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

I’m very hesitant to begin an attempt at writing about this great piece of literature. Nothing I have to say will ever be worthy of it, nothing can come close to conveying how powerful this story is. Nevertheless, it’s my second favorite book of all time, and has to be part of this series.

A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens, 1859) is a story about the intersecting paths of two men: Charles Darnay, a French émigré and Sydney Carton, a lawyer.

Charles was married to Lucie, a sweet lovely woman. They had a young daughter and a safe, comfortable home life in Paris.

But Sydney also loved Lucie.

Sydney had professed his love for Lucie, all while knowing he had nothing to offer her. When Lucie chose Charles, Sydney told Lucie that he would "embrace any sacrifice for" her.

Sydney was a drunk, he was a loser. He had no one, and he was nobody. Most days, it was a miracle if he was in court awake, and not passed out drunk at his desk. He was not on time for anything, and could not be depended on for anything. He knew he was worthless. But he didn’t know how to crawl out of that hopeless pit, and I don’t know if he even wanted to.

Eventually, one fine day, Charles and Lucie’s idyllic home life was roughly interrupted. Charles was arrested. The police arrived in the middle of the night and took him unceremoniously to jail. There was something he had done in his past life, which gave rise to suspicion.

He was later given a trial, during which, Sydney showed the attendees that (as he pulled his hair off his shoulders) he could have be easily mistaken for Charles, so how could they be sure they had the right man. Sydney was indeed, a very close mirror image to Charles – the likeness was uncanny.

Charles was soon freed to go back to his home and his wife and child. 

Not very many days passed before a fresh accusation was brought against Charles. This was a much more serious charge, and he was sent to the prison. There was not hope for rescue or abatement. All hope was lost. He was scheduled for a meeting with the guillotine the following morning.

Sydney devised a plan. He managed to get inside the prison, under the pretense of visiting Lucie’s husband for her, as she and her family were fleeing the city, stricken with grief and sorrow,  the very next day. While in the cell, Sydney drugged Charles, knocking him unconscious. He calmly exchanged clothes with the prostrate man, and composed a letter to Lucie. He shoved the letter in Charles’ coat pocket and rapped on the cell door. Telling the jailer that “Sydney” he had passed out from grief, he helped him out the door.

The next morning at dawn, Sydney was rolling towards the guillotine crowded in a tumbril with a handful of others meant for the same fate. A seamstress, who was riding with him and the others, looks up into his face, and realizes he is not Darnay. She is shocked at first, then upon realizing what he has done, she embraces him, and she clings to him for their last few moments on earth.

Lucie found the letter in her very alive husband’s coat pocket as they were leaving the city. She shed tears of joy, happiness, and sorrow.

Sydney gave his life for Lucie’s happiness, for her future, and for her family. “…I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace... I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both...” 

His love was so strong for her, that he gave up his life so that she could have her husband, and her happiness. He knew he was not worthy of her. His final sacrifice and subsequent redemption makes this one of the greatest stories ever written.

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

Artwork created by: Itsjustmarc

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Adventures of a Bibliophile

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
George R. R. Martin

Why do I read? Why am I a such an avid bookworm?

I read because books are amazing. They take me anywhere, and everywhere, as I sit in the comfort and tranquility of my home, drinking coffee, with my cozy blue blanket tucked under my toes. I can tell you some of the adventures I've had.

I've been on the edge of my seat, following the adventures of Katniss Everdeen. I read The Hunger Games in one Friday night, emerging around 12:30 Saturday morning, craving to know the rest of the story.

I've been infuriated. While reading Back Roads, I realized the author was going to kill off my favorite character: a beautiful middle-aged blond woman in jeans and bare feet. I threw the book angrily in the back of the car, and refused to read the rest. Until I finally picked it up again weeks later because I decided I still had to know how it ended.

I've suffered, gallantly suffered, through Jane Eyre. That book, my god. It finally improved towards the middle, but I will never read another Charlotte Brontë book again unless my life depends on it.

