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| Hardcover, 469 pages Published 194? (originally 1859) Acquired November 2016 Read August 2017 |
I have a Ph.D. in literature with a focus on the Victorian era, but I could count the number of Dickens novels I've read on one hand. This seems to me somewhat criminal. Part of the problem is that no one assigns Dickens in courses if they can help it because he's so long (I think across four years of combined M.A. and Ph.D. coursework, I read two Dickens novels for classes), and partially my own academic interests don't often intersect with the kinds of things Dickens wrote about (the closest he gets to a "scientist novel" is The Pickwick Papers). I once complained about this to my advisor, and he told me that when he was in graduate school, he read a Dickens novel every summer and winter break until he'd read them all. So I didn't do that, but when I finished graduate school, I decided that I'd read one I hadn't read before every summer. Partially this was spurred on by my great-uncle giving me a set of Walter J. Black "classic editions" of several Dickens novels. I decided to work my way down the list of his novels on LibraryThing, which sorts by popularity: it seems more important that I have read Great Expectations than that I have read Barnaby Rudge. Great Expectations is his most owned novel (according to LT, anyway), but I've read it before, and so my journey starts with his second-most famous, A Tale of Two Cities.
I must admit that I found this a bit of a struggle. It opens great, of course. I imagine there's not a Dickens novel that doesn't open great; he knew how to set a scene. Mysterious riders in the night, cryptic messages, well-observed humor about people taking public transit. I was totally into it.
But then things jump ahead and after a fun trial sequence, the narrative energy just fizzles. At this point, I seriously had no idea what the book was supposed to be about. Dickens novels can take in a broad sweep (I really like Our Mutual Friend, which doesn't meaningfully have a main character), but I could not tell what was supposed to be driving my interest in this one. It was just a lot of people... doing stuff. Like, what are they all trying to accomplish? What am I rooting for? I had no clue. Who cares which one of these people marries whom? Do they have life goals? How does this all tie together? I was very disappointed, and the middle of the book was a huge struggle. (Our Mutual Friend might be diffuse, but there's a precipitating event that touches everyone, directly or indirectly, and you also know what each character is trying to accomplish and how they relate to the other characters.)
Once the action moves to revolutionary Paris for the climax, it did pick up. I loved Miss Pross's bravery in standing up to Madame Defarge, and the last chapter itself is both moving and chilling. But man, what a slog to get there. Maybe it's partially my own fault (I read it somewhat piecemeal at a very busy point in my life), but if it wasn't for Hard Times, this would be my least favorite Dickens novel thus far. Hopefully when I tackle David Copperfield next summer, it's better than this.
David Copperfield is waaaay better! In fact, these days I would say it's tied with OMF for my favorite Dickens novel. It's not exactly plot driven since it's framed as a fictional biography, but the story builds on itself and there are some truly great characters.
ReplyDeleteI have not actually read A Tale of Two Cities in full since high school, but my memory of that reading experience is exactly what you describe here. (I tried re-reading it in grad school, thinking I'd probably just gotten bored in the middle because I was a mere callow youth, but no. It really crawls.) I do remember the ending as excellent and elevating the whole book, though.