Not only finishing, but truly enjoying A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens might be my greatest accomplishment as far as books are concerned. I'm not sure why I was so reluctant to read Dickens for so long, but it probably has a lot to do with laziness. If anyone understands the meaning of the word "elaborate" it's Dickens. Everything, from the characters to the cobblestones on the streets, was exceedingly described. He apparently had a love of commas and semicolons that converted many of his sentences into full-fledged paragraphs. He was also not shy in his use of metaphors, which all put together is the perfect recipe for a book that needs to be given an incredible amount of attention and requires a lot of re-reading. One of my thoughts as I started this book was, "How am I going to read 600 pages of this?!?"
After reading the first chapter a few times and as I continued to read this daunting novel, I started to feel more comfortable with the language and the style of writing and I began to enjoy the characters and the story. It was still difficult to understand a lot of it though, because of its setting in the time of the French Revolution. I was confused about a lot of what happened in the story because I didn't know the background of why some things were happening. Once I did some "research" (thank you Wikipedia and SparkNotes!) a lot more of the story made sense and I could continue to read and truly enjoy it.
This was one of those stories that would take you in so many different directions with the story lines before bringing everything together in the end. The last 100 pages were by far the most exciting, and also the most interesting. When everything started coming together I started pausing the story to go back and re-read earlier chapters, to remember what some characters had said or done and make connections from the earlier chapters to the later chapters.
I think the most interesting thing about Dickens' writing was how he created each character's unique role in the story. He kept you guessing about the loyalties and strength of some characters, surprised you with the motives of others, and made you love or hate some of them instantly. Some of the seemingly minor characters ended up having large roles that you wouldn't expect. He portrays the time and the many people of the time accurately yet creatively. After conquering this novel, I'm excited to read Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. I highly recommend A Tale of Two Cities to anyone who enjoys a truly good, intellectual and entertaining book.
