The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the week of March 19th - March 25th, we are reading Book the Second (XVIII, XIV, XX, XXI, XXII) of A Tale of Two Cities.

The seventh week's reading assignment is:

Week Seven: March 19th - March 25th (2012):
March 19 - March 25
(pages 192 - 224)
XVIII . Nine Days 192
XIV. An Opinion 198
XX. A Plea 208
XXI. Echoing Footsteps 209
XXII. The Sea Still Rises 219

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other books.

This book was kicked off on February 6th. We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell's and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, or on your Kindle. And to make things even easier; this book is available "free" on line as either an ebook download or an audiobook. This weekly thread will be opened up either during the weekend before or on Monday of the first day.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Becky will be leading this discussion. But since this is Becky's first time moderating a book in the History Book Club; Bentley will be co-moderating this selection.

Welcome,

~Bentley & Bryan

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Charles Dickens

REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations

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If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Glossary

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http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...

Bibliography

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author may have used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations or other books either non fiction or historical fiction that relate to the subject matter of the book itself. No self promotion, please.

by Charles Dickens

(ATOTC - Week Seven - March 19 - March 25)

Chapter Overviews and Summaries
Book the Second: The Golden Thread
Chapter 18 - 22

Chapter 18 . Nine Days
A small group gathers for the wedding. Darnay and the Doctor talk privately. The couple marry and go to Warwickshire alone. When Lorry returns from Tellson's the Doctor is making shoes and won't be dissuaded. Lorry decides this is to be a secret, takes leave from work to watch the Doctor. The Doctor does not improve for 9 days.

Chapter 19. An Opinion
The Doctor improves at day 10 but has no memory of the time.. Lorry asks Manette's professional opinion of his relapse. The Doctor can't speak directly but offers the causes of unexpected stress and fear and a revival of old feelings. He can't talk about it during a relapse and has no memory later. He feels the worst is over and they are both glad. Lorry wants the Doctor to get rid of the shoe making kit but the Doctor can't as it is such an old companion. Lorry insists until Manette relents. Three days later Manette leaves to join his daughter and Charles. Now Lorry and Miss Pross destroy and bury the workbench and tools.

Chapter 20. A Plea
The newlyweds return home and Sidney Carton visits. He wants to be friends with Darnay and apologizes for past drunken behavior. Darnay makes light because of what Carton did for him. Nevertheless, Carton to visit occasionally. They agree, Carton leaves, and Darnay says Carlton is reckless and careless. Later Lucie tells Darnay to be more considerate to Carton as he has been wounded. She knows he can't be repaired but he is capable.

Chapter 21. Echoing Footsteps
The London house has a corner which hears echoes of the happy lives of the Manette-Darnay household. During a storm in July, 1779 Lorry visits and mentions an "uneasiness" in Paris and a run on the bank. The little group hears menacing footstep echoes.

Paris is raging. Guns and stones have been taken to the streets. Monsieur Defarge is arming the people, while Madame waits to go with the women. Defarge yells, "The Bastille" and the armed mob spews forth. The Bastille is taken, the mob gets into the prison where they see the prisoners released. Defarge checks cell number 105 North Tower. There they find the initials A.M. search for more. They set fire to what they found and leave. The mobs take the Governor to a trial. Madame sticks close to the governor and cuts his head off. The mob rushes on.

The narrator's hope is that these footsteps will not reach into the world of Lucie Manette.

Chapter 22. The Sea Still Rises
One week later Madame Defarge sits at her place in the wine shop approving what they have done. Defarge comes in saying an old enemy, Foulon, is alive and a prisoner. A group, armed and ready, crying for vengeance races to the hotel. They drag him out and hang him. Then a son-in-law is seized and killed. Later, the Defarges and others sleep.

The idea of light vs dark came up again in the last section and it seems to me that Chapter 18 Nine Days is continuing with that theme - again mostly referring to Lucie.

They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker’s white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at parting.

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very busy.

I know he needs the light to see his work but it would appear that his whole world has darkened in Lucie's absence and he's subconsciously seeking some relief.

Madame Defarge knits and Mr. Mannett makes shoes. I've always wondered if there were some underlying connection.

Madam's obsessive knitting has to do with revenge while the Doctor's shoemaking has to do with love. The historical French knitters used their activity to keep hunger at bay and the Doctor uses his for an emotional outlet?

