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For my BILBO bookclub - Classic British Literature book club, we had to read A Tale of Two Cities this month. As I wrote a little something on goodreads to remember it, I thought I might as well post it here, and once again breath life into the blog. I have a lot of stories to tell you, and a lot of pictures to show you. Did you know I should still update you about my trips to Japan, America (San Francisco), St Petersburg and Leeds? It's a lot to take in, I know. But let's first focus on this book, okay?
The first sentence of this book, is the epic sentence: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
And from there it goes downhill, because it gets boooooring... Luckily it's more of a parabola (instead of a linear decline), because the ending is awesome! And actually makes the book worth it.
The ending was just... wow... I'm speechless. True, you have to plough through 2/3 of the book to get to a moderately interesting last 3rd, but the last 70 pages are just absolutely worth it.
Some things I learned about the French revolution and want to remember:
- Liberty, equality, fraternity or death. That was the original motto during the Terrors after the French revolution. Leave it to the French to scratch that last part of their motto nowadays.
- There were so called knitting-women who were knitting during the guillotine executions.
Besides the mostly, quite frankly, boring stuff, there were some beautiful passages/chapters that reminded me of the Dickens that I loved in Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. Favourite passages were:
- The description of Dr Manette's trauma. It was just really powerful and well written.
( Spoilers )
I wasn't really emotionally invested in any of the characters, though. I thought Lucie was pretty bland, as she was the 'perfect lady' everyone was in love with. I guess my favourite character was Dr Manette, because his trauma was so well described.
Final verdict is that I actually liked the book, even though I thought that would be impossible during the first 300 pages.
And with that, I leave you with the hope of ever finding yourself a Sydney Carton to love. There. I said it.
The first sentence of this book, is the epic sentence: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
And from there it goes downhill, because it gets boooooring... Luckily it's more of a parabola (instead of a linear decline), because the ending is awesome! And actually makes the book worth it.
The ending was just... wow... I'm speechless. True, you have to plough through 2/3 of the book to get to a moderately interesting last 3rd, but the last 70 pages are just absolutely worth it.
Some things I learned about the French revolution and want to remember:
- Liberty, equality, fraternity or death. That was the original motto during the Terrors after the French revolution. Leave it to the French to scratch that last part of their motto nowadays.
- There were so called knitting-women who were knitting during the guillotine executions.
Besides the mostly, quite frankly, boring stuff, there were some beautiful passages/chapters that reminded me of the Dickens that I loved in Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. Favourite passages were:
- The description of Dr Manette's trauma. It was just really powerful and well written.
( Spoilers )
I wasn't really emotionally invested in any of the characters, though. I thought Lucie was pretty bland, as she was the 'perfect lady' everyone was in love with. I guess my favourite character was Dr Manette, because his trauma was so well described.
Final verdict is that I actually liked the book, even though I thought that would be impossible during the first 300 pages.
And with that, I leave you with the hope of ever finding yourself a Sydney Carton to love. There. I said it.
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