Gratification

I got my hands on Wuthering Heights from a friend recently. This classic was such a failure when it was first published that the author Emily Bronte went to her grave believing her only novel to be a failure. It seems like such a terrible punishment to an author, especially when the work is regarded as a masterpiece after his/her death. It brings to mind one of Oscar Wilde’s famous quotes:

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about

Yesterday, I finally finished A Tale of Two Cities. Even though there were quite a few coincidences in the book, I think it is one of the best I’ve read, and are essential to the tale. Truly, this book has the most famous starting and ending lines in literature. Just before the end Sydney Carton, the most unappreciated character in the book, is said to be at peace and to have enough a sense of being gratified to think:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known

But in the real world, the public can be so ruthless, letting a great author like Emily Bronte die unappreciated during her lifetime.

?!!

In 'A Tale of Two Cities', Mr. Dickens (or Charles but never Mr. Charles) writes,

... I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly.

This is the first time I have come across a usage of 'disinterested love'. I have heard of disinterested opinion and a disinterested judge but never its usage with love. I don't even know whether it is a nice thing to tell someone, still I like it a lot!

Hey Maugham, what the Dickens?

I had been reading ‘A tale of two cities’ as an e-book on my mobile (hope Mr. Charles doesn’t turn in his grave). But then I went and bought a real book – Of Human Bondage. The temptation of holding a book and reading it (kind of like having a cake and eating it too) was too great for me to resist. Thus I began reading two great books at the same time.

The styles of two authors cannot be more different. Maugham is extremely descriptive and the book is often described as an ‘autobiographical novel’. The characters are so alive since they are written from life. I could really relate to Philip, maybe not his tempestuous, obsessive love, but his shyness, love of reading, obstinacy and vanity. Then again, I found the book very similar to ‘The Razor’s Edge’.

On the other hand, Dickens is full of satiric humor, that is at the same time very thought provoking. I do not think I have understood all that is implied in the book or that I will after a second or third reading. Each sentence seems to have been written after a lot of thought and deliberation. The book makes me feel like I have been sleeping all these years (this is my first Dickens) and makes me want to read all of his books.

In ‘Of Human Bondage’, Mr. Maugham writes,

… there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. … But in England you get neither: you’re ground down by convention. You can’t think as you like and you can’t act as you like. That’s because it’s a Democratic nation. I expect America’s worse.

Makes you really wonder about India if the ‘land of the free’ is so restrictive, or wonder about France and Germany.