I was truly captivated and saddened by Quasimodo’s undying love for Esmerelda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I get excited and happy at the thought of my favorite scenes in The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I've experienced the apprehension of fear of the French Revolution, via books like A Tale of Two Cities, and In the Reign of Terror. I remember when I read In the Reign of Terror, I lived for weeks afterwards always feeling like I had to be careful of what I said, else be in grave danger of the guillotine. My brain was so overtaken by the story.

I've been entertained and captivated by easy books like The Maze Runner; and I've been challenged by intense books like Les Misérables.

These are not just stories to me, these characters are my friends and my family. They are my life. I can’t imagine a life in which I didn't read. I’m thankful for the childhood I was given, where books were my life. Yes, there were negatives. I was not allowed to read many books written after the 1960's. But, because of that, I discovered books like The Seagulls Woke Me, and The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode.

I actually get angry with authors. Sometimes, I don’t agree with them, with how they craft the stories. I have no right to this of course. I may not be able to tell a better story. Sometimes, I’m wrong. I was furious with Gillian Flynn, at how she ended Gone Girl. I feel like at least one or both of the main characters should have ended up dead. But, after seeing the big screen adaption, and thinking on it some more, I realized she was right. They were both such diabolical characters, they deserved to end up together.

There are limitless worlds for you to experience. There is a book for EVERYONE. If you decide you don’t like a book, if it’s not your cup of tea, simply put it down, and pick up another.

I love books, they are my friends.

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Ordinary Princess

Lavender's blue, rosemary's green, When I am king, you shall be queen.

I remember this tale (written by M. M. Kaye, first published in 1980) from when I was a young girl. I stumbled across a copy at the public library in Grand Island, Nebraska. (Upon reflection, it seems as if most of my book adventures start out as happy accidents.)

This is the story of a young princess named Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne of Phantasmorania. Of course, she answered to Amy.

She had six older sisters and each of them were blessed with lovely gifts when they were born. Beauty. Grace. When she was born, the fairies visited, and gave her the gift of Ordinary. While her beautiful sisters grew up with a love of fine things and proper behavior, Amy was given brown hair and freckles, and she loved to play outdoors, getting dirty and all scratched up in the woods.

She discovered her parents, the king and queen of Phantasmorania, were looking to hire a dragon so that a young princes could have a chance to slay it, thereby winning her hand in marriage, she ran away into the Forest of Far Away.

She lived in the forest for some time, making friends with the animals, and became close friends with a crow and a squirrel. (I don’t remember if the animals could talk, but I feel certain they probably did. It is a fairy tale after all.)

Eventually, she noticed that her clothes were in tatters. She remembered learning that she needed money to get clothes. (She was a princess after all, and had never bought or made her own clothes.)

She found the castle of the King of Ambergeldar and became the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid. Shortly after starting there, she met a young man name Peregrine, who was a bit of a jack of all trades around the castle. The two of them became friends just as they were.

Upon discovering her parents had sent word to all the surrounding kingdoms that she was missing, she told Peregrne who she really was. He told her she should be whomever she wanted to be, but that she might want to consider letting her parents know she was alive. He then admitted to her that he was King Algernon of Ambergeldar.

Of course it ended in happily ever after, as all good fairy tales should. She married Peregrine, and they lived happily in his castle. Amy was able to be exactly who she wanted to be. Ordinary.

I always wished I had "accidentally" kept (or bought) this book when I was young, because for many years after I left home, I couldn't find it. I searched online, using the phrase “Lavender's blue, rosemary's green, When I am king, you shall be queen” but I could never quite remember the exact words. Happily, I happened to see it mentioned on Pinterest a couple years ago. I was elated!

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

Farmer Boy

When I was a little girl, our family read the Little House on the Prairie series together as a family. (We “read aloud” as a family, and as a homeschool unit, but that’s a story for another day.) I don’t remember any of the others, but Farmer Boy (1933, Laura Ingalls Wilder) stuck with me and afterwards, I read it a few times on my own. It remains my favorite book of the whole series.

