A House in Pondicherry

I enjoy reading books where they are set and look forward to picking a riveting read relevant to my travels. It gives me a better insight into the country or region I am visiting. The sights, sounds and smells come alive and I am just not living vicariously through the experience, I am immersed in it.

Colonial Legacy

A recent trip to India included a visit to Puducherry, a picturesque coastal town on the Coromandel Coast, formerly a French colony known as Pondicherry. When we think of colonial India, we automatically think of British rule. The British did have control over most of the subcontinent and were the most successful among the European colonizers. By contrast, French India comprised of only five geographically separate enclaves which, area wise, were the smallest of the possessions of European colonizers, but nevertheless left their own distinct legacy.

Street signs in Tamil and French

There are countless books written on the British Raj. I was looking specifically for a book set in Pondicherry which would give me a flavor of French colonial rule. My search took me to a book entitled A House in Pondicherry by Lee Langley. I had never heard of the author before but the summary of the book seemed to fit with what I was looking for. Lee Langley is a British author, born in Calcutta in the late thirties. She spent her childhood in India during the rule of the British. Later she moved to England and wrote a loose trilogy of novels set in India, A House in Pondicherry being the third in the series.

In the author statement, Langley writes:

Perhaps because I was born in India and spent my early childhood there, I grew up with a sense of loss, of being exiled from a place I loved. But for a writer, exile can be a sort of freedom: deprived of the comfort of belonging to one particular place or society, you can perhaps enter more easily the hearts and minds and skins of others.

Looking back over my books I see a preoccupation with outsiders – of enclaves of otherness within larger cultures. This sense of otherness, of not belonging, has always been there – sometimes without my realising it at the time – like a shadowy reef lying beneath the surface. The characters are often people who don’t fit in. 

Oriane de l’Esprit, the French protagonist of A House in Pondicherry, named after a Proust heroine, experiences this same sense of alienation. The novel traces her story from childhood to old age. Her parents are the proprietors of the Grand Hotel de France in Pondicherry. Her mother is constantly inviting eligible French bachelors to dinner hoping to make a suitable match for her daughter and send her off to France, a country she has not visited. She grows old and inherits the hotel but never marries and never visits the mother country. Her only connection to it is through the letters she receives from her Pondicherry lycée friend, Marie-Hélène, who moved back to France.

Meanwhile she develops a friendship with a Brahmin man named Guruvappa The two have intellectual conversations on every subject from politics to French literature and work together on translating ancient Tamil poems into French. There are undercurrents of romantic tension but their feelings remain unexpressed. Despite his education, he is bound by tradition and has an arranged marriage with a woman of his caste. They continue their friendship through the decades with all the unresolved emotions lurking beneath the surface. Their relationship epitomizes Oriane’s own relationship with India. Guru, in spite of the close connection they share, cannot belong to her completely just as this country can never belong to her wholly even though she was born and brought up here. Indian but not Indian, French but not French, she is not fully part of either community.

Parallel to Oriane’s fictional story is the story of the establishment of the Aurobindo Ashram and the experimental township of Auroville, a place for men and women of all nations to live together in peace and harmony. Sri Aurobindo was a yogi, a philosopher and an Indian nationalist who founded the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry based on his yoga philosophy. He worked in collaboration with Mirra Alfassa, a French woman who came to be known as ‘The Mother’. Lang weaves in fiction with fact when she shows young Oriane deeply affected by Aurobindo’s trial in the courtroom at Alipore after he was arrested for treason. He had mystical and spiritual experiences in jail and on his release left politics for a spiritual life in Pondicherry at the same time that Oriane’s family undertook the journey by sea from Calcutta to Pondicherry.

