'A Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Note: Occasionally there's a story that's super hard to review, because if you can't give spoilers, it's impossible to do justice to the heart of it. So for this beauty I've decided to provide a very clear red middle line. Anything above it is spoiler free. But below that line, I'll send caution to the wind and ramble about crucial plot points.  

This is my choice for the 19th Century Classic category of this year's Back to the Classics Challenge. I promised a few commenters after my review of Bleak House that this would be my next Dickens novel. I'm so glad they spoke up for it, because the story is a winner for me. It's a perfect sandwich between a notoriously famous opening line and a stirringly triumphant closing line. What a top notch doppelganger yarn and equally riveting French Revolution story it is. 

It starts when 18-year-old Lucie Manette discovers that her father, who she'd never met, has just been freed from prison in France. He'd been unjustly incarcerated all her life. Dr Manette is a trembling wreck whose spirit has been practically decimated by PTSD. Lucie nurses him back to health, but the Dr will never divulge anything about the circumstances that landed him in jail. However, something about the young man his daughter falls in love with causes a sudden relapse. But it takes the intrigue of the French revolution to unearth all that's been hushed up for years. 

Nothing quite beats the faux-immediacy of a well-told tale that puts us right in the picture of something that happened over 300 years ago. We're directly beside characters in the thick of turmoil, including a blow-by-blow description of the storming of the Bastille. Dickens describes this era of history with a bloodthirstiness some of his other novels miss out on. Nobody does social commentary quite like him, and I've got to say he's impartial. Some of his aristocrats are appalling (looking at you, Marquis St Evremonde), yet some of his revolutionaries are equally abhorrent (my gosh, Madame Defarge!). I think Dickens aims to show that a national attempt to correct a major wrong may swing the pendulum way too far in the opposite direction, resulting in a new ideology that's just as oppressive and unjust as the first.

In Paris is Madame Defarge, who turns knitting into a menacing occupation. She's like a trapdoor spider, patiently working her thread until her victims are near, before zooming in for the kill. She's a heartless woman who's all for revolution, and eventually a deeper personal reason for her ferocious fervour comes to light. Even in the case of a villain like Madame Defarge, the hatred that drives her turns out to be based on long-ago love that's festered, showing there's a fine line between the two. She knows retribution is best when it has time to marinade, and during this story her time ripens.  

At the heart of the story is a pair of doppelgangers who fascinate me, appearing first at the age of about 25. Charles Darnay is the nephew of a corrupt aristocrat, and wants to discard the shackles of his family's brutal legacy and start over fresh with nothing. But he discovers it's hard to shake your roots clean of inherited dirt. His mirror image, Sydney Carton, is an unfettered orphan and morose loner who can't pin his restless nature down to care much about anything. Except for Lucie Manette, who both young look-alikes are in love with. (I'll say more about this charismatic duo below the middle line.) 

The two cities of the title make me think of a game of Chasey. London is home base, where you're safe, while Paris is that danger zone, where you run around if you dare. The demands for meticulous political correctness in both places put me in mind of our era, except that at least we don't get killed for speaking out of turn. Even in comparatively safe London, it's not difficult to get an innocent guy tried for treason. 

And at least in our 21st century culture, innocent children are no longer executed for the sins of their fathers.  

THE MIDDLE LINE - If you don't want plot spoilers, please read no further. If you already know the story or don't mind big revelations, I'll be discussing some of the juiciest bits. 

1) Are there any Harry Potter fans? Doesn't that final awesome showdown between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge remind you of Molly Weasley and Bellatrix Lestrange? Miss Pross is not Lucie's biological mother but shes' been her governess and long-term companion since childhood and has the same fierce maternal instinct. You almost expect her to shout, 'Not my daughter, you bitch!' It's satisfying to see a Mama Bear character win the day again, although I would have loved it if Madame Defarge discovered how her vicious plan was thwarted.  

2) I love it that Dr Manette took Charles Darnay to his heart as a son-in-law, knowing full well that Charles' father and uncle were the degenerate wretches who ruined his own life. His warm heart was poles apart from Madame Defarge's, who made it her mission to exterminate Darnay and everyone dear to him for a similar reason. When you think about it, that father/son by marriage relationship speaks volumes about the sterling characters of both the Doctor and Charles himself. 

3) Okay, those doppelgangers tear me up! It took brilliant, balanced writing from Dickens to set such an emotional conflict in our readers' hearts. Part of me was urging Carton, 'Yeah, you go, boy, you can pull this off!' while the other half was crying, 'Sydney, nooooo!'

 The bottom line is we don't want either of them to die. Darnay is a conscience led, kind-hearted young husband and dad with everything to live for, and it's unthinkable that he should face the guillotine for the crimes of his father and uncle. He's obviously the perfect spouse for Lucie and we want them to be together. Yet Carton is a whiz kid and a legend with oodles of potential, if only he can face his personal demons. Perhaps he was battling some sort of bipolar disorder. His friend Stryver calls him, 'Seesaw Sydney; up one minute and down the next.'  

If Darnay had been any less a hero, the story wouldn't work because we'd regret the wasted sacrifice Sydney made. Yet if Carton wasn't such a lovable, compassionate person, it would be easy for us to consider him the more expendable of the pair, just as he did himself. Another reviewer once wrote that in her opinion, this Dickens story has the 'sexiest hero' but didn't say whether she meant Carton or Darnay. In my opinion, you can't possibly choose one over the other. Together they deliver us a double dose of awesomeness. 

To me, the ending deserves a standing ovation. It's such a triumph. Madame Defarge's wicked quest for vengeance was thwarted, and the one who stopped her hand considered it the best thing he'd ever done with his life, even though it was the final act. Maybe Sydney's incredibly courageous sacrifice is enough to make this my new favourite Dickens novel. The more I think about it, the more it seems he made one of the most breathtaking gestures not just in this book but in all of literature. 

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