A Tale of Two Cities

What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book

Charles Dickens

Literature

Aug 1, 2018

A Tale of Two Cities may have the most famous opening of any novel ever written, the frequent application of its words outside the novel’s specific context giving it an edge over the nearest competition, Anna Karenina and Pride and Prejudice. Echoing the dichotomies invoked in its opening sentences, the work unfolds in a series of parallels and mirrorings, alternating between London and Paris in the years before and during the French Revolution. Despite being among its author’s most widely read novels, A Tale of Two Cities is the least Dickensian. Swept along by the rapid movement of the complex plot, and the frantic history that propels it, the narrative reveals character through action and incident rather than through Dickens’s more typical reliance on dialogue and personality quirks. Missing, too, is the sense of comedy that leavens and enlivens even the darkest of his other books. As a consequence, A Tale of Two Cities is the neatest storytelling contrivance in Dickens’s oeuvre.

Add Reply