Day 11 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I finished Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities today. I adore this book. I love how Dickens masterfully wove so many characters’ lives together. There are so many characters, so many trials, so many stories inside of stories that in the hands of most other writers, I think it might leave the reader confused. But Dickens is so good at characterization that you can’t confuse anyone with anyone else.

What I find interesting in reading this alongside of Darwin’s The Origin of Species is that there are people who degenerate into animals in Dickens’ Tale. However, unlike Darwin, Dickens shows that people can change for the better, despite their harsh circumstances or even their own destructive behavior.

Through the entire novel, Dickens continues to use his comparison and contrast. There is always a good vs evil, light vs dark on every page. Darwin should have read Dickens.

I wish I’d read this book a long time ago. It is truly a classic. And it held one last surprise for me as I finished it. I knew the opening line of the book, as most do: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” but I didn’t realize the last line Dickens’ writes was from this novel. I know the line quite well: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Of course, I remember William Shatner quoting it in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And who says Star Trek isn’t educational?!

Well, I’m still debating what to read next. I’m still working my way through The Origin of Species but I have decided to read something that flows a little easier alongside something of a “harder” read (i.e. I’m not going to be reading War and Peace at the same time as Ulysses).

Happy reading!