does it get better?

[David]

It is completely true that this book seems to drag at the beginning, but what turns out to be the case is that Dickens is setting up one of his richest, most profound, and at the same time most exciting stories of his incredible career. This book takes many of us a couple reads (as you see in this discussion) and almost everyone has to press through the first 50 pages or so (as you are), but what he does at the beginning unfolds in an amazing way at the end. It's not that the beginning is poorly written; but rather that the the decisions characters make at the end are so beautifully tied to events at the beginning. It's a story of redemption and sacrifice. It's a great book. IMHO. :-)

[Andrew]

This book also has the distinction of being the first thing I read on a Kindle!

I'd probably never have got round to Tale of Two Cities if it hadn't been for the stage adaptation we did. It's a paradox in that it's pretty scrupulous in its history, and yet also almost solely responsible for many of our stranger ideas about the French Revolution (people tend to conflate the Revolution with the Terror, and that I think is in response to the striking imagery of this book's second half)

[Melissa]

I found the first part to be slow. It got better though, and I loved the ending. It's worth reading just to get to read that part.

[Feliks]

If you would balk at this book--one of the finest the English language has ever produced--it raises the question, what sort of book would you deem 'worth sticking with'? There's plenty of easy, spoon-fed offerings from writers like Nicholas Sparks. It all hinges on what kind of mind you want to develop.

o_0

[Philip]

There are huge fans of Dickens who don't bag this one. I'm one.

As pointed out by many above, including the novel's supporters, it's painfully slow for hundreds of pages. I also think he couldn't do historical Paris anything like he could do the London he knew so well.

Given the novel would have been serialised first, I wonder if it was only the man's reputation that got it beyond the first half dozen issues?

[Kurt]

I agree, I wouldn't have someone read this one to get an appreciation of Dickens. I'd go with Great Expectations instead for an intro to his novels. I've learned to appreciate his novels with age.

[Feliks]

So I just finished, 'Our Mutual Friend' and I confess myself shocked that Dickens went in for the, 'oh it was all a dream' technical device to tie up all the ends of the story. I feel a bit cheated. Hugely fun book; but I was expecting a more robust and resolute way of arriving at a conclusion to the tale and all its winding and wending.

Well, not really 'dream' but you know what I mean. I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

Also: the character of Eugene Wrayburn --throughout the story--seems to be rather a cad. Yet at the end of the tale he is a saint.

I would also have liked to see Mr. Venus and Pleasant Riderhood get together--their entire relationship was alluded to.

All in all however-these are minor quibbles--and absolutely stupendous reading experience

[Ruby]

Let us not forget that the French Revolution shocked the world and turned the existing system upside down. Many theoreticians saw it as it was, a revolution of the oppressed people who not only wrote their own history but also the future history of the world. Those writers and theoreticians have studied and defined the rules and could foresee the outcome and the struggle of the social forces behind all those bloody battles between old and new.

However some writers did not agree to this fundamental change to the system (which was inevitable as far as History goes). Seeing the economical and social conditions, they tried to help maintain the existing order by giving advice to the governments and by warning them of the consequences of a Revolution if they did not make minor reforms or improvements to fool the masses and to buy time in an effort to delay or prevent a Revoluiton.

[Benjamin]

It gets better, once the revolution kicks off, but overall I found this book quite boring.

[Feliks]

Overrated by whom?

o_0

[☯Emily]

Feliks, is it necessary to go on every classic book site and make snide comments to everyone that disagrees with your assessment of a book?

[Feliks]

H'mmm. A quick glance at my comments feed should vindicate the variety of comments I'm capable of. Maybe I'm just occasionally being 'incisive' and you're taking it as snideness? Besides--when exchanging with someone--I mostly address my comment towards their comment, not to them personally. I think the farthest I got over-the-line was in the 'Great Gatsby' or 'Moby Dick' discussions. And probably for the exact same reason in each case, there: folks using the 'this book is over-rated' argument. Its a weak argument and should always be countered with some kind of reply. Think of it this way: isn't one of the best purposes of discussion, to bring all our viewpoints into better clarity? Statement and counter-statement help hone our observations; help make them more accurate; more robust. I'm unafraid of someone disagreeing with my views; what I want is for them to explain to me how my assertion might be better. Like the guy over in the John Steinbeck thread. Now that's a guy to learn from, for sure.

[☯Emily]

Feliks, I consider the following a snide and uncalled for comment: "There's plenty of easy, spoon-fed offerings from writers like Nicholas Sparks. It all hinges on what kind of mind you want to develop."

[Feliks]

I agree. But Nicholas Sparks deserves all the snide remarks that come his way.

Heck, his books have multi-million dollar marketing campaigns; they've been turned into major motion pictures; posters and placards are on trains and buses. My reminding people of just what kind of drivel he offers, and just what kind of choice they make when they settle on him for their reading material..what can that hurt? Shouldn't there be someone who occasionally goes against the tide of all this hogwash publicity?

You don't see the works of Charles Dickens, heavily promoted in this era, do you. One, lone voice speaking up for Dickens once in a while, shouldn't worry anyone. Consider it giving 'equal time'.

[Daniel]

I found it very difficult to read at first and not very interesting. The book on the whole I consider my favorite book.

[☯Emily]

Feliks wrote: "I agree. But Nicholas Sparks deserves all the snide remarks that come his way.

Heck, his books have multi-million dollar marketing campaigns; they've been turned into major motion pictures; post..."

But who says any of us read Nicholas Sparks? I don't. It sounds like you are extremely jealous of his success since you bring him up quite often, even when he is not mentioned in a thread. Perhaps your comments would be more suitable on a thread that actually reads his books and discusses them.

[Feliks]

Who says? The sales records say.

Just because you don't read him, doesn't invalidate any casual jibe that can be made about him and his readers. The world doesn't revolve around what you do, after all.

"Jealous?" ...ha. I'm jealous of Nicholas Sparks? Sounds like you're indulging in pretty poor "insinuation", here. An absurd guess like this doesn't even rate being called 'female intuition'...it aligns with nothing we know about human psychology. At least take Psych 101 someday, and then come back to me and tell me I'm 'probably jealous' (of random public figures).

I insult him as regularly as (I hope) I regularly insult Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, JK Rowling, et al. What's your next hypothesis, that I'm jealous of all these writers? The more simple and lucid explanation is that I'm simply calling out these hacks for their bad writing.

[☯Emily]

There is no reason to use this site or any other classic thread to demean authors not under discussion. We are tired of it and you just look silly. The world doesn't revolve around what you do or believe, as unbelievable as that might seem to you.

Actually, I have taken a lot of psychology and I know when someone has a problem.

[Jennifer]

My small private school read it in high school and we all loved it by the end. But the beginning is slow and there are a lot of characters to remember, but they come together in the end.

You might want to do a bit of outside research as this book is very much a history of the French Revolution, we read it during the French Revolution section of a world history class which gave things more context. Actually I would say that this book made up a good bit of the foundation of what we learned in that history class as Dickens lets you "see" the causes of the revolution.

A lot of what Dickens is doing in the first half of the book is foreshadowing the horrors to come during the revolution (the second half). For example the chapter on spilled wine is like a prophecy of all the blood that would be spilled during the revolution.