A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens most famous works, the other one would be A Christmas Carol. I had to read it many years ago in my 9th grade English class, and it is a great story, even though I suspect we read an abridged version of the novel.
Briefly and hopefully without spoilers, the two cities are London and Paris. The story begins in London as we meet Mr Lorry who works for a British bank which also has an office in Paris. It is before the French Revolution, and Mr Lorry travels to Paris to meet Dr Manette, who had been a prisoner in the Bastille. Dr Manette has a daughter Lucie, who is living in London. In Paris, we meet M Defarge, who had been a servant of Dr Manette and his wife, Mme Defarge. Also through Mr Lorry, we meet Charles Darnay, a son of a French aristocrat, who is on trial in London for being a spy for France and/or the United States, and Sydney Carton who helps defend Darnay at his trial.
With the focus on this core group of characters, we watch as revolution comes to France and the aristocratic class either flees or is made to suffer for the oppression of the lower classes. And this is about as far as I can go without any major spoilers.
It is a very compelling story; perhaps it is the best story Dickens has written. But, having read it again after so many years, there are a few things that kind of bother me. First, the plot is dependent on coincidences. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there are really a lot of coincidences in this story.
Another thing is that the only sympathetic French people in the story are the ones who relocated to London before the revolution: Dr Manette, Lucie and Darnay. There is no sympathetic member of the aristocracy or the revolutionaries, with the possible exception of M Defarge. Mme Defarge is depicted as being particularly bloodthirsty, but when we learn her backstory, her attitude should be somewhat understandable. I tend to think that this is just Dickens writing for his primary audience: the British middle classes. There are places in some of his other novels where this is apparent, but it really stands out here.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book. It is a great story and definitely worth reading, but I think that this novel is not Dickens best one.