Hugging Trees, Auroville

Auroville is a big part of the story as years later Marie-Hélène’s grandson Raymond who is an architect, comes to Pondicherry to help build the utopian township. He impregnates a fellow European he meets in the ashram. She returns to England on discovering that she is pregnant. Meanwhile he rescues a local woman who intends to die with her child and takes them into his home. Outwardly he is of an amiable and easy going nature but years later when his daughter visits from Europe, she says: “The smile lit up his face, offering warmth, intimacy. But she saw now that the smile, like a trompe-l’oeil doorway painted on a stone wall, led nowhere.” There is a sadness, at times unbearable, that permeates through the novel. Here is a man who nobly offers his home and heart to a poor local woman and her child but treats his biological daughter who is seeing him for the first time with a casualness bordering on cruelty. There is also the wistfulness of thwarted love. Oriane has repeatedly spurned the advances of an Englishman and continues to yearn for the unattainable. Years later when Guru and she have a chance to be together, it is almost too late.

As the years pass by, the Grand Hotel de France becomes more and more dilapidated and loses its charm. Similarly Oriane grows old and frail. She has witnessed the French clashing with the British over Pondicherry, World Wars 1 and 2, the Indian Independence movement and eventually Pondicherry’s independence. Pondicherry itself undergoes as much growth and change as any character does in a changing India that eventually casts off the imperial yoke.

There are many minor characters introduced towards the end of the novel and they are not well fleshed out. The plot is not that well developed either. Yet, A House in Pondicherry is an interesting book as it explores colonialism and postcolonialism, sexism, racism, class, caste and privilege. British or French, substitute one colonizer for the other, the experience is the same. I found the book to be a lush and dreamy read that beautifully evokes a certain time in history. Besides, I was literally transported to the setting of the book. Being in Pondicherry and taking a walk on the Promenade and passing the sights mentioned in the book, definitely enhanced the reading experience for me.

Does reading give you wanderlust? Has a book ever taken you places? Or has a place made you reach for a particular book? If you could vacation in a place where a book is set, where would you go and what would you read?

I’ll end the blog post with a long passage from the book, which, in my opinion, powerfully encapsulates the colonial perception, often erroneous, of the exotic:

Between the settlements and the coconut groves lay the villagers’ cashew plantations, the trees shimmering in the sunlight, bushy as hawthorn and starred with pink and yellow blossom. Their scent drifted across the fields, warm, spicy, exotic. ‘ Anarcadium Occidentale’, Arjuna informed Judith when he came upon her admiring the cashew blossom for the first time. ‘ Pretty, but do not attempt to pick the nuts off the tree, or you will regret the action.’

  She thought it must be some local custom. some taboo he was warning her off, but there was a simpler, more practical explanation: the shell of the fruit was hard; breaking it to reach the little kidney-shaped nut at the base, the village women got the juice on their hands, bitter black juice that burned like acid and went on burning. The cashew harvesters’ hands blistered and peeled, the skin shiny and horribly pink, like plastic gloves- or bright new scar tissue, which is what it was. Their hands were skinned, flayed by the cashew acid.

  ‘ Can nothing be done to avoid this?’Judith asked, horrified.

  ‘ Rubbing wood-ash over their hands would protect them, to an extent, but no one has the time, the fruit is waiting.’

  And later, when she thought back to Auroville, that was what Judith remembered most sharply: the scent of cashew blossom was the smell of Auroville. It combined the sweetness of first sight with the burning bitterness of experience.

View of Pondicherry from the Lighthouse- (Wikimedia Commons, Karthik Easvur)

P.S. I just got a notification from WordPress that this is my 100th blog post!

The Black Tulip

It is virtually impossible to grow a truly black tulip. Black tulips are never completely black but more of a deep purple or purplish-black hue. Yet, in the novel, “The Black Tulip”, by Alexandre Dumas, père, a tulip competition takes place to see who can create a jet black tulip which would be the first of its kind. Although the tale is more fiction than fact, it was inspired by ‘tulipmania’, a phenomenon that swept the Netherlands in the 17th century.

