I have another book memory from that journey, but it concerns my husband and not me. We were doing voluntary work with an organisation called SCI and when we got to Colombo we first stayed in the home of the chairman of the Lankan branch, a politician. She let us sleep in the library, on our sleeping bags. Two other volunteers were sleeping on the other side of the bookshelf, a Belgian girl and a Japanese man, but they had beds. Just above our heads were the family's sociology books (husband and wife were educated at LSE) and my husband started on Max Weber's The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. I don't think he had time to finish it because we had to go on to our destination in a village where we were to help the Japanese dry paddy specialist with his project which first meant slash-and-burn cultivation of onions. We burnt the jungle and Kuni planted onions in the ashes. Later he would plant rice, dry paddy without as much water as conventional rice cultivation. The book made a lasting impression on my husband and when we returned to Sweden after our five months in India and Sri Lanka (called Ceylon then) he began to study sociology. Last year he retired as professor of sociology. He used to tell this story for many years to new students in his introductory lecture on the foundations of sociology at the beginning of each term, until he tired of it.

Combining threads here - My favorite Dickens is Tale of Two Cities. I find this a bit of odd...since I must have started to read it at least 5 times and couldn't get more than 10 pages into it. The time that it clicked for me, I couldn't bear to put it down. That's unusual for me when erudite reading is involved. I tend to make novels like this into year long projects! I am enjoying Bleak House almost as much. In the other thread, someone said she never reads introductions. And usually I don't, but I started the one in this book, and it was so well written that I got swept up into it. I learned that BH is the first English novel that featured a professional detective. Kind of cool, I thought. And, no spoilers! It was like attending a well done lecture. I reread A Christmas Carol almost every year and read Dickens' other Christmas story when it was discussed here. I read David Copperfield in ninth grade and remember almost all of it. I enjoyed Hard Times, reading it during afternoon quiet time when my children were little. (Everyone had to be in his or her own room, on his/her own bed - sleeping was not required - reading or quiet play only for about an hour. Sometimes we listened to some radio dramas that the local radio station had in the afternoon - and this was the 70's not the 40's or 50's.)

Right. I had this wonderful long post, discussing all of this, all ready to publish. Then I rebooted my PC, and halfway through I realized.... Grrr... Anyway. To answer Vee's question - The Chimes was published in 1845, a year after the Carol, and was intended as a follow-up to the remarkable success of the latter book. I personally didn't find it to be quite as mawkish as some here do. I felt more that there was sheer anger coming through, much more so than I did in the Carol. Though I'm not sure I entirely agree with Bulwer Lytton's comments (about "the fierce tone of menace to the rick") I can see where he's coming from. I'm going to cheat slightly, and use some of the help from my edition (what's the point in having notes if you don't use them, eh?). I felt that the Chimes is a much more pointed book than the Carol - it's interesting to note that there are particular contemporary people and events that are being referenced, much more so than in the Carol. For example, Alderman Cute is lampooning Sir Peter Laurie, a noted Middlesex magistrate, who was noted for his ability to talk to offenders in their own language. Similarly, the events where Meg came close to throwing herself and her child into the river were inspired by the case of Mary Furley. Briefly, in desperation, she had attempted to drown herself and her child in the river. She had survived and the child had died, and she was condemned to death for infanticide (later commuted to seven years transportation after a public outcry, in which Dickens joined). The point I'm making is that nowadays the book lacks that immediacy that it would have had in the mid-1840's. And it's probably not a good enough book to stand on it's own two feet. The moral isn't quite as neat to grasp; there is no real redemption in the same way. Trotty wasn't in any way bad compared to Scrooge - he'd just had a bit of a telling off by someone he felt - wrongly - ought to know better than him due to his position and education, and it caught him in a bit of a bad mood. I thought the Bells were a bit over the top for that! I did think there was some nice wry humour in the book. I particularly liked this comment. "What do you mean!" cried Filer sharply. "Married!" "Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master," said Richard. "We're rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first." So I agree with a lot of the comments above. It's not a great book. But it's interesting to read, knowing more about the points that are being made. In these days when Victorian Values are again being recommended by certain British politicians, it's useful to read books like this to remind ourselves exactly what those Victorian Values actually were.

Love it!!!