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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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