وقتی تصمیم گرفتم سراغ یه کتاب دیگه از چارلز دیکنز برم، دلم یه داستان کامل از میون زندگی آدم‌های سال‌ها قبل رو میخواست. یه رمان کلاسیک که وسطش از اضافه گویی شخصیتا و احساسات عجیب غریبشون اذیت نشم. و خب این کتاب دقیقا همون چیزی بود که میخواستم.
یه داستان جذاب از بطن حوادث انقلاب کبیر فرانسه که از لندن شروع میشه و در پاریس به پایان میرسه. بنظرم دیکنز قبل از هر چیز قصه گوی ماهریه. واقعیت و تلخی جامعه رو جوری از لابه‌لای زندگی شخصیتاش تو صورتت می کوبونه که بعد از تموم شدن کتاب دلت میخواد برگردی و دوباره تمام تلخیش رو‌ تجربه کنی. واقعیت آشنای تمامی انقلاب هایی که اتفاق میفتن، تکرار میشن و به بیراهه میرن...

Dry and boring all.... the.... way .... through

This was a great story with a wonderful hero. But, I felt that the other Dickens I have read so far (Great Expectations, Bleak House, and David Copperfield) were more powerful evocations of humanity. There was perhaps a touch too much moralizing against the French and the French Revolution (said as a French citizen I suppose). Still, the descriptions of Paris under the Terror were realistic feeling and as always the dialogues were lively.

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، میتوان گفت که این کتاب ارزنده ترین اثرِ زنده یاد «چارلز دیکنز» است... من تا پایانِ داستان نمیدانستم که کدام یک از شخصیت هایِ داستان را به عنوانِ شخصیتِ اصلی انتخاب کنم... و حتی در این موضوع تردید داشتم که موضوعِ داستان را چگونه انتخاب کنم... که البته دوست دارم بگویم که موضوعِ آن از خودگذشتگی در راهِ عشق و مهربانیست
‎عزیزانم، داستان از 20 فصل و 300 صفحه تشکیل شده است که گیراییِ داستان سیرِ صعودی دارد، بدین معنا که فصل هایِ ابتدایی کمی کسل کننده است، ولی هرچه به پایان نزدیک میشویم، جذاب تر و گیراتر میشود.... چکیده ای کامل از این داستان را برایتان مینویسم، میتوانید تا هرکجایی را که صلاح دانستید بخوانید.. ولی سرانجامِ داستان را برایتان در ریویو ننوشته ام
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‎داستان از آنجایی شروع میشود که دختری به نامِ «لوسی مانت» به شهرِ پاریس میرود تا با نمایندهٔ بانکی به نامِ آقای «لوری» که کارمندِ بانکی بوده که پدرش در آنجا حساب داشته و اتفاقاً با این نمایندهٔ بانک نیز رفاقتی صمیمی داشته است، دیدار کند و از پدرش که در زمانِ کودکی به او گفته شده که مُرده است، اطلاعاتی کسب نماید... البته باید بگویم که پدرِ لوسی، زندانیِ سیاسی بوده و در زمانِ غیبتِ پدر، همین آقایِ لوری، خرجِ زندگیِ او را داده است
‎در ادامۀ داستان، این دخترِ جوان متوجه میشود که پدرِ پیرش زنده میباشد و تا حدودی حافظه اش ضعیف شده و خلاصه پدرش را که به حرفهٔ کفش دوزی روی آورده را پیدا میکند و همراه با پدرش به انگلستان سفر میکنند... در لندن با مردی به نامِ «چارلز» آشنا میشوند كه او نیز یک زندانیِ سیاسی است و وکیلی به نامِ «سیدنی» دارد که از قضا بسیار به یکدیگر شباهت دارند و وجودِ این شباهت در داستان بی دلیل نمیباشد... خلاصه «سیدنی» به کمکِ «لوسی» و پدرِ پیر و باتجربه اش، «چارلز» را از زندان آزاد میکنند
‎ بعد از گذشتِ زمان، سیدنی و چارلز، هر دو عاشقِ دوشیزه لوسی میشوند... چارلز از رفیقش پیشی گرفته و با لوسی ازدواج میکند و حاصلِ این ازدواج دختر بچه ای زیباست
‎در ادامهٔ داستان، چارلز به فرانسه میرود تا بدهی هایِ مردمی را که عمویش ثروت آنها را بالا کشیده است را به آنها برگرداند... ولی در فرانسه به زندان می افتد
‎اینبار بازهم دوستِ وکیلِ او یعنی سیدنی به همراهِ لوسی و پدرش، دوباره به فرانسه بازگشته و او را نجات میدهند و البته بعد از اتفاق های دیگری که می افتد، یکی از کسانی که عمویِ چارلز پیش از انقلابِ فرانسه، ثروتش را بالا کشیده بود با قدرت و برشی که دارد، چارلز را به زندان انداخته و حکمِ اعدامِ چارلز صادر میشود

‎گنه کرد در بلـــــــــخ آهنگری، به شوشتر زدند گردن مسگری

‎و امّا عزیزانم، اینجاست که سیدنی، مردانگی و رفاقت را کامل کرده و یا بخاطرِ عشقی که به لوسی دارد، به جای آنکه صبر کند تا چارلز اعدام شود و او به عشقش برسد، به دلیلِ شباهتی که با چارلز دارد، جایِ خودش را با او عوض میکند
‎بهتر است خودتان این داستان را بخوانید و از سرانجامِ این داستان آگاه شوید
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‎امیدوارم این چکیده، جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»

Ages ago, when I knew almost nothing about Charles Dickens, this was the book I always associated with him. I knew almost nothing about it, except it was about the French Revolution. Later I heard a few things, like the quote, "It is a far, far better thing that I do ..." and about Madame DeFarge and her knitting at the foot of the guillotine. So, I had a nodding acquaintance with it. But then I read Great Expectations, and A Christmas Carol, and those began to be the books I thought of for Dickens. David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop.

But now I've finally read this, the book that was at the time his most successful, the book that is still considered by many to be his masterpiece. And you know what? It deserves the hype. Here are the usual Dickens Players: noble young men, venerable fathers, innocent angel women, weird servants with weird names and weirder habits. But the story. Oh, the story! Heartbreaking. Tender. Complex and yet deeply satisfying.

And I was not prepared for the ending. Not. One. Bit.

Δεύτερο βιβλίο του Ντίκενς που διαβάζω και βάζω στα αγαπημένα!
Δεν ξέρω πως τα καταφέρνει κάθε φορά να μου δημιουργεί τόσα συναισθήματα ταυτόχρονα!Θέλω να το ξαναδιαβάσω αμέσως!Σίγουρα θα ξαναδιαβαστεί στο μέλλον που σπάνια ξαναδιαβάζω βιβλίο δεύτερη φορά!
Το προτείνω σε όλους και έχω να πω μόνο ότι νιώθω μαγεμένη απ΄την υπέροχη γραφή του!

«Ήταν οι καλύτερες μέρες, ήταν οι χειρότερες μέρες, ήταν τα χρόνια της σοφίας, ήταν τα χρόνια της άνοιας, ήταν η εποχή της πίστης, ήταν η εποχή της ολιγοπιστίας, η εποχή του Φωτός και η εποχή του Σκότους, ήταν η άνοιξη της ελπίδας κι ο χειμώνας της απελπισιάς, είχαμε μπρος μας τα πάντα, είχαμε μπρος μας το τίποτε…»

Είναι ένα αριστουργηματικό μανιφέστο για τη δύναμη της αγάπης, της λύτρωσης και το μεγαλείο του ανθρώπινου πνεύματος.
Δεν είναι ένα απλό μυθιστόρημα.
Μέσα σε αυτό το έργο ζωής και τέχνης κάθε λέξη, κάθε ενέργεια, έχει νόημα και αξία.
Κάθε σκέψη του Ντίκενς αποτυπωμένη αριστοτεχνικά περνάει σαν ουσία ζωής και φθάνει μέχρι το μυελό των οστών του αναγνώστη.
Ειναι τρομακτικό πως καταφέρνει να απεικονίζει τα γεγονότα της Γαλλικής επανάστασης και κάθε επανάστασης, δίνοντας σου τη δυνατότητα να μυρίζεις, να αισθάνεσαι, να βιώνεις,τα ένστικτα των ανθρώπων που ουρλιάζουν σιωπηλά.
Τις καταπιεσμένες λαϊκές μάζες που βουλιάζουν στην ανέχεια, την αμάθεια, το κρύο, την πείνα, τις άρρωστιες, τη βρομιά, την καταπίεση, το φόβο και το θάνατο.

Παράλληλα γράφει μια τρυφερή και βαθιά ανθρώπινη ιστορία αγάπης.
Μια αγάπη που ειναι καταδικασμένη να στολίζεται απο σταθερότητα αισθημάτων και θυσιών.
Εδώ, μέσα στο βούρκο και τη λάσπη, μέσα στο σκοτάδι που νικάει πάντα το φως των λιωμένων κεριών, μέσα σε σπίτια αθλιότητας και δυστυχίας σε κάθε μορφή, στην κακουχία, το έγκλημα, τη βασανιστική ανάγκη επιβίωσης απο ψίχουλα θανάτου, εδώ, σ αυτά τα ίδια μέρη, στις ίδιες πόλεις γίνονται οι απαλλαγές απο κοσμικές και θεϊκές εξουσίες.

Εδώ, ιστορία δυο πόλεων, ιστορία όλων των πόλεων του κόσμου. Οι καλύτερες ανθρώπινες ενέργειες ανθίζουν απο την επαναστατική πένα του οράματος και αναπτύσσονται παράλληλα και σε αντίθεση με την απόγνωση, την αγωνία, την τρομοκρατία και την φρικτή εκδικητική φύση που προκαλείται απ’την αντίθεση της ίδιας ανθρώπινης καλοσύνης.

Ο Ντίκενς απίθανα και απίστευτα καταφέρνει να γράψει στην γλώσσα όλων των εποχών, ενεργοποιεί αυτομάτως τους μηχανισμούς της παγκόσμιας ιστορίας.

Συσσωρεύει πνευματικότητα και σοφία σε μεγάλες λογοτεχνικές σκέψεις.
Μεταμορφώνει τα μυαλά που τον δέχονται ώστε να λαχταράνε ιστορίες πόλεων ...για την προώθηση της κοινωνικής επανάστασης όπως μόνο οι μεγάλοι δάσκαλοι μπορούν να πουν.
Να πουν για αυτή την αιματοβαμμένη ιστορία του Λονδίνου και του Παρισιού το έτος 1793 , αλλά να καλύπτουν και τις προσπάθειες έμπνευσης για κακομεταχείριση του εκάστοτε βίαιου επαναστάτη.

Κάπου διάβασα πως ο Ντίκενς είναι υπερβολικός σε ιδέες και αξιακές διαδρομές. Δεν ειναι υπερβολικός, ειναι αληθινός και δυνατός, είναι προφήτης της επαναστατικής κατήχησης για κοινωνικές αλλαγές με ειρηνικά μέσα.
Για αλλαγές που δεν ειναι ουτοπικές και θεωρητικές εάν ξεκινούν απο την ατομική θυσία, απο την προσωπική ιδεολογική μεταστροφή, και την πνευματική αναγέννηση.

Πόσο πιο ξεκάθαρα να το προβλέψει μέσα απο τους χαρακτήρες του βιβλίου του με πολιτικό περιεχόμενο πως ναι, είμαστε όλοι χειραγωγημένοι, ήμασταν και θα είμαστε.
Ο Ντίκενς γράφει για έναν φρικτό κόσμο. Δεν υπάρχει δικαιοσύνη για τους φτωχούς. Οι αδύναμοι κακοποιούνται και κακομεταχειρίζονται απο την άρχουσα τάξη και όταν τελικά εκδικούνται επικρατεί ο νόμος της ζούγκλας, τα άγρια ζώα που πεινάνε για όλα και καταναλώνονται εντελώς με την επιθυμία τους για αίμα.
Μετά χάος, νοοτροπία μάζας, αγριότητα, καταστροφή, φρενίτιδα, βία.

