A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens)

Somehow I had missed reading this book all these years, and finally finished it on Wednesday. I can understand why the story has had such staying power – memorable characters set against the French revolution. The plot lines involve all sorts of links and coincidences among a group of folks, and sometimes this felt a bit forced. I think the story would have worked fine without all the links; for example, Madame DeFarge with her knitting would have been a great character without the link that is revealed in the last part of the book. The Sydney Carton stuff at the end is quite nicely done. It’s all nice, though more melodramatic than would be acceptable today.

Dickens does a great job communicating the atmosphere in France in the days of the Terror (at least as someone who wasn’t there writing for readers who weren’t there either). He describes some of the perks enjoyed by the nobility over the years at the expense of the peasantry in a way that explains some of the ensuing butchery on a more visceral level. Details about the story are here.

I didn’t really appreciate how popular Dickens was, and is. Read this for more.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol

Gogol was writing just a bit before the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I don't know enough about Russian literature to know where he fits in. But I liked "Dead Souls" a lot. The lead character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov - is a hoot. The guy traverses the provinces of Russia trying to buy up dead "souls" - meaning serfs that had died but whose death was not yet recorded on the tax records. Owners of these souls would benefit by not having to pay taxes on them; Chichikov planned to borrow against the souls before the lender figured out that they no longer existed.

Gogol shows Chichikov's interactions with provincial landholders and local government officials - all quirky folks; he was interested in showing bureaucratic bungling and corruption, local vanities, etc. Chichikov is funny - he keeps professing his desire to be honest and have a family, but keeps backsliding into one scheme after the other. He has but two live serfs - his drunken coachman, and his flunky with the bad odor.

Gogol planned additional parts to the story. The second part isn't finished. He fell in with some religious fanatic and burned the near-final manuscript. The second part has been reconstructed in part from earlier drafts.

Here's an article about Gogol, and a separate article focused on "Dead Souls."

What I'm Doing Here

I like movies, concerts, books, etc. As noted in the header above, I'm tired of seeing, hearing or reading something and very quickly losing track of it. A few years ago I started keeping some notes on books and movies. After working the GalesAz blog for awhile, I recognize that this is an easier place to store this kind of information.

If I can figure out an easy way to import the earlier information, I will do so. In the meantime, here is a movie and book note from GalesAz. Future review-type items will appear here. We have fallen out of the habit of going to movies but perhaps this will pick up as my movie-buddy is now through with school and getting through her job orientation phase. I do read steadily, mostly when working out on the stair machine or by listening to books-on-tape when driving around, plus bits and pieces of reading at the house or when traveling.

Anyway, this blog is designed for me to have quick reference to things I want to keep track of. Not likely to be of much interest to others.