Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American poet who lived from the late 19th to the early 20th century. This book was notably influenced by Gibran’s Maronite Christian faith. Maronite Christianity, from what my short Google search told me, is basically a subdivision of Catholicism. “Al, why do I need to know this?” Because the prose in this book read like both affirmations and Bible verses. 

The book is set up into sections: “The Coming of the Ship,” “On Love,” “On Marriage,” “On Children,” “On Giving,” “On Eating and Drinking,” “On Work,” “On Joy and Sorrow,” “On Houses,” “On Clothes,” “On Buying and Selling,” “On Crime and Punishment,” “On Laws,” “On Freedom,” “On Reason,” “On Pain,” “On Self-Knowledge,” “On Teaching,” “On Friendship,” “On Talking,” “On Time,” “On Good and Evil,” “On Prayer,” “On Pleasure,” “On Beauty,” “On Religion,” “On Death,” and “The Farewell.” I know that sounds like a long book, but you can absolutely read it all in a couple hours - my copy is literally a centimeter thick! At this point, my thoughts on this book are not the most organized, so I’m just going to copy my notes verbatim. Some are quotes, others are paraphrases, and others are just my thoughts.

- “If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered season.”

- Don’t give everything to your loved one. Leave some for you and they leave some for them. 

- Your job does not make you a lesser being. All jobs are equally important, as they support one another.

- To work is to fulfill the earth.

- “Work is love made visible.”

- More sorrow will lead to more joy. You cannot have one without the other.

- “Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless shall herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?”

- “It [beauty] is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, but rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted.”

Quick recap: Ch 1 tells us that, in London, one mail man was murdered; this allowed all mail to be "robbed in peace." The citizens of London knew this, and would have been scared to travel with the mail. We know that anything connected to the mail now can foreshadow death and other major crimes.

Now to the notes. We are introduced to "the first of the persons with whom this history has business." This person and other passengers are currently walking uphill because the carriage would be too heavy for the horses to drag through the mud, otherwise. While this is happening, Dickens uses A LOT of descriptive words to lead the reader to feel uneasy - "unwholesome," "reek," "forlornness," etc. All of these words are used to describe the horses, who lead the passengers into this uneasiness. Dickens also wants us to know its foggy with "steaming," "mist," and "throughout the air in ripples that visibly followed." This description of the fog gives the reader a sense of unknowing.

There are three passengers, a guard, and a coachman. One of the passengers will be identified later (we'll get to that in this chapter), but as of right now they are all unidentifiable. Each person is covered head-to-toe because it's cold, they cannot tell who each other are either, and the guard is armed. The passengers are suspicious of each other, and Dickens tells us that the coachman doesn't even trust anyone but the horses. It's 11:10 P.M., and the bunch is not yet at the top of the hill - aptly named "Shooter's."

When the group finally reaches the top of the hill, they stop to rest. This is when they hear a horse quickly approaching them. The guard gets ready for a confrontation, and calls out to the man on the horse to identify himself. The rider asks if this carriage is the Dover Mail, and requests Mr. Jarvis Lorry to receive a message. The passengers all but push Mr. Lorry out of the carriage; we learn later that while Lorry receives this message, the passengers hide their valuables in their boots and pretend to be asleep. Mr. Lorry identifies the messenger on the horse as a man named Jerry, and tells the guard that he (Lorry) works for Tellson's Bank. Lorry also tells the guard that Jerry can be trusted, although the guard does not agree. Jerry hands Lorry a note that says, "Wait at Dover for Mam'selle," to which Lorry tells Jerry to respond "RECALLED TO LIFE." Once this interaction is finished, Jerry waits until the carriage is on its way before walking down the hill, himself (he's also talking to himself, but that's just Jerry, he does that). On the way down the hill, the coachman and the guard discuss how strange the interaction was.

Dickens again uses unsettling language like "descent," "beneath," and "torches." To me, it feels like the carriages descent into hell. Also, the guard feels like Charon, the Greek minor god who paddled the boat across the Rivers Styx (google refers to him as the "cosmic ferryman;" that isn't important, but it is, you know?"). I am not certain that is what Dickens was going for here, but that is the image I came up with.

This book starts off with the famous, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” Dickens is describing the environments of both England and France by using foils like best and worst, wisdom and foolishness, Light and Darkness, etc. All of these foils amount to the perfect set up for this book. The book goes back and forth as well, what is a good thing for some characters is equally as bad for others. In the same way this entire stanza sets up the characters themselves; almost all of them can be viewed as both good and bad, depending how you look at them. They’re all good and evil.

Immediately, Dickens sets up the two cities, or at least the countries they are in, stating that the countries “were settled for ever.” England and France are also foils of each other – well, kind of. Dickens originally sets the countries up as extremely similar. However, the main (if not only) similarity lies in each of the monarchies. Both kings are described as square-jawed, and the queens are described as pale and fair. Connecting the monarchies by how they look cosmetically also connects them by how they look politically or societally. On the surface, both France and England appear to be civilizations of equal stature. However, once all details are accounted for, it becomes blatantly obvious that France is more on the cruel end of the spectrum.

France tortures and murders young men for not kneeling for monks who are literally half a football field away. When speaking of France, Dickens describes the Woodman (the guillotine) and the Farmer (death), and the relationship between the two. But in England, the citizens are committing crimes that actually do harm to people – burglaries, robberies, murders, mob doings, etc. And while the crimes in England are significantly worse than those in France, the punishments are more civil, for lack of a better word. And while France has the guillotine, England has the noose. The comparison between the countries is setting up how barbaric France’s government is becoming. England is barbaric in that their people are committing crimes left and right, but the government is the barbaric party in France. France is torturing people and murdering people for ridiculous things while England is punishing people for robbing, murdering, pickpocketing, etc. While both circumstances seem archaic in 2021, England’s punishments seem a little more justified. England is punishing actual crimes, whereas France is punishing silly disrespects.

Meanwhile, the monarchies of each country continue going about their business as usual. Neither monarch nor their consorts really care about their subjects, and it shows.

As I said before, most of my opinions revolve around the author of this book, so I will summarize the book quickly before I share those opinions. The Tattooist of Auschwitz follows the story of Holocaust Survivor Lale Sokolov. When he was 25 years old, Lale was sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where he would later become the Tätowierer. While imprisoned in Auschwitz, Lale met and fell in love with a woman named Gita. The book details Lale and Gita’s lives within the camp, as well as their lives afterward. 

Without giving too much more away, I’ll just give my opinion. The book in and of itself was a good read, and I would suggest reading it. However, if you do read this book, know that some of the information is inaccurate. The author, Heather Morris, took some artistic liberties when writing Lale’s story - such liberties include misspelling Lale’s name (Sokolov’s son has expressed this concern, it should be “Lali”), Gita’s incorrect number (what is bizarre about this, is that Morris wrote the correct number in the prologue, and then changed it later), the way the camp was managed (including operations and tests that Mengele did or did not perform). Morris herself has said that she changed details, mainly to fit her narrative of what Lale and Gita’s love story was like. The author would place the two in similar venues in key parts of the book, when in reality they were not together at all. Morris’ defense of these inconsistencies is basically that she did not write a history book, rather historical fiction. However, in my opinion, the Holocaust is not something one should take dramatic liberties with. It should not be a period piece or a romance novel. What happened in these camps is too horrific to fathom.