. Christopher is an interesting character and he looks at the world in a very interesting way. Some of it is so surprisingly insightful: such as his observations on how likes and dislikes are meaningless but necessary so that we can make unimportant decisions faster (like which dish to order at the restaurant) and how humans sub-consciously fashion alien beings after themselves though for all we know, spaceships could be made of clouds instead of metal. And that logic presents the very interesting possibility that aliens are already amongst us but we just don't recognize them! The style of the book is nice and different too (the chapters are numbered according to the prime number series!).

I felt very bad about Christopher's inability to understand emotions more for the sake of his father than himself. I felt really bad that Christopher could not understand how much his father had done for him. I don't condone dog-killing under any circumstances but if Christopher had been emotionally mature, he might have understood that the lie was to protect him. Wouldn't it have hurt anyone to know that they were the reason their mother went away? Writing weekly letters is not the same as staying and dealing with the situation, and it was really sad to see his father being treated like a villain by everyone after all that he did for Christopher :( Anyway, it was good to see that things were slowly working out in the end and my happiness would have been complete if the mom and dad had got back together :D Another very positive thing in the end, though I'm not sure the author intended it so, was how Christopher's confidence increases and he plans an independent future for himself. Note how he talks about himself living in a flat and taking Sandy and his stuff but does not mention his parents. It sounds like he is ready to take on the world!

Partial Relief

One of my favouritest books in the world is Alice in Wonderland. It's so funny and so wonderfully imaginative with all those cute, easily offended animals. I love how reality, order and logic all go topsy-turvy, the crazy conversations Alice gets into with Wonderland inhabitants, and the language (especially the cute way in which the word 'very' is often stressed). Most importantly, it was my refuge when reality got too nasty or disturbing and I had made it an unofficial symbol of all that is innocent. The fact that Lewis Carroll was himself childlike and preferred the company of children made it even better!

That is why I was really upset when I read theories on him possibly being a paedophile. His relationship with Alice Liddell (who inspired Alice in Wonderland) and his photography of children led people to question the nature of his attachment to children. Thankfully, there were no instances of misbehaviour on his part so these remain speculations. Still, my doubt did not completely go away and I really wished there were some way to know about Lewis Carroll for sure!

Now recently, I read about this other crazy person called John Ruskin who was a great art critic, philosopher etc. Apparently, he did not consummate his marriage because real women turned out to be quite different from the marble statues he studied and he was not prepared for that (lol!). Then he went and fell in love with a nine year old girl :O This was really shocking but I think I understood what the problem with these people was. I think when these very intellectually advanced people live in an idealistic world of their own, their minds are distanced from their physical self. So when they are forced to confront with baser needs of their own and those of others, they are unable to understand it (because they try to understand/study it in the first place) and they are repelled by it. The conflict between their minds and bodies then exhibits itself in strange and often questionable behaviour of this sort. That is why both of them showed a more-than-natural attraction to children because relationships with children did not require any cunning or crudeness from them (I got this analysis partially from Wikipedia). So I don't think either of them ever meant to harm children: they were just two men sadly out of touch with reality and unable to cope with it in a healthy manner.

I think even Nikola Tesla might have been of this category because he never had intimate relationships with women and towards the end of his life, he is said to have fancied a pigeon. Now we all love children and animals for their innocence. But the problem with these men was their inability to accept life as it was which made them look at normal things in a warped way. So the sad and ironical thing here is that these geniuses have sort of tainted the very innocence they desperately tried to cling to! That is why I'm only partially relieved. (Disclaimer: I don't really know much about John Ruskin so all my rambling is speculation based on superficial knowledge only!) 

Books to Read

I'm really liking this 10 books game on Facebook! I'm learning about so many new books and also realizing that I have a looong way to go in terms of literature. My reading has been quite narrow so far: limited to the most famous classics and contemporary best-sellers. I still haven't read Ayn Rand or explored any different kind of writing. Of course, I have always believed that it is quality and not quantity that matters; I never want to read a book just so that I can say I have read it! I'll read only what I really feel like reading and no MBA admission interview is going to change that :D

Here are some books that I plan to read, compiled from lists of my Facebook friends:

• Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
• The Mother - Maxim Gorky
• Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
• The Great Gatsby - Scott F. Fitzgerald
• Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
• Heidi - Johanna Spyri
• Blandings series - P.G. Wodehouse
• A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
• Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
• The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
• Haruki Murakami
• Orhan Pamuk
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Metamorphosis - Frank Kafka
• Mrityunjay

That's all I can find for now! I'm sure there were more and I'm not able to remember who posted them :(

It was interesting to see how many people mentioned one of Khaled Hosseini's books. Considering he has written only 3-4, he should be proud of himself for making such an impact. Also, it was nice to see almost all readers giving due credit to Enid Blyton! I had thought people might feel she's too chindi to be mentioned. She has certainly made most of our childhoods though she has her share of critics (infact, even I have noticed she is a bit of a racist). But we can't ignore all the good she's done us!

