Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010962, Mon, 24 Jan 2005 09:50:13 -0800

Subject
Fwd: TT and TTC (A Tale of Two Cities)
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 23:03:49 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>

Dear Don and All,

Sorry for a long silence.

About a month ago, Jansy wrote to me:

Dear Akiko,

Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, chapter " Knitting":

Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice:
"Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered by
appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques
Five!"

It was not Madame Lefarge, but Defarge... And I cannot remember a thing
about the story but it was wonderful to return to Dickens! I fear I´ll
start a whole course of English Lit in this way, too.

There are always "two cities" ( Trux to Witt, Ex to Versex, things like
that) being mentioned in TT and I found various Jacques ( like the Jacques,
Jake and Jacks with Armande and there´s a Jack Moore, too that begins as
"not this one, the other" or something like this, as a room-mate of
Person...)
Slight clues. But...

Jansy
--------------

Thanks to Jansy again, I reread TTC and belatedly realized how
important the novel was in TT. As Jansy pointed out, those Jacques' of TT
must
be from TTC--that is not a slight clue! And there are much more. Now I am
sure TTC is one of the currents below the surface of TT.

One of the major characters of TTC is "Little Saint Guillotine." I suggested
before the images of
Guillotine and the French Revolution in TT connected with *Le Pere
Goriot/Igor*, but TTC is more plausible.

An origin of "Fit" and the obsession with shoes could be also found in
TTC. Dr. Manette, who was "buried" for "18 years"--the years between 22 and
40 for
HP--is obsessed by shoemaking, which
prevented him from going out of his mind while he was imprisoned. After
relieving from the
prison, he sometimes has a "fit" and begins to make shoes again.

TTC shares with TT the interests in spiritualistic phenomenon. The first
chapter
of TTC begins with describing the time of the novel (the year is 1775) as
the time of "Spiritual Revelations" by Mrs. Southcott and the Cock Lane
ghost.

If you are interested, open your TTC. You will see why the narrator of TT
says "there are no mysteries now" (Ch. 8) and what those "electrified
carriage lamps on a pair of iron posts" (Ch. 2) have evolved from, etc. You
will feel TTC like a new novel after reading TT.

Best wishes,
Akiko

----- End forwarded message -----