It was the golden age in Dutch history when its empire was the greatest power in Europe. It was also a time of prosperity when people indulged in luxury goods. They became fascinated with tulip bulbs and paid exorbitant sums for rare streaked and striped varieties. As the tulip market grew, people began speculating in tulip bulbs. The tulip bubble lasted for three years before the mania died abruptly and the market collapsed. With the backdrop of this event, Dumas recounts the story of Cornelius van Baerle, a horticulturist who dedicates his life to producing a black tulip. But before Dumas gets to the story of the tulip, he depicts another major historical event that took place in 1672- the lynching of the de Witt brothers in The Hague.

The first four chapters describe the horrific incident in gory detail. The de Witt brothers, the Dutch Grand Pensionary, Johan de Witt, and his brother Cornelis were much revered Republican statesmen who held influential political positions. Both England and France attacked the Dutch Republic and Johan de Witt was criticized for neglecting the army and relying solely on the naval strength of the nation. He was blamed for the ‘raampjar’, the invasion by Louis the 14^thin 1672. He escaped an assassination attempt while his brother Cornelis was arrested for allegedly conspiring against William the 3rd, the statholder. When Johan went to visit his brother in prison, a crowd who supported the Orangist monarchy, had gathered outside and savagely attacked the brothers and ripped them to pieces. There are accounts describing how parts of the cadavers were sold as souvenirs and even eaten by the frenzied bloodthirsty mob.

Although gruesome, the historical background is crucial to the understanding of the story. Fiction blends with history when we are introduced to the fictitious grandson and namesake of Cornelis de Witt, a certain Dr. Cornelius van Baerle who gets embroiled unwittingly in the political intrigue. The Orangists had accused the de Witt brothers of treason believing their correspondence to the French king to be incriminating evidence. The letters were entrusted in the care of Van Baerle and he keeps them safely unaware of the contents. Meanwhile the city of Haarlem offers a generous monetary prize of 100,000 guilders to the person who can grow a purely black tulip. 

Dr. Van Baerle is a tulip fancier who believes that ‘to despise flowers is to offend God’. The tulip fanciers of the time added their own specific embellishments to the aphorism:

“C’est offenser Dieu que mépriser les fleurs.La tulipe est la plus belle de toutes les fleurs.
Donc qui méprise la tulipe offense démesurément Dieu.”

“To despise flowers is to offend God.The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers.Therefore, the one who despises tulips offends God beyond measure.”

  Van Baerle works assiduously on cultivating the black tulip. It is on the verge of blooming when his jealous neighbor Isaac Boxtel, a fellow tulip grower who spies on him constantly, alerts the authorities and has him arrested for keeping the letters of the de Witt brothers. Boxtel covets the prize himself and resorts to all sorts of machinations to steal the bulbs and acquire fame and fortune for himself.

A distraught Cornelis manages to sneak in three cuttings of the tulip bulbs with him when he is arrested and continues to grow them in prison. Meanwhile he meets Rosa Gryphus, the guard’s beautiful daughter and the two fall in love. He teaches her to read and write and she helps him grow the black tulip secretly. Love blossoms too along with the tulip. The rest of the story is sappy and sentimental and different in tone from the first few chapters.

The black tulip needs the right amount of light and soil conditions to flourish. Love too will only develop with the right amount of nurturing and attention. Love faces challenges but never gives up and blooms in spite of all the hurdles in its way. The obstacles come in the form of Rosa’s own cruel and suspicious father and a mysterious visitor to the prison who takes more than a passing interest in Rosa and her tulips.

 The story lacks the depth of “The Count of Monte Cristo” or “The Three Musketeers”. The characters are portrayed with no nuance and belong to the distinct tropes of hero, villain or victim. My edition had notes on the historical details. Apparently Dumas got some of his facts mixed up. He confuses William the Silent with William the 3^rd and some of the chronology regarding the de Witt brothers does not match up. Also, there are inaccuracies in the research on tulips. Tulips came from Turkey and not from Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) as Dumas claims. The sources he followed were not always accurate. Reading the notes took away a little from my experience but I found the fictional aspects of the novel to be entertaining and was happy to read a lesser known work of Dumas. 

