In a Nutshell: This Dickens classic isn’t for all, with its complicated plotline that comes together slowly but neatly. However, to those who enjoy classics based on historical and political events, it offers plenty of satisfaction.

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Skipping my usual ‘Story Synopsis’ as I am sure most people already know this book. To those who don’t, please read the blurb.


Just like ‘David Copperfield’, this book also was one of my childhood reads, courtesy my school’s classic reading list. The abridged version I read was enough to keep me fascinated, right until the end, which, I still remember, caught me by surprise. Until then, I hadn’t realised that *young* main characters could die in books! (A reading of ‘Little Women’ a few months later confirmed that authors could be brutal with their creations.)

When I saw this audiobook come up on NetGalley, it offered a great way of checking out the complete version of the classic. Moreover, I have been reading one unabridged classic every year since 2020, so I might as well get done with the 2024 classic right at the start of the year.

I guess I remembered the childhood version of this story with too much optimistic nostalgia. The unabridged version is far more convoluted in its journey, with extended social comments about the history, the society, and the politics of France and England in the 1770s. The story is set in the late 18th century against the background of the French Revolution, and it seems to critique both extremes: the indifferent royals and the wild revolutionaries.

Dickens is known to be a character-focussed author, so the character development is as impeccable as always. But his plotting skills are truly visible and proven through this work. So many intricate arcs and varied characters, and yet, the culmination of the story does justice to all threads, though not necessarily in a happy way. The way Dickens recreates the setting and atmosphere of the era is almost true to life.

That said, this Dickens work has never been my top favourite and I don't think I'll reread this full-length edition in future. I am glad I read it, but I am equally glad that it is done and dusted with. The slow-developing story with its strong political tone was very much a test of my patience. What also doesn’t help is that some of the elements haven’t aged well. The representation of women characters, as with most Dickens novels, is typical of his time, and keeping your eyes from rolling while reading those words in 2023 is a chore.

Regardless, this book has one of the all-time best opening lines! I have always loved the way this book sets off its journey, and hearing those words even umpteen times later gives me goose bumps. For my own rereading pleasure, pasting those lines here:
“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.”


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I found this book enjoyable though not gripping. And having listened to the audio book, I regret that I may have missed many of the literary elements. ( )

I first read this, I think, in grad school -- now 20+ years ago. I recall then reading an essay about ToTC as a Gothic Novel -- which I do think fits.

Chesterton worth reading on this, as per usual:

Now for all its blood and its black guillotines, the French Revolution was full of mere high spirits. Nay, it was full of happiness. This actual lilt and levity Carlyle never really found in the Revolution, because he could not find it in himself. Dickens knew less of the Revolution, but he had more of it. When Dickens attacked abuses, he battered them down with exactly that sort of cheery and quite one-sided satisfaction with which the French mob battered down the Bastille. Dickens utterly and innocently believed in certain things; he would, I think, have drawn the sword for them. Carlyle half believed in half a hundred things; he was at once more of a mystic and more of a sceptic. Carlyle was the perfect type of the grumbling servant; the old grumbling servant of the aristocratic comedies. He followed the aristocracy, but he growled as he followed. He was obedient without being servile, just as Caleb Balderstone was obedient without being servile. But Dickens was the type of the man who might really have rebelled instead of grumbling. He might have gone out into the street and fought, like the man who took the Bastille.

An actual thriller. Loved it and cried. ( )

I always think of this novel whenever I watch Casablanca. If you've seen it, you might notice a few similarities in their plots, with the striking part being the redeeming sacrifices in their endings, done on account of love. When Rick Blaine lets Isla Lund go off with Victor Laszlo, both proponents of a problematic love triangle, I see Sydney Carton being led to the guillotine to die instead of Charles Darnay, both of whom are in love with Lucy Manette. In both cases, you could easily argue that the former loves more than the latter, and that's why that one has to be the one to die for it, because it's the only way to save the girl. "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own", as Heinlein put it in Stranger in a Strange Land, but I would go so far as to say that love is putting another's happiness above your own, in effect, eradicating your own happiness if necessary. Would a parent do any less for her or his child? Sure, it's unfair, but love often happens that way. ( )