Now, good luck to me with this list!

Ode to Saki

He is undoubtedly THE funniest author I have ever read!He is like a cross between Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse. The Clovis series reminds me of Bertie Wooster adventures with absolutely ridiculous things happening while the Reginald series reminds me of Oscar Wilde plays with all its sarcasm and biting social commentary (It's funny how well the old British aristocratic society lent itself to satire and how it was probably also one of the biggest consumers of this satire).

My favourites are the incredibly funny nieces who fooled people with their crazy tales and the scary little nephews who seriously knew how to punish aunts back :O God knows what Saki's aunts had to go through! I'm sure those stories are a little autobiographical :D

Anyway, he is one of the best authors I've read. I'm very grateful to my friends who gifted me his book!

Essay: Middlemarch

I have finished yet another George Eliot book with the feeling of having lived through a lifetime through it. Even though Middlemarch hardly covers a span of 3/4 years, the characters (especially Dorothea) have come a long way by the end of the story. I can't say that I loved it completely because many bits made me very impatient. I could not understand why G.E. goes deep into the nature and history of many very temporary characters! I just didn't feel interested enough in them to read all that. I wish she had given more time to the Fred and Mary romance which I loved best :D :D But she did do them justice in the Finale. I also could not get myself interested in the local politics of that time so I didn't enjoy reading those scenes either. I think many of the things that bored me would have had more significance and meaning for readers of those times. I wonder if the times I'm living in has made me more impatient of too much data that does not have any information in it ;) 

But apart from that, the book did move me a great deal. I was inspired especially by Dorothea's character and with what grace she dealt with the problems she faced, how unselfish she was. I hope I learn to deal with life in a more selfless and courageous way myself. In this book, Eliot has delved deep into the human mind and laid bare many little inconsistencies and anomalies of the human nature that we often would be ashamed to admit even to ourselves. I will cover those in the excerpts which should come up soon! She has again made it very hard to feel in a consistent way for any character by making them as complicated as people in real life are :) I began by disliking Will and even Dorothea but loved them towards the end! This really does set her apart from other writers who have their characters more or less aligned with either the good side or the bad. Even her most useless side-characters often make a surprising show of courage or generosity and stump you. In this book, I was really surprised by how Mrs. Bulstrode dealt with the truth about her husband. The most touching scene in the book was when she gives him her silent support and they sit and cry together :( But I noticed that Eliot, like quite a few other female authors, could not resist exposing the true sly nature of the blonde coquette that male authors love to worship as angels :D I don't blame them...men have an annoying way of blindly attributing every other virtue where they see beauty (even my good ol' Dickens would not have any contradiction between beauty in appearance and in character). By the way, Eliot's pretty, blonde characters are really dangerous! Rosamond and Hetty( from Adam Bede) are two ladies I would stay away from :O Has she seen someone like that in her life?

Another way in which this book brought to light the realities of human nature is by showing how even the closest relationships are not devoid of private motives and judgements. For example, Dorothea and Celia truly love each other but each has her private unfavourable notions about the other. Many of Lydgate's tender gestures towards Rosamond are more a result of personal motives than any real feeling on his part. And it was a little sad when Sir James did not think his baby flawless in appearance. I always thought parents loved their children blindly so this possibility was a little shocking. Next thing you know, even your dog is judging you :O

Anyway, I have Virginia Woolf to thank for her recommendation of this book (I think in one of her own essays). But I must again bring up the point that she made about Austen being awesome enough to not use a pseudonym! Seeing the kind of frankness about human nature that Eliot and the Brontes had in their writing, you really can't blame them! Austen always played it safe...she was sarcastic but didn't really say anything that a 'lady' is not supposed to or have anything really bad happen in her stories (the worst I know is Lydia's elopement with Wickham). These women show that they know more about the vileness of things than is acceptable for a proper lady to know. So really, they can't be compared! 

Middlemarch sure gave me a lott to think about but I will stop this long essay here and hopefully, come up with the excerpts soon.