I enjoyed the delightful lovers’ tiffs between the two. Rosa is jealous of the tulip and claims that Van Baerle loves the flower more than her. Of course Rosa is named after a flower herself and one can say that he is caught between the tulip and the rose.

Will the black tulip bloom? Will love triumph in the end? We hope so for after the misfortunes endured by the protagonists, we wish them all the happiness in the world for, “On a quelquefois assez souffert pour avoir le droit de ne jamais dire : Je suis trop heureux.” “Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy”.

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer-#1936Club

After decades, I experienced the pleasure of reading a Georgette Heyer and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was published in 1936. It is a great candidate for the 1936 club hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and StuckinaBook. The Talisman Ring was a welcome change of tone from all the serious reading I have been doing lately. It is nonsensical and absurd but utterly delightful. Set in the Georgian period in Britain around 1793, it is a romantic comedy and a murder mystery that reminded me a little of Jane Austen, a little of P.G.Wodehouse and a lot of Oscar Wilde.

Warning:  Suspension of disbelief is required to derive maximum enjoyment out of this novel.

The story has all the elements you need for a rip roaring farce-cousins betrothed to each other, a runaway heiress, smugglers, a missing ring, secret panels, hidden cellars, Bow Street Runners, break-ins, pistols, a headless horseman ( Huh?), a priest hole, an evil valet and a villain who has nothing villainous in his appearance or demeanor. There is also some crossdressing thrown in for good measure.

On his deathbed, Lord Sylvester Lavenham arranges the marriage of his grand nephew Tristram Shield to his half French granddaughter, Mademoiselle Eustacie de Vauban who has escaped the French Revolution and arrived in England ; neither of them is happy about this arrangement. The 18 year old Eustacie is full of romantic notions and craves adventure and even has fantasies about a glorious death- she wants someone to arrive ventre à terre to her deathbed. The dour and straitlaced 31 year old Sir Tristram is exasperated with her juvenile flights of fancy. As for Eustacie, she would have preferred to have been sent to the guillotine rather than make a mariage de convenance with her cousin. She has entertained that thought even before meeting Tristram and has even considered the outfit that would be most suitable for the occasion. Their exchanges are comical:

“We used to talk of it, my cousin Henriette and I. We made up our minds we should be entirely brave, not crying, of course, but perhaps a little pale, in a proud way. Henriette wished to go to the guillotine en grande tenue, but that was only because she had a court dress of yellow satin which she thought became her much better than it did really. For me, I think one should wear white to the guillotine if one is quite young, and not carry anything except perhaps a handkerchief. Do you not agree?’

‘I don’t think it signifies what you wear if you are on your way to the scaffold,’ replied Sir Tristram, quite unappreciative of the picture his cousin was dwelling on with such evident admiration.

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you? But consider! You would be very sorry for a young girl in a tumbril, dressed all in white, pale, but quite unafraid, and not attending to the canaille at all, but–‘

‘I should be very sorry for anyone in a tumbril, whatever their age or sex or apparel,’ interrupted Sir Tristram.”

Tristram needs to marry and provide an heir and the Lord cannot stand his other grand nephew, Basil Lavenham aka Beau. Come on, the guy wears a green coat with yellow pantaloons and an absurd sugar loaf on his head. Not to mention the knots of ribbons at his knees and the ornate quizzing glass that hangs on a riband around his neck! Eustacie decides to run away and runs instead into a group of smugglers- er free traders who are led by an exiled cousin, Ludovic Lavenham, who is falsely accused of murder and is therefore in hiding. Eustacie and Ludovic are instantly smitten with each other. She ran away from one cousin to fall into the arms of another. But hey, it’s all in the family. And besides, Ludovic is the rightful heir to the Lavanham property ( cough cough!).The two are chased by excise men and Ludovic is injured in the process. They end up taking refuge at The Red Lion Inn which is the main setting of the novel.

The Red Lion Inn at Handcross, Sussex inspired the setting of the novel.

