A Tale of Two Cities

I was forced to read Dickens in high school and absolutely hated it. The quest was Great Expectations. So, naturally, I had poor expectations for A Tale of Two Cities. Despite that, I thought I'd give it a chance. I'm glad I did.

This is another book in a series of Standard Ebooks classics that I'm making my way through. The Standard Ebook project is one of the few remaining good things about the internet and I clutch to it with great fervor. I'm so grateful that someone took the time to clean up the public domain release of A Tale of Two Cities because it gave me the opportunity to enjoy reading it!

And enjoy it I did. The first thing that strikes me about Dickens is how wonderously his prose dictates joy and hilarity:

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him.

The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich.

[...] where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum.

while just as seamlessly drifting into heartfelt sadness and despair:

The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger.

When he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.

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.

I was amazed reading this book just how much skill Dickens carves into his writing, of which I assume was also present in Great Expectations. Though unlike the developments of a wedding and adolescent growth, A Tale of Two Cities is a much more interesting drama stretching a landmark moment in human history: the French Revolution.

When I read a good book like this I want to give it the space in my mind to develop after I finish it. In that negative space my subconscious mulls over its implications and little scenes are played back to me throughout my daily life. Those scenes begin to show new sides of meaning, shaping themselves forwards and backwards through time. That's how true appreciation is shown to a great piece of art.

Unfortunately I'm so excited to move on to my next series of books that I am writing this the same day I finished. I have no doubt I'll think about this book in the coming weeks, half of the reason I'm writing this is to preserve some of my favorite passages, of which I have many. I simply hope this motivates others to revisit some of their childhood authors to give them another chance.