Monthly Literature Challenge

[LizEF]

11 minutes ago, Misfit said:

I think if I could have made the image larger, I could have read it better.

I don't know how folks manage to survive without at least one 23" + computer screen.   (Some young pup out there is rolling their eyes at the old lady and thinking, "you can't fit a 23" screen in your pocket".  )

 

13 minutes ago, Misfit said:

@InesF has lovely handwriting, and attractive drawings. I did take German in college to get a BA degree. Not that I can speak or read it. I did learn some of the writing differences versus English. 

Agreed - Ines' script is beautiful.  I think the differences there plus the different language of the novel combined to make some words hard for me to figure out - even using other words as a "key".  Since I wasn't the only one, I thought the text might help...

[InesF]

OMG. I'm so sorry! I didn't recognize the downscaling the forum software did without notice!

I intentionally uploaded a full resolution image (over 4k pixel width) but what appeared is smaller than the compressed image in the spoiler part.

 

I apologize, I did not see it!

 

For all of you who like to look at a full resolution image, please use this link: https://flic.kr/p/2okkm52

(the image is without blue bars ➝ spoiler alarm!)

 

PS: I promised a hardcore riddle - however, it was not meant that way!

[InesF]

18 hours ago, LizEF said:

I'm glad because, holy lots-of-work, @InesF!  And it's gorgeous! - the flourishes, the silhouettes, the little flowers, the script, the color-combo - just gorgeous!

Thank you so much, @LizEF, you are highly welcome!

And also thank you for posting the text in readable form! 👍😁

[InesF]

13 hours ago, essayfaire said:

I couldn't pick an ink!!! Looked for moss green, but it seems to have gone missing. So I went with a classic.

 

Top hit! I'm lovin' it! 

Thank you so much for participating in handwritten form - you have really good eyes! 👍

[InesF]

11 hours ago, TSherbs said:

Ha, I am having trouble reading both of your handwriten submissions above, even on my laptop if I blow them up. Anyway, that which I can read I don't recognize, and I won't use google to figure it out for at least a week. 

Thank you for trying and for fair play!

Consider to download the book, it's free from the English Gutenberg site.

Hoping to see you at next months Literature Challenge! 😄

[InesF]

9 hours ago, Misfit said:

I looked at the hints late last night, after trying to read the quote. Unfortunately I’ve never read the book.  

Thank you for trying!

Indeed, the book is great story telling and never boring. You may download it for free from the English Gutenberg site.

See you next month! 😄

[InesF]

9 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I seem to recall that they made a miniseries of the book a number of years ago, which ran on PBS (I cheated and looked at the hints, because I didn't recognize the passage -- and admittedly also had more than a little trouble reading it, even after enlarging it as much as possible).

I read another book by the same author years ago (possibly, again,  after seeing part of it made into a series and possibly reading an excerpt from an early part of the book).  But the novel itself was, overall, incredibly depressing.  And did NOT make me overly keen to read anything else by the same author....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Thank you for participating!

During recherché I learned about several movies and TV series made from this story. I didn't watch any of them, because I have a clear subjective imagination of the main characters and don't want to overwrite it with a directors view. 🤗

 

My apologies for the scaled down image. I uploaded a 4k image, and than the forum software scaled it down without notice. So I overlooked.

Sorry for the circumstances! 

[InesF]

7 hours ago, LizEF said:

(Sorry, Ines, if you didn't want this, I just thought that after 3 Americans in a row struggled, more of us might need help, and this lets them get it without "cheating". )

Don't worry, @LizEF, I fully agree!

Thank you! 😊

[LizEF]

4 hours ago, InesF said:

I didn't recognize the downscaling the forum software did without notice!

Yeah, it seems like the larger the image, the worse the compression.   Thank you for posting a sharper version - even more beautiful.  I love those little cameo-like people.

 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

And also thank you for posting the text in readable form! 👍😁

  No problem - glad to do it!

 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

Consider to download the book, it's free from the English Gutenberg site.

There's also a free version on google's play books (either in the app) or here.

 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

I didn't watch any of them, because I have a clear subjective imagination of the main characters and don't want to overwrite it with a directors view. 🤗

When you've already enjoyed the book, the movie / TV version is almost guaranteed to disappoint anyway.

 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

Don't worry, @LizEF, I fully agree!

