Michael Steele says his favorite book is “War and Peace” and he quotes the first line as: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

D'oh! Bad times for Michael Steele. The 5 candidates for RNC were asked, in their debate, what's their favorite book? It's not like anybody else said anything good. ("To Kill a Mockingbird" — give me a break!)

The actual opening lines of "War and Peace":

"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist — I really believe he is Antichrist — I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you- sit down and tell me all the news.""

Here's "A Tale of Two Cities":

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 — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Pretty much the same thing, no? Close enough for RNC work.

"Great Expectations, the Miss Havisham Cake" — banned from the Melbourne Cake Show.

In bad taste?



But it's literary!

A reading, from Charles Dickens:

The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.

"This," said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here."

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?"

"I can't guess what it is, ma'am."

"It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!"

"On page 12, where Scrooge takes Marley’s ghost to be evidence not of the supernatural, but of his own indigestion, ('more of gravy than of grave,')..."

"... he converts the offending bit of food from being a 'spot of mustard' to a less digestible 'blot of mustard.'"


That's an example of an interesting edit, found in the manuscript of "A Christmas Carol." The NYT has made the entire manuscript available in high resolution, and there's an invitation to compete to find the other interesting edits. You're supposed to put your contest entries in the comments section over there, and I waded through a lot of reader scribblings without finding any legitimate attempts at finding an interesting edit. There are innumerable musings on the character of Scrooge, and I'm seeing a few people quoting inserted passages they like. I guess actually poring over the manuscript and finding another "blot" for "spot" is just too taxing.