What do you all think?

Chapter 19 An Opinion:
"... when ... he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly:
'My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less so.'"

And Mr. Lorry procedes to use a fairly complicated method of what we now know as psychotherapy on Doctor Manette!

It was not unheard of in those days, "Doctor Manette’s account of his condition (which he and Mr. Lorry discuss as though it were another’s) draws on 18th-century theories of psychology derived from John Locke and developed by David Hartley and others (Maxwell 462)"
http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/a...

Was this little scene believable to you?

Becky wrote: "Madame Defarge knits and Mr. Mannett makes shoes. I've always wondered if there were some underlying connection.

Madam's obsessive knitting has to do with revenge while the Doctor's shoemak..."

Madam Defarges knitting reminded me of

Nathaniel Hawthorne

everyone's names (a scarlet letter so to speak) are knitted for her revenge.

The shoemaking seemed more of release from his imprisonment- a coping mechanism-- shoes symbolizing a new path maybe, a means to get away.

So in my opinion her knitting was a prevention from freedom/and or hate.
The shoes were symbolic of a path to freedom/love (and this is why it is intermingled with the golden hair and light?)

I have no idea haha. These are just some thoughts.

I'll have to think about the other questions.

Autumn wrote: "The shoemaking seemed more of release from his imprisonment- a coping mechanism-- shoes symbolizing a new path maybe, a means to get away...."

Autumn, that's interesting about the Scarlet Letter. I haven't read it yet but your comment prompts me to put it higher on my to-read list!

I saw the shoemaking as a tie to Dr. Manette's past (sorry, no pun intended! :-D ) Whenever he is distressed or reminded of past horrors, he takes up the occupation he learned in prison. When he takes to shoemaking, he is helpless ---- "imprisoned" by it, much like he was imprisoned in the Bastille. I imagine this is why everyone is so unsettled when they hear him hammering; we wonder if he will be able to free himself from this tie and therefore free himself from his past.

Cleo wrote: "Autumn wrote: "The shoemaking seemed more of release from his imprisonment- a coping mechanism-- shoes symbolizing a new path maybe, a means to get away...."

Autumn, that's interesting about the S..."

Well said!
Ah, and light was a path to let go of his past but the shoemaking kept him stuck there--- not moving towards the light.
And I think the knitting was symbolic of Defarge harboring so much hate--it was almost embroidered, so to speak, on her very essence.

Autumn wrote: "And I think the knitting was symbolic of Defarge harboring so much hate--it was almost embroidered, so to speak, on her very essence. ..."

Yes, this certainly rings true .......... The last thread gave us the background of the women knitting while people are being guillotined. Knitting certainly seems linked to hate, and perhaps is even more shocking because knitting is such a benign pastime usually linked to creating and not destroying. I also think it allows the person to be removed during the process; it is a simple function and no emotions are involved, rather like distracting your mind and keeping it from engaging with your emotions ....... ???

thank you both Autumn and Cleo for fascinating insights.

Do you think the shoes Dr. Manette makes have anything to do with echoes? Like the past again echoing, catching them? This book really has much to say about the past and how it catches up with people.

I definitely think the shoemaking is a way for Dr. Manette to "escape" if you like, when the world become too much I think he is able to retreat into this ritual where he doesn't have too think about anything.

I don't know about knitting and revenge but the revenge part certainly matches well with Madam Lafarge with her knive at the Bastille and afterward.

I did not read the Scarlett letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

but it was written nine years before A Tale of Two Cities so maybe...................

Hi Vince - you forgot the author photo in the citation for message #12. Please edit. Thanks.

Vince wrote: "I don't know about knitting and revenge but the revenge part certainly matches well with Madam Lafarge with her knive at the Bastille and afterward.

Yes, I can see where in both books punishment was severe for folks who did not follow the very strict social (if not written) codes of the times. And in the case of A Tale of Two Cities those codes had recently and suddenly changed dramatically.

I think there are lots of books about revenge, several in the oeuvre of Dickens. I think Miss Havisham is motivated by revenge in Great Expectations - but, to distinguish, that's a personal revenge. The kind I'm describing above has more to do with societal revenge.

In addition to that parallel, the idea of hiding an identity is important in both A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Letter. But that's also a theme in Great Expectations.

Charles Dickens

Nathaniel Hawthorne