Having just read the “Mail” online news update on the supermarket siege in Nairobi, and seen the shocking photographs, does it seem trite to want to write about literature when there are so many terrible things going on in the world? I hope not, rather, it might be a healthy distraction. In any case, Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” is anything but trite, and remains as fresh, exciting and thought provoking as it must have been when it was first published in Dickens’ literary periodical between April 1859 and November 1859 (in 31 weekly instalments). With my bookworm club meeting next Sunday fast approaching, I regret not starting the book earlier (as suggested by our gorgeous leader, Reuben, who knew I would not manage to finish reading it in a last day flurry) because I am nowhere near finished. In fact, I am still on book 2, and only at the beginning of that (if truth be known) – yet 5 years before the beginning of the French Revolution but full of the stirrings of revolt.
I remember reading the book when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, and finding it hard work because of the different style, and my immaturity, of course. Reading it with older but fresh eyes I now see just how brilliant Dickens was. Far from being stilted or old fashioned, as you might imagine, Dickens used modern idioms such as “pretty”, as in ‘pretty good’ – and I’m expecting Madame Defarge to look up from her knitting and say, “He lost his head – cool!”. As ever, his descriptive powers are wonderful and often funny, giving the serious subject light and shade. Here is an early description of the man on horseback who delivered the message “Recalled to life”:
His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.
And now an excerpt from the last chapter of the first book, when Miss Manette has come to fetch her estranged father – much changed, unrecognisable and thought dead – who has been freed from his twenty years of captivity in the Bastille for political crimes:
He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces.
When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all storms – emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm called Life must hush at last – they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light.
And that is why I find myself in love with Dickens. It has absolutely nothing to do with my own tenuous connection to Dickens, in that, in 1998 I happened to be an “extra” in the mini-series of “Our Mutual Friend” (reputedly Dickens’ most sophisticated novel, began in 1864 and finished in 1865 after the Staplehurst train crash, during which the manuscript was very nearly lost and his alleged affair with Ellen Ternan was very nearly exposed). My acting role was short and sweet, hardly warranting the great time spent on wardrobe, hair styling and de-make-upping (it was authenticism to the enth degree); and if you are interested to see the younger me, albeit for just a few seconds, I was the maid dressed in black, carrying a tray across the room while the Boffins had a conversation (Mrs Boffins was played by Pam Ferris – and what a charming lady she is – not at all like Miss Trunchbull!).
Now normal “extras” know their place – they aren’t supposed to converse with actors – and they keep apart and chat amongst themselves. In general, the normal “extras” are not quite as interesting as proper actors (though they often think they are) so I was rather grateful that my long hours of waiting on set were filled rather pleasantly by the company of two male actors, one of whom was not especially handsome in his false mutton chop whiskers but he was very witty. We three had become quite chummy during the course of the day – I took some extra pleasure from being told by some more important “extras” than myself that I should not be mingling in such a manner – and my new friends delighted in supporting me against any discrimination whatsoever. This became most evident when the director (a lady) came over to thank my friends for being a part of the production…
First the director went up to the taller, younger actor and kissed him on both his handsome cheeks.
“Oh thank you so much for being here Darling!” she enthused very theatrically.
Then she kissed my dear Muttonchops thoroughly on either side (presumably where the hair was least in evidence) and she gushed again…
“Darling, how marvellous that you are here to be a part of this. Thank you so much! I’m so grateful to you, and totally thrilled Darling!”
Muttonchops was all smiles. Then, being a perfect gentleman, and not wishing me to feel left out or discriminated against, he looked away from her to me and held out his arm in my direction. She was nonplussed for a split second and then the good hearted young woman rallied. She embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks.
“Thank you for coming Darling!” she said convincingly.
“No, thank you for having me,” I answered almost humbly in recognition of the fact that I was merely an “extra” who ought to know her place.
And if you should happen ever to see that wonderful production (it is good – all joking aside) of “Our Mutual Friend” and you notice the maid wearing an extremely wide and authentic maid’s dress (complete with iron ring structures to keep the dress in shape), and you get to wondering how I ever managed to fit in the narrow Portaloos on site; well, I shall tell you – you go in backwards, tilt forwards, then backwards. How do you close the door? Don’t be ridiculous! You just sit there like a queen holding court and you laugh!