Yesterday I finished reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This was my third time to read the book. I first read it in high school and was underwhelmed. I read it again after I graduated college. I was living in Europe and I found it spectacular on the second read. I picked it back up a few weeks ago because my classes were studying the French Revolution and I was fondly reminiscing walking by many of the sites (and sights) mentioned in the book on our trip to France in 2018.
I found the beginning slow going. Some of the prose seemed over-wrought. There were too many convenient coincidences. All these criticisms have been expressed for the last 200 years by smarter people than me. But wow, the ending still packs a punch even when you know what's coming. Any shortcomings, and who am I to critique Dickens, are forgiven with the fantastic build up to a poignant climax. Two Cities is one of those books that when finished, you lay it down and just sit for a few minutes to take in what you just read. Not a lot of books do that for me.
The photo above is from my September 2018 trip to Paris. That's me at the Place de Concorde. That Egyptian obelisk behind my shoulder was put there decades after the French Revolution. But that's the spot where the Guillotine reportedly stood. It's in that square where Louis and Marie Antoinette were executed among with thousands of others both innocent and guilty. Very few books do as good a job describing the fury and terror of the French Revolution as A Tale of Two Cities.