It’s the story of the childhood of Laura Ingalls’ future husband, Almanzo Wilder. He grew up in upper New York state in the 1860s. The book covers his ninth and tenth years, and tells the adventures he and his family had running a farm. 

I remember with great vividness a few of the stories in the book, even though its been many years since the last time I read it. (The funny thing about my memory: I can’t remember some things in my own life, but I can remember in great detail, my favorite fictional characters.)

At Almanzo’s school, he had to make a presentation one day. It wasn’t anything daunting, except for a nine-year-old it might have been. He had to memorize the following words: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” His brother changed it when they were at home, doing chores, and studying, to: “If at first you don’t fricassee, fry, fry a hen.” As you’ve probably guessed, the second version implanted itself in his head. When he stepped in front of the entire class, in the little one-room schoolhouse, he blurted them out. He was mortified. But, a loud clap of thunder disrupted proceedings. It began to pour down torrential rain. The teacher sent everyone home.

As Almanzo and his brother and sisters were running home, they stopped under a large oak tree, as shelter from the rain. His older sister, Alice, pushed them on, insisting that they had hurry the rest of the way home. They ran on. Seeing a flash of lightning, and hearing a tremendous crash, they turned back to see the tree they had just ran from, smoking, split in two by a bolt of lightning. 

Another story that stuck in my head was a tale that his father told. His father got stuck in a blizzard on his way home. He was on foot, and completely disoriented, wandering. His father spotted a bear, and, not having any weapon, he yelled and charged towards the bear. The bear didn’t move, and his father decided he had intimidated it sufficiently. His father discovered the following week, when the snowfall abated, that the “bear” he had so valiantly addressed, was in fact, a dead tree. 

I remember we all loved this part of the book when we read it aloud, and we enjoyed some serious communal merriment.

Another story: Almanzo and his brother and sisters got oranges in their stockings for Christmas and they were so happy and elated to get them. Fresh fruit was extremely rare, especially in the middle of winter. 

Farmer Boy is a wonderful book, a great book to share with your children; its stories will stick with me wherever I go.

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

Wise Words about Books

“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn't know how to read.” 

Benjamin Franklin

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” 

Francis Bacon

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” 

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” 

George R.R. Martin

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” 

John Green

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” 
Groucho Marx

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” 
C.S. Lewis

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” 
Charles William Eliot

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” 
Francis Bacon

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.” 

Paul Auster

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” 
William Faulkner

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” 
Tahereh Mafi

“There is something wonderful about a book. We can pick it up. We can heft it. We can read it. We can set it down. We can think of what we have read. It does something for us. We can share great minds, great actions, and great undertakings in the pages of a book.” 

Gordon B. Hinckley

Circle City Books and Music, Pittsboro, NC, September 23rd, 2014

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

Outlander

“Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me." He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other. You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine.” 

I stumbled into the pages of Outlander (Diana Gabaldon, 1991) one cold and wintry afternoon. It was New Years Eve, almost two years ago. And, as usual, I opened the first page immediately. I did not emerge from the book again until I had turned the last page. I sat in my green chair, drinking tea and coffee, reading that book, for two whole days. I read for hours, and hours, and hours. My real life stopped completely.

Claire Randall of 1945 accidently touched the standing stones at Craigh na Dun, near Inverness, Scotland, and was immediately back in time to the same place in the Scottish countryside of 1743.

Claire, at first, furiously fought the time change, determined to make it back to 20th century Scotland, and to her husband, Frank. She made numerous attempts to reach the stones on her own, but every chance proved ruinous.

She gradually learned to love her new life. She married Jamie Fraser, a strong clan warrior. Very good things happen, and very bad things happen; Claire changes lives everywhere she goes. It’s a marvelous tale of love, evil, war, and mystery.

The amazing thing about this book, and the entire series, is the tremendous number of Diana followers. Her readers are diehard fans. When we're talking about 900+ pages of text, you have to be really committed.

