Who are your gods? Whom do you worship in actions, and whom in words? Charles Dickens waggles his finger in my face, the finger of a crone, of a maiden, of a businessman. The polished finger of a marquis, the calloused finger of a knitter. He makes his point with the appropriate number of adjectives and with enough humor to break through the polished shell of morality and reach something true. When you dress your Good up in robes and worship it, maybe what you truly worship is Death. And Dickens graciously bows his way out of the room.It is confusing to talk about successes and failures in A Tale of Two Cities because what doesn’t really work for me actually does, and there’s something beyond what really does work that I can’t quite get at. Maybe on my fourth or fifth reading I will have nestled into what I can’t quite get, but until then, I will have to rely on something contrary to my instincts. The thing that puts me off, but then, ultimately, makes the story what it is, is this image of the shy, humble nuclear family – the blond girls named Lucy and the unassuming, faceless father. The easiest shorthand for goodness, the celestial, angels.That is not my god, and even though I mistrust it, deeply – I mistrust it to whatever marrows up the marrow of my bones – it makes sense for what it is in this story. It is a symbol for something not grasping about humanity, a symbol for something that wishes happiness, not destruction, on people, and that does seem like a symbol of Good to me, even if its trappings are soaked in the suspicious. Where to me the Darnay-Manette family is code for abuse and for valuing security over integrity (the apologetic wife who so desperately craves her husband’s affection that she pretends helplessness; the husband who grovels to his father-in-law and otherwise has no remarkable personality traits), for Dickens it was not that. And I can see it and respect what he was doing here. I don’t know, maybe I don’t think a hopeful family has been written, just like I haven’t seen a real-life family that would fit me right. But, where the girl action hero is a symbol of hope to me, I can see how Lucy Manette is a symbol of hope in reverse of that, but not in a bad way. She is a symbol of, “What if people were generous?” And she does not really have enough contrast to be an interesting character, but she, in herself, is a contrast. Because is this book about her or is about Madame Defarge? Really, it is about neither and the one is only a contrast to the other. Madame Defarge is more interesting to me, knitting revenge, but Lucy is still functional, and she still has meaning. She is the innocence that a person saves if we can. But, back to our gods. The various choruses running through this book of sacrifice and resurrection, execution and revenge, wove together with the worship of the gods cleanly and in a way that resonated with me and made me think about how our actions reveal what gods we worship, if we, today, could call our gods by the helpful, honest names of the ancients – Wine, Beauty, Love, War, Freedom, Death, etc. The refrain of liberte, egalite, franternite, or death rings through the story like “my husband, my father, my brother, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, hush.” It is about the hopelessness of the death penalty, and it counts down from resurrection to death. It questions all of our gods, with the goddess Liberty riding on a chair over a blood-soaked, rioting crowd; the sacrifice of Christ made by a dissipated drunkard; the British bank seeking execution, like the French aristocracy and serfs. None of us are safe; none of our hands are clean. In the words of the Biblical Christ, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” Even honest tradesmen.We know our gods, not by the names we attribute to them to make sure we have VIP access to the coolest back-stage events with our friends who call their gods by the same name. We know our gods by our own actions – how we act to ourselves and how we act to others. The revolutionaries in this book chant, “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, or Death,” and Dickens makes it clear that the people worship “or Death” even while they name it Liberte. In that same way, when we destroy our bodies and souls in the name of love by starvation, mutilation, or cultivating mental illness, we are not worshiping Love, even if we name it that. Today, for example, girl who starves herself, and a man who wins on steroids, do not worship Beauty or Strength through those actions; they worship Self-Destruction, Death. Because when beauty and strength are gone, that is the monster, the god, who thrives on your sacrifice. Be the best version of yourself, this book pleads, and if you cultivate self-destruction, at least let your sacrifice be voluntary and for something noble, not blind and hungry. Know the god you worship. But, do we ever? And how can it be anything but sympathetic when we do not? Because this life is all of our crazy mess, with all of our gods wearing halloween masks of another god.As with any Dickens, the best parts of this book are in the common people. Mr. Cruncher and his honest trade of resurrection, and the good Ms. Pross and her noble work as executioner, are the best moments. The good, rough English folk are where Dickens truly shines. But, the political commentary of this book is very strong, as well. The parallels of London and Paris; the executions in both cities, by the rich and the poor; the self-descriptions of Mr. Cruncher and Mr. Lorry as honest businessmen, honest tradesmen, are all powerful statements about thinking of any class of society as subhuman – the poor, the rich, criminals. Everyone is someone’s husband, brother, someone’s father, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, hush. We may talk about our wrongs as though they were the “only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown,” but they are ours, sown by what we have worshiped. Or so judges Dickens . . . and he is a just executioner.
