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sidebraid 's review for:
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens
This is my favorite of all the Dickens novels I have read to date (which puts it ahead of Bleak House, David Copperfield, and Oliver Twist). If I were to try and pinpoint the difference between A Tale of Two Cities and these other works, I would say that A Tale of Two Cities is sleeker, somehow. A little more...stylized, a little more...pared down, or distilled. I imagine that for these reasons, many literary critics have found it inferior to his other works in style or substance. Admittedly, part of what I have loved about Dickens in his other works is his tendency to throw out narrative branches all over the place, embracing an ever-widening and ever-stranger cast of characters in a story that unites misfits with Courts of Chancery, orphans, rogues, and ruffians with (questionably more respectable) parsons, Lords, and cigar-salesmen.
However, I think this mania of activity found elsewhere in Dickens's writing would detract from A Tale of Two Cities by distracting readers from the main thrust of the story, which appears (at least to me) to be about Justice, a hard and somber (as well as potentially joyful) subject. Over and over this book mentions "business," and I found myself eventually asking, "What is business? And Whose is it?" As in A Christmas Carol, Dickens seems to imply that life itself is a business--that each choice we make is a moral investment carrying the same potential for ruin and reward as monetary investments and that those who seek to gratify themselves at the expense of others will (perhaps literally) have Hell to pay one day. In one sense, Dickens seems to argue that the nobles of France only got what was coming to them: payment made for services rendered.
However, this idea of simple, business-like Retributive Justice is complicated by the fact that Charles Darnay is condemned to death along with all the other French nobility (despite his upright character and long residence in England). The fact that he is imprisoned and sentenced to death despite his innocence of any personal wrongdoing, despite even of his being the son-in-law of a man unjustly imprisoned for decades by an unfeeling French noble several years before, merely underscores the complicating question: can Justice that condemns innocent men to death really be Justice? Over the centuries, the privileged French nobles and clergy condemned innocent members of the "Third Estate" to imprisonment and death, to disease, starvation, brutalization, forced pregnancy, torture, dismemberment, and excommunication. Simple Retributive Justice (an eye for an eye...payment made for services rendered...) would dictate that the nobles must necessarily receive the same treatment. But is this really Justice? Can it be, if it comes at Charles Darnay's expense?
I found the character of Sidney Carton to be an absolute delight, ridiculous at times as all of us are, but somehow, despite his ridiculousness, never unworthy of my readerly affection and even admiration. Even several weeks after finishing the novel, I find "It comes surely" to be still echoing in my mind. I wonder how Carton, who more than any other character seems to embrace the idea of Retributive Justice (with the result of short-changing himself), ends up choosing to turn the idea of Retributive Justice on its head by standing in for the condemned.
Dickens never fully articulates an alternative to Retributive Justice, never expressly declares Mercy or Love to be superior to it. However, this novel does take resurrection as its secondary theme--I did not realize the number of times the idea of something being "unearthed" (literally and/or figuratively) recurs in this novel until I stopped to total it up. I would say it is no accident that this novel includes scenes of grave-robbery as well as murder and death.
Note: I did not actually read the Nonesuch edition of A Tale of Two Cities; however, this edition seems to come closer to the one I did read than the Barnes&Noble/Borders/Oxford/Signet/Penguin/Cambridge Classic paperback versions I see listed on here, and the edition I read out of is too old to have an ISBN number. (I assume there are not many textual differences between one edition of Dickens and another, but to be honest, I have no idea.)
However, I think this mania of activity found elsewhere in Dickens's writing would detract from A Tale of Two Cities by distracting readers from the main thrust of the story, which appears (at least to me) to be about Justice, a hard and somber (as well as potentially joyful) subject. Over and over this book mentions "business," and I found myself eventually asking, "What is business? And Whose is it?" As in A Christmas Carol, Dickens seems to imply that life itself is a business--that each choice we make is a moral investment carrying the same potential for ruin and reward as monetary investments and that those who seek to gratify themselves at the expense of others will (perhaps literally) have Hell to pay one day. In one sense, Dickens seems to argue that the nobles of France only got what was coming to them: payment made for services rendered.
However, this idea of simple, business-like Retributive Justice is complicated by the fact that Charles Darnay is condemned to death along with all the other French nobility (despite his upright character and long residence in England). The fact that he is imprisoned and sentenced to death despite his innocence of any personal wrongdoing, despite even of his being the son-in-law of a man unjustly imprisoned for decades by an unfeeling French noble several years before, merely underscores the complicating question: can Justice that condemns innocent men to death really be Justice? Over the centuries, the privileged French nobles and clergy condemned innocent members of the "Third Estate" to imprisonment and death, to disease, starvation, brutalization, forced pregnancy, torture, dismemberment, and excommunication. Simple Retributive Justice (an eye for an eye...payment made for services rendered...) would dictate that the nobles must necessarily receive the same treatment. But is this really Justice? Can it be, if it comes at Charles Darnay's expense?
I found the character of Sidney Carton to be an absolute delight, ridiculous at times as all of us are, but somehow, despite his ridiculousness, never unworthy of my readerly affection and even admiration. Even several weeks after finishing the novel, I find "It comes surely" to be still echoing in my mind. I wonder how Carton, who more than any other character seems to embrace the idea of Retributive Justice (with the result of short-changing himself), ends up choosing to turn the idea of Retributive Justice on its head by standing in for the condemned.
Dickens never fully articulates an alternative to Retributive Justice, never expressly declares Mercy or Love to be superior to it. However, this novel does take resurrection as its secondary theme--I did not realize the number of times the idea of something being "unearthed" (literally and/or figuratively) recurs in this novel until I stopped to total it up. I would say it is no accident that this novel includes scenes of grave-robbery as well as murder and death.
Note: I did not actually read the Nonesuch edition of A Tale of Two Cities; however, this edition seems to come closer to the one I did read than the Barnes&Noble/Borders/Oxford/Signet/Penguin/Cambridge Classic paperback versions I see listed on here, and the edition I read out of is too old to have an ISBN number. (I assume there are not many textual differences between one edition of Dickens and another, but to be honest, I have no idea.)