At the inn they meet an unmarried 27 year old woman Miss Sarah Thane, and her brother Sir Hugo Thane who is recuperating from a cold. Miss Thane is more sensible and practical than Eustacie but she has the same thirst for adventure and takes the young girl under her wing. They decide to solve the mystery of the murder of a certain Matthew Plunkett for which Ludovic is falsely accused. A talisman ring is missing and if found, will clear Ludovic’s name and uncover the truth. Sir Tristram becomes enmeshed in their adventure and they are helped by innkeeper Joseph Nye to keep Ludwig hidden and to prevent The Beau from becoming the heir. We witness some harebrained schemes and rollicking adventures till all’s well that ends well!

The characters are charming in spite of their ridiculousness. Some readers might find Eustacie, the ingénue and the headstrong Ludovic downright silly but the two youngsters could not be more perfectly suited to each other. And there is not just one but two romances to enjoy! The more mature and sensible pair, Sarah and Tristram indulge in delightful banter:

“How cross you are!’ marvelled Miss Thane. ‘I suppose when one reaches middle age it is difficult to sympathize with the follies of youth.’ 
Sir Tristram had walked over to the other side of the room to pick up his coat and hat, but this was too much for him, and he turned and said with undue emphasis: ‘It may interest you to know, ma’am, that I am one-and-thirty years old, and not yet in my dotage!’ 
‘Why, of course not!’ said Miss Thane soothingly. ‘You have only entered upon what one may call the sober time of life. Let me help you to put on your coat!’ 
‘Thank you,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Perhaps you would also like to give me the support of your arm as far as to the door?”

  Their relationship is characterized by witty badinage and culminates in a charming and original marriage proposal. I also enjoyed the sweet friendship between the two women who despite the difference in age strike up a connection. Sir Hugo Thane is a complete hoot! He is a justice of the peace who has no qualms about consuming smuggled booze and is more concerned about his room than about a murder attempt on poor Ludwig:

“Then understand this, Sally!’, said Sir Hugh. ‘Not a yard from this place do I stir until I have that fellow laid by the heels! It’s bad enough when he comes creeping into the house to stick a knife into young Lavenham, but when he has the infernal impudence to turn my room into a pigsty, then I say he’s gone a step too far.”

Georgette Heyer was known for her meticulous research in writing historical fiction. Although this is a period mystery, the focus is more on dialogue and plot than on costumes and balls which are described in more minute detail in her novels set in London. The action takes place in the countryside of Sussex and free traders who were known to operate in the area, play a big part in the story. For the first time in her fiction, she introduces Bow Street Runners who are considered the original British police force and they appear in some of her future works too. They are portrayed as inept and add a lot of hilarity to the plot.

There are many French words used in the book. As a word nerd, I thoroughly enjoyed reaching for the dictionary to learn some archaic words and Regency cant no longer used in conversation- abigail, chit, demmed, reticule, wench, dentical, gammon, oubliette etc to name a few. I learned that there are many types of carriages for transportation- barouche, landau, cabriolet, post chaise, curricle and phaeton. It was interesting to come across words in local Sussex patois like ‘ Adone-do ‘( ‘Have done’ or ‘Leave off’) and amusing insults like ‘cribbage faced tooth drawer’ to describe a dentist.

This was an uproarious and nostalgic read which took me back to my teen years when my friends and I would devour Georgette Heyer books along with Mills and Boon and Barbara Cartland. We would borrow and lend them and often lose and gain copies in the process. I am determined to read and re-read more of Heyer and her outrageously funny novels. They would be the perfect antidote for a break from grim reads.

     

  

A Tale of Two Cities

Title Page ( of the first illustrated edition in installments)

Set in the late eighteenth century against the violent backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, depicts the disparate but not entirely dissimilar world of two cities, London and Paris. Right from the title and the oft-quoted opening lines of the book,“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—”, Dickens explores dichotomies of evil/ good, darkness/light, despair/hope and rebirth/ death.