Thank you! 😊

[TSherbs]

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

For those who are having difficulty reading the handwriting, here's a spoiler, redacted the way @InesF redacted the handwritten version.  Also, I recommend getting a German (or Austrian) pen-pal - that helped me to be able to read all but a handful of words.  (Sorry, Ines, if you didn't want this, I just thought that after 3 Americans in a row struggled, more of us might need help, and this lets them get it without "cheating". )

 

  Hide contents

[redacted] had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible—or from one of our elder poets—in a paragraph of today’s newspaper. She was usually spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister [redacted] had more common sense. Nevertheless, [redacted] wore scarcely more trimmings; and it was only to close observers that her dress differed from her sister’s, and had a shade of coquetry in its arrangements; for [redacted] plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared. The pride of being ladies had something to do with it: the [redacted] connections, though not exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably “good:” if you inquired backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring or parcel-tying forefathers—anything lower than an admiral or a clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan gentleman who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family estate. Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter. Then there was well-bred economy, which in those days made show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when any margin was required for expenses more distinctive of rank. Such reasons would have been enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious feeling; but in [redacted] case, religion alone would have determined it; and [redacted] mildly acquiesced in all her sister’s sentiments, only infusing them with that common sense which is able to accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. [redacted] knew many passages of Pascal’s Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to

 

Thanks...And that is not even the end of the paragraph?!!

 

No, I do not recognize this. Likely British, not any of the Hardy or Bronte that I have read. Not Dickens. Maybe an Austen that I have not read/heard of. 

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, TSherbs said:

Thanks...And that is not even the end of the paragraph?!!

Even the paragraphs were bigger in the good old days. 

[essayfaire]

18 hours ago, TSherbs said:

I am having trouble reading both of your handwriten submissions above, even on my laptop

So Ines's beautiful cursive and my scrawl should not be compared!  @InesF, perhaps in the future if you construct a multi-page thread you could take pictures of each page or column in addition to the beautiful overall view.  That would have helped me, too - I was zooming and zooming!

 

I would have copied things out more neatly, but there were so many words!  All good ones, though!

 

This is a wonderful book which remains relevant in so many ways - I could even imagine a modern re-telling, but then the prose wouldn't be as gorgeous, nor the narrator's voice so compelling.  You can pick up a paperback used copy pretty easily;  worth keeping on the shelf for all the good quotes!

 

[Misfit]

@InesF I followed you on Flickr. I’m L0veTheMoon on Flickr. 

[InesF]

On 3/5/2023 at 6:46 PM, essayfaire said:

So Ines's beautiful cursive and my scrawl should not be compared!  @InesF, perhaps in the future if you construct a multi-page thread you could take pictures of each page or column in addition to the beautiful overall view.  That would have helped me, too - I was zooming and zooming!

 

I would have copied things out more neatly, but there were so many words!  All good ones, though!

 

This is a wonderful book which remains relevant in so many ways - I could even imagine a modern re-telling, but then the prose wouldn't be as gorgeous, nor the narrator's voice so compelling.  You can pick up a paperback used copy pretty easily;  worth keeping on the shelf for all the good quotes!

Hi @essayfaire, thank you for you comment.

Indeed, I will find another way how to post a photo of an A3 page in the forum. It will be with a need for deep zooming, as I like the aspect of having all in one file: the overview and the detail.

 

I guess, the storytelling should not be modernised, although the story content is timeless. 😊

[InesF]

On 3/5/2023 at 11:38 PM, Misfit said:

@InesF I followed you on Flickr. I’m L0veTheMoon on Flickr. 

Thank you @Misfit! I love your photos!

[TSherbs]

On 3/5/2023 at 12:46 PM, essayfaire said:

So Ines's beautiful cursive and my scrawl should not be compared!

 

 

😆 No worries. I had a parent of one of my students call my handwriting "juvenile".... 🤓

[essayfaire]

12 hours ago, InesF said:

It will be with a need for deep zooming, as I like the aspect of having all in one file: the overview and the detail.

 

I guess, the storytelling should not be modernised, although the story content is timeless. 😊

[knarflj]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:19 PM, Carrau said:

Apologies for being late on posting to this commentary on A Tale of Two Cities, but discussions of it always brings to mind something from my professional life.  For years I had a patient who, whenever she was seated in my waiting room, would be seen busily knitting as she observed the others seated in the room.  Shades of Madame DeFarge!  Whenever I saw her name on my appointment list, I made a point of looking into the waiting room to see if she was knitting, which she invariably was.  I asked her once if she had ever read the book, and she just smiled and chuckled, with no reply, as she put away her work.  I didn’t dare ask her again!

 

Too funny!  I always take my knitting to waiting rooms--much easier to put down and pick up quickly than a book--but never considered anyone might associate me with Mme Defarge.

[knarflj]

I can't believe I didn't recognize that quote.  I obviously need to read the book again.

 

But oh my goodness, Ines, what stunning work!  The colours, the handwriting, the sketches, the layout...just beautiful.

[essayfaire]

3 hours ago, knarflj said:

 I always take my knitting to waiting rooms--much easier to put down and pick up quickly than a book--but never considered anyone might associate me with Mme Defarge.

I always thought a book was easier- at least if it's not a big book!