Sadly, I'm still reading A Tale of Two Cities. Had I known what my work schedule was going to turn into, I would never have started it when I did. I'm observing a training class for three to four weeks, and it's taking the entirety of my day. On a normal day, I can usually get some reading done on a break, or at lunch, but not so here lately. I'm doing almost all of my reading right before bed, and with a book like this, one or two pages a night when I'm sleepy isn't cutting it.
But I'm sticking with it, and I am liking it. Not my favorite Dickens, but still good and Dickensy. It reminds me a lot of Les Miserables, mostly because of there's a father-daughter story, there's France, there's poverty and revolution, there's France, there's some prison, there's some France....you get the idea.
It is definitely hard to read - possibly the hardest of Dickens novels that I've read. I read one chapter three times, and am still not sure if it involved one character or two (kids, when they talk about vague pronoun references in school, pay attention). This may also have something to do with being unusually tired when I read it, but I shouldn't have been unusually tired all three times. I have done fairly well with keeping up with who everyone is - Dickens loves to mention some random person early on, then have him or her come back and be a major player later on in the book. A lot of this character revelation is going down right now in the book, and I'm following it alright.
I hate it when people do this, but I'm doing it anyway: I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen, and have known since early in the book. I'm about to wrap up Book the Third, so I guess I'll know soon.....
UPDATE: Monday night - I've just finished it. While I was right in my prediction, I could not have predicated how powerful it would be. Wow. And, of course, lots of plot twists that I never saw coming made it good, too. This is one that I will likely read again, sometime when I have lots of time and can focus my attention better. Really good book.
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3 comments:
I'm struggling to finish The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. It was all fun and games until it got political in the final few chapters. