A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

With The Dark Knight Rises due in theaters on Friday, and Nolan publicly stating that Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities was a strong influence, this was high on my list.  It deals with the cities of London and Paris, and is set before and during the French Revolution of the late 1700s.  This was my first Dickens work (I have two others on my reading list), and I was not disappointed.

Well, I should say, I was not disappointed at the end.  The novel (originally published serially) is broken into three books.  The first two were quite difficult.  Dickens writes with an occasionally enviable, and occasionally frustrating, eloquence and verbosity.  Each sentence could contain a subtle and well-worded comment on society in addition to advancing the story.  This, I liked- mostly.  If reading is akin to having a meal, many popular authors are like snack food- easily consumed- and Dickens (at least here) was like a heavy meal- one cannot read any great length (and fully digest the meanings) without stopping for a break of significant length.  Thus, for the first two-thirds of the book, I could complete only 30-40 pages a day.  The story didn't seem to advance much, the different characters and story arcs seemed unrelated (or, at best, only marginally connected), and these, combined with the aforementioned prolixity, made me somewhat reluctant to continue.  But, I pressed on, and in the third book, all was rewarded.  I finished this final book (conveniently, 1/3 of the novel), in a day, with anticipation and enjoyment increasing every page.  The pace picked up, and the language, though still eloquent, seemed much easier to digest.  Everything fell into place.  It was great- a worthy story.  But for the deficiencies of the first two books, this would get an A+.  As it stands, it's still very worthwhile- just be prepared to endure the first two-thirds.  I say endure as though it was unbearable- it wasn't- it just took more effort than expected.

There's a lot to this story that I don't review here.  Analysis of how Darnay is treated both in London and Paris would be a worthy contemplation, as would investigating the similarities between the people of the two cities as a whole.  Not to mention the love shown by many individuals to each other throughout the novel, and how it manifests itself.  But, the bed beckons.

Rating: A