hello again, old friend

it's the book club from before, it's the book club reborn

It’s a little weird starting all over again in the middle, but here we are.

Gaining Ground has been around for a while; we’ve been reading and writing and discussing classic lit together since 2020. But like many things in the last few years, we’ve had to adjust to new systems and try new venues and find what works best as we settle in.

We originally started on a social media site that-shall-not-be-named while I coached the writers through my old email newsletter system. Then we briefly tried it here on Substack but quickly moved our group to Telegram, where it’s been for the last two years — and Telegram is great, you can post photos, share links, chat in a thread, and leave video or voice messages. But as a venue to record thoughts without losing them in the ether of an infinite chat, it’s not the best. Nor does it allow for monetization of the writing coaching aspect, which was such an important part of Gaining Ground’s original vision.

So like I said a minute ago, here we are. Again. It’s a brand-new endeavor, it’s also an established pursuit.

Which brings me to 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’re about two-thirds of the way through and it’s the second time we’ve read it in Gaining Ground (the only other book we’ve done twice so far is A Christmas Carol, also by Dickens). It’s my fourth (or fifth? I’ve lost track) time through it and I’m noticing more things than I ever did in my previous times.

For example, this time I made the effort to look up Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette, who were the “king with a large jaw and queen with a fair face” in France — he was the last king before the Revolution:

…and also George III and Queen Charlotte (whom we in America had our own revolution against), who were the “king with a large jaw and queen with a plain face” of England:

But also, there’s symbolism and foreshadowing saturating the text that I never noticed before. I’ll save most of that for our private group chat on Telegram (where I can hide the spoilers for those who haven’t gotten there yet) and just say that I love, love, love Sydney Carton even more than I love Edward Rochester and Mr. Darcy, neither of whom have I ever attempted to name a child (or cat) after. He pulls on my heart with things like this:

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hands. The table trembled in the silence that followed….

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows the I thought had died out of me….all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it….I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.”

and this:

“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you—ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you you so adorn— the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you.”

…and also, lest you think he’s only a romantic sap, he can also rip off self-deprecating digs at lawyers (because he is one, too) like here, when he zings back at Stryver:

“Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and hang-dog kind, that, upon my soul, I have been ashamed of you, Sydney!”

“It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney, “you ought to be much obliged to me.”

This is Sydney Carton, my old friend — the one who deserves but receives none of the credit for Stryver’s rise in the world, and the one who struggles with what we might now call manic depression, and imagines glimpses of hope for his future but then immediately declares it hopeless and then “threw himself down in his clothes on his neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears.”

Sydney Carton is the one who sees everything but his own way out of darkness, who knows that Lucie loves Charles before Charles even knows it himself, and who also knows that the time for laying his heart bare to her is running short. And even though it changes nothing outwardly, her knowledge of his heart is the one thing that makes all the difference to him.

I didn’t see the depth and magic of his character the first time I read it. So if you’re new to A Tale of Two Cities, you might miss it, too. It took me until this reading to pick up on this foreshadowing:

“The raindrops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,” said Dr. Manette. “It comes slowly.”

“It comes surely,” said Carton.

They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.

Yes, there’s a lot of repetition throughout the book. It’s partly rhythm, and partly because Dickens was paid by installment, writing his books in serial form. And all throughout the book he’s setting the scene and tone, just as he did with those first few lines.

It’s this, but also this. It’s THIS (like I just told you) but it’s also this other thing way over here, so don’t be too surprised when we start going there. And yeah, it’s this again — now that you’re getting familiar and comfortable with it— but also be on the lookout for this other thing I’m slightly alluding to, because this is foreshadowing and you’ll miss the clue if you’re not paying attention. And finally, it’s this…but it’s also this other thing I couldn’t help adding in out of sheer quirkiness.

That’s what Dickens is like. And he, too, is one of my favorites.

brief housekeeping

As I type this, we’re about two-thirds of the way through with A Tale of Two Cities. After that we’ll read The Cricket on the Hearth which is also by Dickens, very short, a Christmas story that should only require about fifteen pages of reading per week for three weeks. Then we’ll take a break, and after the New Year we’ll start Lilith by George MacDonald.

You are welcome to jump into our Telegram discussion group anytime and join us for the reading, the memes, the bookish links and resources, and other nerdy shenanigans. Substack now has a chat feature too, but I haven’t figured it out yet; it might be in our near future.

And if you are looking to polish your writing skills (or you’d like to supplement your homeschooler’s language arts curriculum), I’m now offering a small bit of writing coaching again. An upgraded subscription gets you encouragement, feedback, and private coaching to strengthen your writing and wholeness — because we become more whole when we write in that direction — and the details are on the About page here.