Δεν ειναι αυτός ο κόσμος του Ντίκενς. Η δύναμη των δικών του δυο πόλεων διερευνά τις προσωπικές πτυχές της εθνικής ταυτότητας με λίγο περισσότερη αγάπη και λίγο λιγότερη βία.
Κάνει έκκληση μέσα απο τα γραπτά του και ελπίζει πως η ανθρώπινη ακεραιότητα θα μπορέσει να ξεπεράσει την εθνική μικρότητα και το ατομικό κακό.
Πάντα σε σχέση με την ανθρώπινη καρδιά που μπορεί να νιώσει.
Πόσο αξεπέραστα και αξιόπιστα έργα μπορεί να καταφέρει αυτή η σπουδαία λογοτεχνία.

Υπάρχουν τόσα πολλά που μπορούν να μάθουν τα έθνη του κόσμου απο αυτό το βιβλίο.

Μα δυστυχώς μέχρι σήμερα εκατοντάδες χρόνια μετά οι λαοί εξακολουθούν να πιστεύουν και να ακολουθούν αυτούς που φωνάζουν : ΑΥΡΙΟ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΡΕΦΕΤΑΙ Ο ΚΟΣΜΟΣ (πως θα τον σώσουμε;;)
ΣΥΓΚΕΝΤΡΩΣΗ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΡΕΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΑΛΛΗ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΑ...ΓΙΑ ΟΛΑ ΦΤΑΙΝΕ ΤΑ ΞΕΝΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΝΤΟΠΙΑ ΜΟΝΟΠΩΛΕΙΑ.


Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

This was a re-read of an old favourite for me. It's been about 25 years, though, so long overdue. I'm not even going to try to review this masterpiece but let me just say one thing:

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'

Arguably the best opening line of any book ever written... but wait!

'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known...'

Definitely the best closing lines of any novel ever written and I will brook no frickin' argument on this one!

Both those quotes? From this book. 'Nuff said, fellow readers; 'Nuff said...

DNF at page 150

Well, I can't believe I am abandoning a Charles Dickens novel but I do not want to go on. It is so different from the other two works that I've read by him and loved. I don't know, I don't like the tone of the story (it might be the translation), cannot connect with the characters and I just don't like it. I thought that something is wrong with me but my mum saw the book on my shelf Today and she confessed that it was the only Dickens she could not read...and my mum finishes everything. Just recently I begged her without success to DNF a novel that she told me repeatedly how much she hated.

I might give this a try later, but for now I have other books in line. I promised myself I will not torture myself anymore with books I don't like so next, please.

“He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or might be the last: these and many similar questions, in no wise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless times…”
-tCharles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The opening of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is one of the most celebrated in the history of literature. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Dickens writes, beginning a lengthy, single-sentence paragraph that is marked by its rhythmic contradictions. “[I]t was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…” By the time you reach the end of this ambitious tease, you are compelled – at the least – to finish the page. In terms of grasping the reader’s attention, and convincing him or her to continue, Dickens succeeds marvelously.

Aside from hooking your attention with the skill that Quint uses to hook great white sharks, the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities marvelously grasps the paradox of the French Revolution, which serves as the novel’s backdrop.

Begun in 1789 as a revolt against the poverty and hunger suffered by huge masses of the population, the French Revolutionaries sought the noble ideal of equality. In achieving this end, however, they unleashed a torrent of blood. They toppled a king, and then beheaded him. They killed thousands of people who resisted, many of those resisting in thoughts or words only. Finally, they started to kill each other, in a dispute over who was most pure. The result was a tumultuous decade in which lofty ends crashed against lethal means, leaving us with an event that is still hotly debated to this day.

***

For me, reading Dickens has been a lot like eating my vegetables. Both are good for you, but I have never been able to fully like either.

It has never been a question of talent. Dickens is an incredibly skilled writer with an unmatched eye for creating memorable characters. The problem I’ve had with many of the works I have read – or attempted to read – is that the whole is often less than the sum of their parts. That is, Dickens published many of his novels in serial form, and it often feels like he is actively inflating his word count in order to pad his (oft-troubled) bank account. The resulting digressions, plot contrivances, and weak endings tend to dampen the enjoyment I get from the worlds he creates.

