Marilynne Robinsonâs fictional character Jack Boughton is that kind of stuck. He sabotages himself, hurts others, and damages relationships, sometimes through his own deliberate choices and sometimes without conscious intention. Cycling downward into prison and homelessness, he misses his motherâs funeral and breaks his fatherâs heart. He is âoppressed by that old feeling that he was enmeshed in a web of potential damage that became actual in one way or another if he so much as breathedâ (
Jack, 274).
Throughout the novel, Robinson presses the question: Can a man change? I resonate with that question because Iâve asked it many times, over many years, about myself.
In John’s Gospel, there are two resurrections: the resurrections of Lazarus and Jesus. The greatest miraculous sign Jesus performs prior to his own resurrection is raising Lazarus from the dead, as recorded in John 11. In Charles Dickens’
A Tale of Two Cities, I find two resurrections that of Frenchman Charles Darnay and that of Englishman Sydney Carton.
In the crucible of the French Revolution, Carton, who bears a striking resemblance to Darnay, exchanges clothes and changes places with Darnay who awaits execution in a prison cell. Carton cunningly delivers his unsuspecting friend Darnay from his prison cell and impending execution at the guillotine to new life and offers himself up in Darnay’s place in sacrificial death by that same instrument of horror. Carton redeems his own derelict life and infuses it with resurrected meaning by sacrificing himself for Darnay, his wife, and their daughter. As Carton approaches the guillotine, he quotes from John 11:
Share
This title should remind us of Charles Dickens’s “A tale of two cities”, especially for those of us who are “old school.” To refresh our memory, “A tale of two cities” is an 1859 historical novel set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution of 1789.
Here, Dickens asserted his belief in the possibility of resurrection and transformation on personal as well as societal level. The death of Sydney Carton secures a new, peaceful life for Lucie, Manette, Charles Darnay, and even Carton himself. Applied to our own situation, who – or what – will die for Nigeria’s resurrection and transformation, as it were? Is there still a possibility of Nigeria being saved from itself and against itself? Can we still secure a new, peaceful life for Nigeria and Nigerians or are we too far down the hill?
Switzer Daily
10 February 2021
James
Packer faces a Sydney Carton moment when he has to decide whether he gives
himself the guillotine and chops off his head as the real leader of the listed
company Crown Resorts and its Crown gambling operation.
Right now,
the consensus of company analysts, who try to guess the future of profits of
businesses and then their stock prices, think Crown Resorts (CWN) has a
0.6%
downside with the current share price of $10.15.
And it’s
my contention that if James reads the old Charles Dickens book
A Tale of Two
Cities, he could get some great inspiration from the hero of the piece,