The Likeness

A Tale of Two Cities is as much a personal drama as it is a political story. The novel narrates the story of Charles Darnay, an exiled Frenchman who is spared from execution for treason in London by the testimony of a young English lawyer, Sydney Carton, who bears an uncanny resemblance to him. Both Darnay and Carton are in love with Lucie Manette who has just been reunited with her Dad, Dr. Manette, who was unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille. Darnay wins her hand in marriage and the couple lead a harmonious life with their young daughter until Darnay returns to Paris to save a falsely accused servant. Dr. Manette, Lucie and her little girl, and Lucie’s guardian, Miss Pross follow Darnay to Paris and are eventually joined by Sydney Carton and Mr. Lorry, a family friend and bank employee. They are all caught in the whirl of the Revolution in France as Darnay ends up in jail and awaits execution.

In Paris, revolutionary fervor is high among the aggrieved inhabitants of the poor neighborhood of Saint-Antoine. The wine shop of Ernest Defarge serves as a hub of the activities of a group of revolutionaries who go by the name ‘Jacques’. They want to uproot the existing social order characterized by the absolute power of the monarchy and feudal privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy and clergy. The Marquis Evrémonde heartlessly crushes a child under his carriage and reacts with indifferent arrogance to its death. The people have suffered at the hands of the aristocracy for far too long and are filled with a desire for revenge. They want to establish a new society based on more egalitarian ideas. Defarge is their leader and will eventually lead the mob to the storming of the Bastille.

The Wine Shop

In the character of Madame Defarge, Dickens creates the female face of the revolution, albeit a sinister one. Women, hitherto, confined to their domestic space, took to the streets in large numbers to air their grievances and played a pivotal part in the uprisings. Madame Defarge sits quietly in the wine shop knitting but nothing escapes her watchful eye. In the pattern of her stitches, she knits the names of her victims whose death is imminent. She is the leader of the ‘tricoteuses’ and represents the brutality of the Reign of Terror with her radical and extreme views. She reminds us of the Greek Fates, the ‘moirai’ who spin the thread of life determining the fate of human beings. While M. Defarge is ambiguous about killing innocent people, his bloodthirsty wife is unflinching in her desire for vengeance. She hates the Evrémonde family with a passion. Charles Darnay has a connection with the Evrémonde family and Ernest Defarge once worked for Dr. Manette. That is how the lives of the English get entangled with the Defarges in France. I don’t want to delve too much into the plot. There are a lot of plot twists, some of which quite improbable, creating a melodramatic climax and ending with the memorable last lines: It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.

The Sea Rises

Dickens makes you live the revolution with the characters. I was quite horrified by how the oppressed become the oppressors. All the bloodshed eventually led to the establishment of a modern democracy and capitalist country but at the cost of innumerable lives. It is a cycle of oppression where the oppressed internalize the oppression of the oppressors and end up becoming like them despite their desire for social justice and quality. Though Dickens’ sympathy lies with the oppressed, he knows they can get carried away and highlights how people died often for no reason: “Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!” 

The polarities I brought up in the opening paragraph can be seen in the portrayal of the characters too. Sidney Carton and Charles Darney are set up as mirror images of each other and Miss Pross is a foil to Mme Defarge. The characters of Lucie and Madame Defarge are set up as stark contrasts to each other; one compassionate and angelic and the other vengeful and unforgiving. Lucie is the golden thread that holds the family together while Mrs. Defarge seeks to tear their family apart. Most of the characters represent extreme goodness or evil and end up being one dimensional except for Sidney Carton who is more complex and reveals a dual nature.  