Above all else, this is a love story. It is a story of family and friendship and loyalty. It is Dickens at his most florid and most rhetorical, his most humane, his most [melo]dramatic; yet in many ways, his most precise. I vacillate between this and Bleak House as my favourites of his. I would tell you, if you've not read Dickens, to start here. This is as seminal a work in English literature as King Lear or perhaps a more apt comparison, Romeo and Juliet.For this is a love story.The last three chapters are intense and so evocative they take my breath away. Beyond the suspense and drama (I'm so glad I have such a bad memory - I only vaguely remembered the book, so was able to enjoy the unfolding of the story despite knowing the general gist of the outcome), they show Dickens as the consummate story-teller that he is, and a masterful rhetorician: the stand-off between Miss Pross and Mme. Defarge is absolutely stunning in its telling and as it reveals Dickens' choices about how to tell an important part of the end - how to bring to completion the themes of loyalty, friendship and love; the positive and life-giving power of allegiance to an ideal as opposed to the destructive and death-inducing allegiance to ideology. "[Mme. Defarge] knew full well that Miss Pross was the family's devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy.It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had." (my underline - I just love that phrase: "the vigorous tenacity of love")There is something, even, of Paradise Lost here. There is something on that grand a scale in depicting the fight between good and evil. Among so many dualities, set up from that absolutely extraordinary beginning paragraph that many of us can quote by heart and the title itself, good and evil/love and hate/life and death is what this book comes down to. There is also an acknowledgement of the grey area between the polarities. There is an understanding that evil people are doing evil acts, but that these are fomented within a social and historical context: "Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind."It's very big: thematically, historically. And yet it's also very (for Dickens) concise. That combination is extremely potent, and probably the central reason I love it so much.Something else to be said is the relative absence of humour or caricature as is common in Dickens, with the exception of Jerry Cruncher. Dickens - with, again, that precision - uses Jerry throughout the novel as a character that unites and advances the plot in specific ways at specific points; but he also allows him to evolve and grow in a way that he doesn't always, even in Bleak House. I notice this time 'round that Dickens has the jaw-dropping audacity to insert what is, I believe, the only sustained comical scene in the novel (Pross and Jerry trying to make a plan; Jerry's "wows") right before its most tragic. And it IS funny, and a few pages later those tears of laughter turn to tears of anguish. This is incredible writing.The dualities in A Tale of Two Cities could be the focus of an entire review, but the duality alluded to in the title - the two cities, at two different times - allows Dickens to make a separate, more practical and equally important point. The Dickensian point. (As an aside, the cities, the years - places, times, inanimate objects (Sainte Guillotine) are personified; occupations (knitting, shoe-making, wood-cutting, road-mending) take on an importance beyond the pedestrian, become representative in a way that supports its epic feel.) While Miss Pross represents England and a sense of English superiority, Dickens is not merely dredging up the ages old English-French conflict; he's saying something more subtle: that London at the time he was writing was a hair's breadth away from Paris during The Terror in terms of social inequities. That these conditions, in which human brutality and cruelty arise and dominate - for a time - are predictable, repeatable. That there is a dark side to the coin: the best of times and the worst of times; wisdom and foolishness; hope and despair exist side by side across all times, all places. The point of Carton's prophetic observations at the end is that this, too, shall pass; that, in the blink of an eye, positions will be switched (view spoiler)[(his self-sacrifice being an example; and then much can be said about Carton as a Christ-figure here) (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about A Tale Of Two Cities (2003)?
“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.” The ending is what makes the book! For anyone who has started this novel, don't give up on it because of the slower parts. The story is broken up into 3 books. The first book was short. The second (and longest) book started to get tedious, but then it began to pick up in the 2nd half of that book. The final book was just fantastic. It takes some time to get into but once you get there, you are really there. You can see and feel the poverty and desperation of the French peasants, can feel their rage and smell the blood running freely in the street from Madame La Guillotine. A brutal and insightful look at the French Revolution with all its heroes and villians and a clever twist at the end which draws all the main protagonists together. The unjust imprisonment of Charles Darnay is offset by the ironic justice dealt out to Madame DeFarge in the end. And Sydney Carton is probably one of the most beautiful characters in all of literature in my opinion.Not light reading. If you like the challenge, this book is for you and the pay off is worth it.
