A Tale of Two Cities

“Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!”

What a book. It was Dickens but also not really Dickens. This book, imo, is my best enjoyed for its abstract ruminations about the brutality of humanity that is ubiquitous through the social classes, rather than waiting for the plot to kick in tbh.

Gone are Dickens's signature grimy sights and sounds of the poor working class of London, replaced instead with an even grimier and bloodier countryside of France. In place of his very-English plots, we instead get something revolving around the French Revolution, which is almost a little out of character for Dickens (at least based on my own poor knowledge of him). This book is also tremendously more violent than his usual, but that's perhaps unavoidable given the subject matter. But what still makes this very much a Dickens novel is his unwavering interest in examining the class wars that precipitated the Revolution.

The Revolution, of course, took place more than a century before Dickens was writing, making this essentially historical fiction. Not that it matters since his plot is not concerned with the social niceties or customs of the 1750s, but the actual historical moments of the Revolution.

The overall theme that human beings are just awful no matter what class you are is a little depressing but honestly not unjustified given our track record in history. Dickens did a pretty masterful job at showing the apathy and lack of compassion that the nobility showed to the peasants, which then precipitated the Revolution characterized also by an identical apathy, lack of compassion, and even a tyrannical bloodlust from the peasant classes.

There were plenty of parts in the book that seemed a little excessive and meandering, but ultimately it was generally enjoyable because of Dickens's hard hitting commentary. The first third of this book was actually surprisingly witty and satirical, a little Austen-esque in the sharp barbs and jabs that Dickens takes at his own characters and which I don't usually associate with his writing.

The plot itself is pretty straightforward and if I were simply to read a blurb on it, my reaction would probably be, “That's it? How did this take so many pages to say?” But it's also about how Dickens wrote it. No part of this book embodied this better than the very ending. Without spoilers, I'll just say that while I had pretty quickly guessed how the plot was going to resolve itself so there was no anticipation or tension for me, Dickens still managed to hit me in the feels anyway by the sheer force of his writing.

Dickens has always been a hit or miss author for me as I don't completely jive with his plots or writing style but I'm happy to say that this one is definitely shaping up to be one of my favorites from him.