Here is my audio narration of “Colliding Cultures,” a history of European and English colonization of early colonial America, a clash of cultures indeed. This is from the Open Source textbook, “The American Yawp,” free to anyone interested, as we all should be, in American history.
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In this epic short story, Arthur Conan Doyle exceeds himself. “The Naval Treaty” is the longest of all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories. It contains allusions to his other stories and many humorous asides as well as quite larger-than-life characters, some almost Dickensian in their strangeness. Holmes has to sift his clues and there are almost too many for him to select the relevant from the superfluous. “Almost,” but not too many–not for Sherlock Holmes.
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History Speaks again! My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is now out. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational Resources (OER), which this document is. My contributions to this document, freely distributed as all OER are, are dedicated to the preservation of democracy in these United States, a dedication here that is mine and mine alone, not to be confused with the purposes of the authors of this textbook. My hope and my contributions to this recording, including my edits and narration, represent a plea that all listeners vote for the Democratic nominee for President this November, to save our splendid Democracy. America… to thee, I sing.
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Carton reconnoiters the Defarge’s wine shop in this episode, and learns of Madame Defarge’s dark plans for the Evremonde family. Dr. Manette, out of the trauma of his son-in-law’s imminent execution (and its connection to his own testimony), returns to his shoemaking once again. Carton instructs Jarvis Lorry on what he should do the next day to save the Evremondes.
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This is where the plot finally comes together. Carton visits Darnay to change places in LaForce, with the aid of chloroform. Barsad takes Darnay to Lucy and all but Jerry and Miss Pross board the carriage and leave to flee Paris for England. Dickens is herein a master of suspense, which builds to a crescendo near the end of the chapter. Next Chapter: “The Knitting Done.”
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I have finally crossed the finish line! My audio narration for Librivox is finally complete, with all forty-five chapters now in the can. I can now say “it’s a wrap.” And what a terrific chapter to end on. Dickens is at his most reflective. A novel of horror somehow has wended its way to a chapter that produces a happy ending for all, at least for all of the good-hearted and well-intended. Dickens even has kind things to say about Parisians and the French, which is quite startling coming from such a prototypical British writer. This is not history but it is magnificently philosophical, spiritual and transcendent, perhaps the best specimen of the age of Romanticism that ever flowed from the pen of men.
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In this chapter, Dr. Manette’s long-buried message, found in the Bastille by Ernest Defarge, is used to condemn Charles Darnay, son-in-law of the good doctor and husband of his fair daughter, to death at the Guillotine! In vain does Dr. Manette protest that he no longer condemned the entire Evremonde family to the last of its line, now that the latest Marquis, dear Charles, has his head on the block. Madame Defarge is confidant that her use of the doctor’s note of condemnation will foil the doctor’s effort to free Charles.
And, not only that: She has plans to dispatch Lucy and little Lucy, as Evremondes themselves as well as the doctor, hoping that they too will be shaved by the revolutionary razor. What will stand between Charles and the bloodthirsty wishes of Madame Defarge? Spoiler alert: Where is Miss Pross as all this is going on?
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In this chapter of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay is sentenced to death on the accusations of the Dafarges and, incredibly, Dr. Manette, in the form of an old condemnation by the prisoner in the Bastille long before he knew Charles. Sydney Carton persuades Jarvis Lorry to rap up affairs in Paris and prepare to leave at once with Lucy, Little Lucy, Miss Pross and presumably the freed Charles Darnay. But Carton asks Lorry to keep his safe passage pass with him for when the man arrives at the last minute. Lorry knows that escape is impossible, but his new-found respect for Sydney assures himself that there is method in this madness. Carton has made the game by chapter’s end–and has sealed his own fate.
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“A Hand at Cards,” Book Three, Chapter Eight of A Tale of Two Cities. Here many of the characters in the novel are on stage in one chapter. Carton reappears and must “turn” the spy John Barsad to his purposes. Pross and Cruncher are “over the top,” as usual, but Carton is another matter entirely. He must be played with great skill, conveying both his quickness of mind and his moral regeneration believably. In fact, he rises almost to the level of scrubbed purity as Lucy Manette. And yet, he must be a believable character. You be the judge if I have succeeded. One thing that is sure, it is exhausting.
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In this chapter, Charles Darnay is saved. Or is he? The good Doctor Manette works his magic. But the Defarges will not give up on their quest to send every member of the Evremonde family to the guillotine.
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Another entry in my evolving audio narration of Charles Dickens’s magisterial novel, A Tale of Two Cities. This chapter is called “The Grindstone.” It is a difficult chapter to read because it involves characters of different sexes exchanging dialogue quickly and in states of duress. Unlike other chapters where the characters are over the top in the writing, and where as a result the dialogue can be read in a similar fashion, here the pathos must be presented sympathetically with a minimum of melodrama. I hope I have succeeded!
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In this episode, the mansion of the Marquis St. Evremonde goes up in flames as the Revolutionary mob torches the ancestral home of Charles Darnay (secretly the new Marquis). The old Marquis’s functionary, Gabelle, is, in consequence, about to be arrested. This will draw Darnay from safety in England to mortal peril in France, as he will decide to journey to Paris–and possible imprisonment and death–to save his friend, Gabelle.
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Another preview of my upcoming Librivox recording of A Tale of Two Cities, due out in April 2020. This is chapter 30, “Drawn to the Loadstone Rock.” If you enjoy this, won’t you leave a comment telling me so?
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Book Two, Chapter 25 of Dickens’s classic novel.
Book Two, Chapter 19 of Dickens’s classic.
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