A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (Blog Post No. 1)

A Tale of Two Cities

By Charles Dickens

Genre: Social criticism, Fiction, Novel, Historical novel

Number of pages read: 24/321

Summary: In the first chapter, Charles Dickens describes the situation England and France were 15 years before the French Revolution. Both countries had terrible rulers and poor people. The conditions were so bad, that nobody even followed the law.  In the second chapter, the story begins. The Dover mail coach was driving up Shooter’s hill.  Passengers are suspicious about everything around them. A messenger delivers a message to Mr. Lorry, a passenger and an agent of Telson’s Bank that he needs to meet with a young lady Dover. The man gives the messenger a message that says “recalled to life”. In the third chapter, the messenger goes to deliver the message to the watch guard of Telsnon’s Bank. The messenger never stops thinking about Mr. Lorry’s message. In the meantime, Mr. Lorry is sitting in the coach, dreaming about a man that has been “buried in prison for 18 years”.  In the fourth chapter, Mr. Lorry arrives at a hotel and shortly after he orders his dinner, a young lady named Ms. Manette shows up, coming all the way from London. She tells Mr. Lorry that she is informed that he has to escort her to Paris to see the property of her dead father. Then Mr. Lorry tells her that her father is alive and that he has been in prison for 18 years and that now he is released. After hearing the news about her father, she faints and a nurse runs in to help her.

Reflection: Throughout the book so far, Dickens keeps a grim mood in his mysterious, twisted story. For now, the story jumped over my highest expectations. I really like stories where the plot keeps climbing up from the very beginning. I expect that the young lady will get to meet her father. I am very eager to finish reading this book.

Passage: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

This is the opening paragraph of the book. It is very interesting because it keeps contrasting good and bad things. It gives the reader an impression that we a certain period of time can be viewed in many perspectives, which drastically differ from one another. I like reading Charles Dickens’ novel because he has original descriptions, such as this one.