This summer, Starz debuted the Outlander Series television show. As a result, the Outlander Facebook group has seen a record increase in numbers. Since the show started, it’s been wonderful to be reminded of what a great book this is. It’s so much fun to experience the same emotions as strangers across the universe. Although I’m not as much of a diehard fan as some (I’ve only read the first book – there are eight so far in the series), I enjoy knowing others are as crazy as I am about fictional stories and imaginary characters. The recent "mid-season finale" aired, landing on a cliffhanger (of course) causing those who had not read the book to clamor for more!

While this post is not only about the television show, I appreciate that the show has brought more people "into the fold" and encouraged them to read the series. I love when a show creates such an excellent translation, that fans want to know more, so they go read the book.

Outlander is a spellbinding book, but not for everyone. It requires a pretty intense commitment, but it is well worth your time. 

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series. 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“The answer is in thy heart. Thee can always hear it if thee listens for it.”

In April of 1687, young Katharine “Kit” Tyler arrived at her uncle’s house in Wethersfield, Connecticut. She had given him no warning. When she left Barbados, her only guardian, her grandfather, had just died, leaving her within reach of a 50-year old man who was attempting to marry her. She fled. She had not sent word of her journey because she was afraid they would deny her a haven she desperately needed. She had nowhere else to go. Her parents had died when she was young.

When the ship, the Dolphin, was nearly at its destination, a small girl, Prudence, who had been standing along the railing, lost hold of her little cloth doll. The doll flew out into the water, the child cried out. Kit, used to swimming in the warm beautiful water of Barbados, jumped instinctively into the water to rescue the child’s doll. Shocked at the coldness of the water, she sputtered and gasped. She managed to rescue the doll, but was rewarded with wary eyes and suspicion when she was finally hauled back aboard.

Not many people in that area and time knew how to swim; women were considered witches if they floated when tossed into a body of water. And this was how Kit’s stay in America began.

She showed up on her uncle’s doorstep, unannounced. It was quite the spectacle. She was full of life, and vigor, bouncing into the house with the Barbados sunshine radiating from her face.

She was another mouth to feed though. His wife had had no sons. He went out early in the morning and worked in the fields all day by himself. Every household at that time had to make their own everything. They carded wool, they weaved, knitted, they made soap, bread. Nearly everything was handmade. Not because of the novelty, like a hipster, but out of necessity. They made near everything they possibly could. What they could not make, they bartered for. It was a very difficult life.

Kit started teaching the small children at the dame school. One afternoon, she had the children act out part of the Bible, the tale of the Good Samaritan, as a way to learn the story. The head of the school shows up just as the children are getting carried away in their acting out of the story. Enraged that they would do such a blasphemous thing, he sent all the children home.

Kit flees. She encountered Hannah, an old widowed woman who lived outside the village in a beautiful meadow. She is shunned from the Church Meetings because she was a Quaker. Hannah and Kit became very close friends. Nat, the son of the captain of the Dolphin, was also Hannah’s friend. He would take care of her little house, fixing the thatched roof, chopping wood for her for the winter, and looking after her when he could. Kit became close friends with him as well. Although she didn’t realize it right way, she fell in love with him.

Kit was warned by her uncle to stay away from the old woman. This is one thing that I feel often happens, in every time in history: people shame and deride and shun things they don’t or can’t understand. Children in the village started falling ill. Because sickness was not understood, the villagers blamed Hannah. She was accused of being a witch.

A mob gathered and burned Hannah’s small house to the ground. Kit rescued Hannah, managing to haul her safely to the river, and handed her off to Nat, who took her to the Sparrow. He intended to carry her to her family in a more Northern area of the East coast. She refused to leave without her cat. He braved the wrath of the town to fetch her beloved cat.

Kit returned to the town, she was accused and arrested of being a witch. She had secretly taught Prudence to read and write. Prudence, whose parents couldn’t read or write, and thought she was unable to learn, believed Kit had put Prudence under a spell. Prudence proved that she was not controlled by witchcraft when she read a passage of scripture to her astonished mother and father and the rest of the courtroom.

This is a wonderful book. I think everyone should read it at least once. Despite the delicious twists and turns, every character (even the cat) gets their happy ending; I believe some books are just meant to be that way.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, 1958, Elizabeth George Speare

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series.