Dickens uses powerful imagery in his writing to evoke the tension in the atmosphere. The image of a wine cask broken and spilling its contents on the streets of Paris foreshadows the bloodshed that will take place in that very neighborhood. He describes the storming of the Bastille in a very powerful and dramatic way personifying Madame La Guillotine. A Tale of Two Cities is also a love story and I was struck by the exquisite and heartfelt prose in the scene when Carton visits Lucie Manette and explains that while he expects no return of his love, he would do anything for her or for anyone whom she loves. I think these are among the most romantic lines ever penned in literature:

“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you—ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn—the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” 

The title of the first Book of the novel is ‘Recalled to life’ and it could be extended to the whole novel as one of its major themes is the theme of resurrection. In fact, Dickens had even considered it as an alternate title for the novel. Charles Darnay is saved twice from a terrible fate. Dr. Manette never had the opportunity to know his daughter while in prison and missed out on that joy. She enjoys a father’s love for the first time and they are both thus recalled to life. In a morbid way, Jerry Cruncher, the grave thief resurrects bodies from graves and sells them to doctors and surgeons. In the end, he is willing to ‘resurrect’ himself by making 2 promises to Miss Pross- he vows to stop the criminal activity of grave digging and to treat his wife better and not interfere in her prayers. The person who most embodies redemption through sacrifice is Sydney Carton who led a life devoid of ambition and meaning, but eventually finds purpose by renouncing his life for the happiness of the other characters. His ultimate sacrifice makes him a hero and an almost Christ- like figure.

Last but not the least, the resurrection takes place on a societal and cultural level as the dismantling and death of the ancien régime in France leads to a new era ushering in freedom and equality. Dickens was indebted to Thomas Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution in writing this novel with historical accuracy. Dickens wrote this story perhaps as a cautionary tale for his own country to avert the tragic fate of its neighbor. Many of the issues raised continue to be relevant today as glaring injustice and the conflict between classes is not just an 18th century issue specific to France. In that sense, the novel is timeless as it serves as a warning of what can happen when injustice goes unchecked, and as a lesson in how to avoid history from repeating itself.

• Illustrations above are by Hablot Browne ( Phiz) from A Tale of Two Cities, which was released in parts between April and November 1859.

The Paris Couple: Love Is A Beautiful Liar

 

Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson on their wedding day, September 3, 1921

The Paris Wife is a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage during the years of his budding writing career before he was catapulted into fame and fortune. The story is narrated through the perspective of his first wife Hadley who witnesses the nascent writer transform into a legend along with the slow and painful disintegration of their marriage. The young Hemingways move from Chicago to lead a humble life as newly weds in a small flat in the Paris of the 1920s and are instantly thrown into the hedonistic milieu of hard drinking and partying with fellow expats.

Paula McLain, the author, did extensive research studying correspondence exchanged between the couple, reading their biographies and Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast. Within this framework of information, she has given a voice to Hadley who was generally relegated to the background in the looming presence of her husband. It would have certainly been impossible for McLain to know every intimate moment and every conversation that took place between the couple and she must have taken liberty with the details but she claims to be as accurate as one could possibly be to their story.

Hemingway outside of his residence at 113 Rue  Notre-Dame-des- Champs, Paris

McLain has beautifully evoked the atmosphere of depravity and debauchery that characterized the era of the Lost Generation in post war Paris. I felt a voyeuristic thrill as I was transported to Paris with the Hemingways, frequenting the cafés and restaurants along with them, accompanying them on their skiing trips to Austria and bull fighting spectacles in Spain and visiting the glitzy homes of their friends on the Riviera, hobnobbing with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and James Joyce among others. After finishing the book, I  rushed to read The Sun also Rises and A Moveable Feast to prolong the joy of living vicariously through them in that wonderful bygone era.

