because charles dickens had to be ostentatious and show off his amazing literary abilities. all the metaphors, biblical allusions, foreshadowing…it takes forever to annotate and fully understand.

Our visions of the French Revolution have been much coloured by Dicken’s narrative. An arch construction and mature work, he takes his time to build up the edifices of this story, providing peaks and valleys that pay off when the conflagaration of the storming of the Bastille and the consequent terror take place. The cast of vilains and heroes is well put together, the personal descriptions and the motivations well drawn.

The back and forth between England and France, between nobility and laity, between freedom (liberte) and prison and the possibility of death, justice and coldhearted injustice. The image that lingers is Madame Desfarges knitting, observing at once and calculating with her husband in the wine shop and waiting to take implacable vengeance with axes, knives and the sainte Guillotine. The last book is remarkable in the way all the strands come together and the ultimate sacrifices are made by the unlikeliest of heroes. Visions of the revolution wrought in blood.

We had to read this one for English, and I never thought I could get through it, but I did! Completely ignoring the tiny fact that I’m nearly failing, I have to say it wasn’t bad. There wasnt much of a cohesive plot throughout most of the book, but the characters were extremely well developed and there was a bunch of thoughtful symbolism. I would reccomend this book to people who like a challenge, and don’t mind sticking with the exposition lasting for the first half of the book.

The language is good… too good. Some of Dicken’s endless run-on sentences border on literary wanking. There’s a great little story about redemption hidden in this lengthy book. Given a suitably ruthless editor, it could have been a sharp little thriller. As it is, it’s too many words for too little content.

Not my favorite Dickens’ book. That first paragraph is great (it was the best of times, it was the worst of times) but it goes downhill from there. Still, read it at least once.

I simply got bored with this one. Eventually, I will finish it.