The best Dickens is – in my humble estimation – A Christmas Carol. The novella is slim, symmetrical, and achieves the perfect balance between character and plot. Though it has been adapted so often that the whole thing feels like a cliché, there is a real genius to its structure and execution. There is not a single unnecessary moment, not a single misplaced beat. Compared to the shaggy meanderings of Great Expectations or Bleak House, A Christmas Carol is a breath of pine-scented winter air. Despite Dickens’s struggles to complete it, the finished novel knows exactly what it is trying to do, and exactly where it is going.

A Tale of Two Cities, one of two works of historical fiction Dickens published in his life, straddles the extremes. Certainly, it is not an endlessly growing story, such as the weighty, ever-expanding David Copperfield, but neither is it as sleek and efficient as Scrooge’s yuletide transformation. It is a bit of both, actually.

One is almost tempted to say it was the best of books, it was the worst…

But no, I would not give into that temptation.

***

The two cities referenced in the title – Paris and London – provide Dickens with his setting. We begin in the year 1775, with a messenger flagging down the mail-coach between London and Dover. The passenger who receives this message is a banker named Jarvis Lorry, who has just learned that Dr. Alexandre Manette, a French physician, has been released from the infamous Bastille prison in Paris, after serving an eighteen-year sentence. Dr. Manette, it turns out, has a daughter named Lucie, who has always believed her father to be dead.

While Lucie reunites with her father, we are introduced to the cruel Marquis St. Evrémonde, who gets our attention by running over a child in a carriage, and then yelling at the peasants for endangering his horses. The Marquis has a nephew, Charles Darnay, who narrowly escaped a conviction for treason against Great Britain.

Ultimately, Lucie and Charles fall in love, but Charles returns to France as the City of Lights is roiled by a storm of revolutionary violence. At the risk of spoiling anything, I will end my summary there. Suffice to say, the results are both entirely predictable and also entirely unpredictable. This is a function of Dickens’s propensity for over-plotting, as well as his habit of utilizing sheer melodrama to obscure the reality that his twists and turns aren’t all that clever. There are parts of A Tale of Two Cities that rely on reveals that would shame the writers of Scooby Doo.

Still, the storylines get so tangled and confused, it almost feels like a surprise when things happen. More importantly, Dickens seems to write with a clear idea of where he is going. In that sense, the plot is actually rather satisfying. It also helps that A Tale of Two Cities is less than four-hundred pages long. Thus, despite being serialized in weekly installments from April to November 1859, I didn’t feel like Dickens was trying to get paid by the word.

As I mentioned above, Dickens is famed for his fictional creations, whether that is flinty Ebenezer Scrooge, sycophantic Uriah Heep, or the sadistic Miss Havisham. Here, that list is added to greatly, especially Madame Defarge, a devoted Revolutionary who chillingly knits patterns that represent the names of people to be killed. At one point, her husband starts to worry about the excesses of the Revolution. Not Madame Defarge. She says to him: “Tell the wind and fire where to stop, but don’t tell me.” The supporting cast alone makes A Tale of Two Cities worth reading.

Not all the characters are winners, though. The blonde, saintly Lucie, for instance, described as “the golden thread” holding her family is together, is absolutely insufferable, to the extent I can only surmise she is the love child of Pip from Great Expectations and Esther from Bleak House. Every moment I spent with her, I darkly hoped that Madame Defarge was adding some stiches to her list.

***

Dickens’s novels shone a light on the lower classes. He had an obvious social conscious when it came to the poor and the downtrodden, a consciousness fervently expressed by the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol. To that end, he clearly has sympathy for France’s peasantry, and the way their daily bread was subject to powers far outside their control. His outrage is nearly glowing when he describes the Marquis, who kills a child and pays the father off with a coin. It is just as clear, however, that the violence attending the French Revolution disturbed him. The most affecting part of this novel – or perhaps any of his novels – is the tumbril ride one of his characters takes to the guillotine. Meanwhile, the zealous Revolutionary Madame Defarge is portrayed as a villain.

In that way, A Tale of Two Cities really captures the tension of the French Revolution, where bad acts gave way to good intentions, which gave way to bad acts in the name of good intentions.