From L-R at the table, Gerald and Sara Murphy, Pauline Pfeiffer, Hemingway and Hadley in Pamplona, Spain

 

Both Hemingways entered the marriage with a lot of baggage. Hadley had a difficult childhood where she lost both her sister and her father, the latter to suicide. She herself suffered from many nervous spells. Ernest spent a few years fighting in World War 1 and sustained an injury to his leg. The chemistry between the two is undeniable. They both call each other ‘Tatie’ and have a host of endearing nicknames for each other. He thinks they are essentially alike, ‘the same guy’ but they couldn’t be more different from each other. He has a charming and colorful personality. She doesn’t exactly fit into the bohemian lifestyle in Paris and she refers to herself as ‘victorian’ as opposed to ‘modern’ but she strives hard to please her husband and is exceedingly agreeable and accommodating. She helps establish his writing career, reads through his drafts and even supports him financially. She is his rock but he has a roving eye. He needs her to feel safe but at the same time values his space. Besides, she has to make a lot of sacrifices. She has to live frugally while the other women around her wear chic clothing. An unexpected pregnancy prompts Ezra Pound to warn her that it would be a dire mistake to let parenthood change Hemingway. They have their bonny baby boy and things still go on smoothly. It was not parenthood (although their parenting style would leave much to be desired in contemporary times) but fame that eventually affected their marriage. When Ernest receives his contract for In Our Time, Hadley remarks: “ He would never again be unknown. We would never again be this happy.” In their early married years, Hadley loses his valise containing all his work to date. You have to wonder if he ever forgives her for that blunder and if that incident represents a turning point in their marriage along with the entry of the other woman.

Hadley and Ernest Hemingway with their son “Bumby” in Schruns, Austria

The other woman is Pauline Pffeiffer, a wealthy socialite who insidiously creeps not only into their domestic life by befriending both of them and calling them ‘my cherishables’ but also into their bedroom. What would you do if a beautiful naked woman crawls under the sheets on your husband’s side of the bed? What did Hadley do? She pretended she was asleep. Now suddenly there are three of everything in their lives: three oeufs au jambon, three steaming brioches, three glasses of juice, three breakfast trays, three terrycloth robes, three wet bathing suits on the line and on the rocky path three bicycles stood on their stands: “…You could see how thin each kickstand was under the weight of the heavy frame, and how they were poised to fall like dominoes on the skeletons of elephants or like love itself.” A ménage à trois forms gradually without either of them realizing or wishing it. What does Hadley get out of the relationship? Is she an enabler? She comes across as an insecure woman madly in love with her husband and tolerant of his wayward behavior. The Paris Wife reveals a lot about the Paris husband too. Hemingway appears to be a needy, narcissistic, jealous and unkind person- in one word, a jerk. He is critical and dismissive of his friends. Yet, you understand where he is coming from and look at him from a sympathetic standpoint. There are a few chapters narrated from his point of view and he does reveal a soft and tender side. The War had a devastating effect on those who fought and survived. Hemingway suffered from what we refer to as PTSD today. The war also brought about a change in values. Gone was the moral rectitude of the Victorian age.  Besides, he was an artist married to his art which leads us to the interesting question if being an artist justifies a bohemian lifestyle. Hadley seems weak but she shows a lot of grace and strength as her marriage crumbles and finally calls him selfish and a coward before leaving him.

 

Hemingway’s passport, 1923

From the beginning Hadley has a premonition that her marriage is doomed. A passage that struck me in particular in the beginning of the book describes her walks to Les Halles, the open air market where she would linger to admire the lavish meats on display, the bushels overflowing with vegetables and fruits. But in the alleyways behind the marketplace, fruit and meat rotted in crates and reminded her of the gutters in the Place de la Contrescarpe where colored dyes ran freely from the flower vendors’ carts. The lush exterior hides an ugliness underneath and reminds her of the words Ernest had uttered way back in Chicago: “Love is a beautiful liar.” The Paris Wife is a touching and bittersweet love story with some degree of closure in the end. Hadley remarries and leads a contented life and Ernest calls her years later over the phone before committing suicide. While looking back on the Paris years, Hadley remarks: “ Life was painfully pure and simple and good, and I believe Ernest was his best self then. I got the very best of him. We got the best of each other.” In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway poignantly writes,” I wish I had died before I had loved anyone but her.” The Paris wife or the early or first wife was but one wife in a long line of wives and lovers but perhaps she was the one despite everything and even despite the fact that love is a beautiful liar.

 

The photos are part of the Ernest Hemingway Collection in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.