—Desislava
"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." Why have I always assumed that quote was from Shakespeare? I've always loved Dickens but this book moved me to tears. Definitely one of his best works of all time, and my conclusion is this: I am thoroughly in love with Carton. To be able to have that peace and finally put my sin to rest, how blissful that would be! To find an act that might possibly make me feel that it has the ability to blot out all else I have done - really, Dickens is brilliant. I don't care if he got paid by the word. I don't care if he takes a whole chapter to describe a character. His verbosity is my weakness and I constantly learn from him. For anyone who has read Dickens, you know that the coined phrase "Dickinsonian characters" is highly accurate. The depth he goes to make us fall in love with them and his talent for giving them names that describe their character so accurately is surely one of his greatest talents and should be always noted in his work. I have also noted another trait that I cannot so easily put into words. It's almost as if his stories are soap operas (and I use this term loosely because it seems so derogatory), but in the way that you never quite know what to expect. The stories might at first seems straightforward and the plots simple, but then, when you least expect it, new clues are released and each of the characters become intertwined in a way you least expect. So much so, that by the end of the book, the actions of each of the characters carry so much more weight. I see this in many of his books and wish I could come up with an adjective to describe it. If anyone has simple word or sentence from their own repertoire to describe this, please share it with me! Besides the obvious character depth and plot building aptitude, Dickens rouses every major emotion of mankind into this tale. At first, I thought it was mostly about the love triangle. Wasn't this supposed to be about the French Revolution? But just when I was getting exasperated with the story line, it exploded into so much more. The themes of the human condition Dickens expounds upon are vast. From love to bitterness, from revenge to heroism, from sacrifice to friendship, and back to love again, he touches upon them all. Of the many themes this novel touches, I think my favorite is that of imprisonment. There are the obvious characters such as Manette and Darnay which are actually sent to jail, but then there are others that are imprisoned by other things in their life; Lorry seems unnaturally tied to Tellson's bank, Darnay is trying to escape his past, and of course Carton, who is trapped by his restlessness. This struggle of man verses nature is also seen in echoes of other scenes, such as Manette's attempts with letting go of his time in prison as he makes his shoes, the memories of his time there still torturing him, and Lucie's habit of sitting in her parlor as she hears the echo of the footsteps in the street, bringing a foreboding of what's yet to come combined with the mingling of her personal battles and the political conflicts of the age. This theme is a personal one for me, because of events I've endured during my life as well as how much easier I can relate to a character because of it. I can't speak to them all, because I'd be writing a book, but this story covers almost all of the major themes in literature. Man struggling against nature, overcoming adversity, death being part of the life cycle, and of course, sacrifice, are just some of them. I also love learning new words, and Dickens never fails to disappoint me there. Prevaricate and tergiversation were two of my favorites. The only faults that I could see with this book were two, Dicken's loquaciousness and his predilection for flat female leads. I've already discussed my love of his verbosity, so those people out there who want shorter books, well, go read the Twilight Saga. And as for his insipid female characters, well, these innocuous beings are more than forgiven when taking into consideration his resplendent female characters that come along every once in a while, such as Madame Defarge in Tale of Two Cities or Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. So overall, I truly enjoyed reading this book even though I was impatient to see the action start a little quicker. But his writing is so eloquent, I soon forgot my misgivings and got lost in this novel. Dickens is a brilliant writer. One of my favorites and so different than anything I've ever read. I like him better than Austen or Shakespeare or any other classicist I've read thus far. I'm so relieved that he wrote so many books, that I can continue to enjoy him for a very long time. I highly recommend this book and leave you with another passage that touched me: "For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his daughter's husband, and deliver him." And yet another beautiful passage I leave you with: "Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction." My Reasons why Dickens is a classical writer ClassicsDefined.com
—midnightfaerie
Most satisfying ending in the English language. Yes, the last line is a classic ("It is a far, far better thing ..."), concluding, in astonishingly concise language (for Dickens), the peace and redemption of the story's most poignant romantic hero. But this novel delivers such a gratifying experience because there are, in fact, many characters who cover significant emotional ground in their journey to love one woman as best they can. Lucie's father battles his way back from madness under the gen
—Leslie