I'm so glad to see Dickens and I are friends again. From being my biggest disappointment of 2021, to being a great, pleasant experience after finishing A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens has caught my attention again, though he is far from being my favorite Victorian author, I'm really interested in reading some of his other novels from now on.
A Tale of Two Cities was not the book I was expecting at all; actually, I wasn't expecting to find anything so good as what I read here since my previous experience reading the author had ended up being really disappointing, however, now I can tell I probably made a mistake picking up Our Mutual Friend as my first Dickens, or perhaps this book wasn't for me at all. Either way, this compelling, sometimes intriguing historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859 and set before and during the French Revolution, that depicts directly and vividly the life of a group of characters who end up being involved in the social problems that they are living as a society, has been an impressive journey as a reader.

Now, I must confess I found both the characters main plot and subplots poorly developed and superficial. Don't get me wrong, in my view this was not a mistake at all. The characters are following one, and only one direction from beginning to end: one of them is kind and sympathetic towards everyone at the begging, in the middle and at the end of the book; another one is wicked, super evil, again, throughout the whole novel; the third one is just the voice of wisdom, and so on and so forth. Theirs personalities are basically the same, perhaps—and just in a few cases—changing slightly towards the last one third of the book (for the record, if you are a character reader, this book might not be for you).
Is this a problem? Absolutely not! Because Dickens doesn't seem to be interested in developing his characters, but interested in the background, in developing the historical context. And it's just there, in those descriptions, passages of the French Revolution where the soul of this novel is. The first lines of the novel are so memorable, and so are the last chapters; I'm certainly not exaggerating when I say I got the goosebumps reading those final chapters, overall the whole part 3, whose descriptions are still stuck in my head; it is here where also the pace of the novel is going really fast and eventually the ending turns into the most remarkable and even heartbreaking part of the book.
The middle of the novel, nonetheless, is kind of disappointing. At times confusing, other times slow and repetitive; fortunately, Dickens knows what the reader wants—I'm just assuming this based on my own experience—and suddenly is back to those important events that took place during the French Revolution. By the way, I'd highly recommend an edition with explanatory notes, or al least footnotes in order for you to understand those events that are implicit in the narrative. For instance, this edition of Penguin Classics is indeed a great option to get a great, historical experience.

Finally, if you are interested in listening to the audiobook for this novel, considering there are about ten audiobooks available right now, I encourage you to pick up the Martin Jarvis' one; he was perfect in this narration, one of the best audiobooks ever. It was not only the tone of his voice as well as his pace what amazed me so much, but also the fact that you can feel every dialogue, every scene, every characters' thought so vividly and so profoundly. In my opinion, a wonderful job by this narrator.

Favorite quotes:

“The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else.”

“I am not afraid to die, ... but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrémonde. Such a poor weak little creature!”

“But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays.”

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or service-able to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?”

“Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world—the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine.”

“Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there.”

I first read A Tale of Two Cities as a high school sophomore. I have a vivid memory of my English book laid flat on my desk, though it seems odd to me now that the whole novel was in a textbook. Though it wasn’t my introduction to Dickens (that came from a book of stories I didn’t realize till later were not the ‘real’ stories, but that’s a different story), I remember being stunned by the language, the characters, and the atmosphere. Especially due to the characters of Sydney Carton (what teenage girl doesn’t have a soft spot for unrequited love) and Madame Defarge (Vengeance, thy name is Woman!), the novel was an inspired choice for an Honors English group of girls, some of whom would stand up at lunchtime to reenact scenes. (I especially remember their going on to denounce each other as having “walked with the devil” a la The Crucible the following school year.)

While this reread (with the Dickens Fellowship of New Orleans -- not a teenager in the group) perhaps brought to light for me some of the non-perfection of this work, the opening paragraph (not just its famous first phrase); the unbearable heart-pounding pacing of the carriage rides; and the entire last chapter (not just the famous last sentence) retained every bit of their power. I’d forgotten the ultimate fate of one character and, when it arrived, it startled me with the force of a solitary thunderclap, so unexpected I had to read it again to make sure it had happened.