Classics for Beginners discussion

Since some of you are beginning to read Book 2, I will set up this now. I am organizing the threads based on the original publication months. This section was published in July 1859.

ok I will be starting on it hopefully before i fall asleep.

Thanks Emily !

I started it and I am on chapter 2 in book 2 which seems to be the longest book with in A Tale of Two Cities. He seems to be drawing on the world as a characrer and not just foucsing on one main character. I dont know how else to explain it but he jumps around to new characters with in the setting. Dont know if I like or dislike this. I guess by the time we get to the end of the entire book I will know.Hopefuly I like it because I have spent 10 dollars on .

Chapter 3. Its very wordy. Plus there is alot happening but it is like a soap opera or as my Grandma calls them "the stories".

I'm enjoying book 2 a great deal. The chapter with the Marquis and the accident, I thought was just amazing. Dickens certainly knows how to grab your interest and build up a story a step at a time.

Lines that I love :
"I wish you to know that you are the last dream of my soul" ( I will leave out who says what to who, so as not to spoil anything)
"The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur".

Having read the entire book, I feel confident in saying, keep reading. The ending is just wonderful. I hope you feel the same way, Chakara. I do agree Dickens can get wordy at times, but he has not disappointed me yet. :) Tammy, I agree with you that the chapter about the Marguis and the accident was both amazing and appalling.

Carrie wrote: "Having read the entire book, I feel confident in saying, keep reading. The ending is just wonderful. I hope you feel the same way, Chakara. I do agree Dickens can get wordy at times, but he has ..."
Well put Carrie, that's it exactly.'Amazing and Appalling'. It's the first time I read A tale of two cities, and I came to the book with little to no knowledge of it except for the famous opening lines. That part blew me away. As for Dickens 'wordiness', I generally like that in an author as long it doesn't make the reader lose interest or take away from the story, and I don't think it does with him, so I enjoy it. :)

I went back and reviewed these chapters and here were some of the things I LOVED.

I loved the description of Tellson's Bank especially the quote " When they took a young man into Tellson's London House, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him...".

I loved the entire trial proceeding. The part about "...any laying of heads upon pillows, at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off" was both morbid and hilarious.

Probably my most favorite quote from these chapters is pertaining to Carton's personality. "..the sun rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."

Dickens truely had an understanding and empathy of people.

I have finished chapter 6. It was a little confusing. At first I thought that it was only the banker the keeper the daughter and the father then at the end i find out that someone else was there too. GRRR

I found the trial to be really exciting. The way Dickens portrayed the prosecutors was funny, yet sad. It makes me wonder how many innocent people have been railroaded over time by inflammatory words.

Can anyone guess what Jerry Cruncher means when he calls his wife 'Aggerawayter?' What does Jerry do at night that makes his boots so dirty?

Carrie, I agree with you about the descriptions of Tellson's Bank. I loved the part that says, "Tellson's was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street..."

I kind of think Cruncher is trying to say "Agitator"? I'm also thinking that Cruncher may be robbing graves in the night to donate the bodies to science and get some extra cash. Kind of a comm0n but illegal practice back then.

I think 'Aggerawayter' is supposed to be a mispronunciation of 'Aggravation'. The footnote in my edition says this about it:

"The droll spelling, which makes Jerry seem more amused than aggravated, transcribes a Londoner's pronunciation. William Barker in Sketches by Boz, the London medley that became Dickens's first book, is similarly named 'Aggerawayter Bill'."

As for how he gets his boots so dirty at night, that is explained in chapter 14, 'The Honest Tradesman'. ; )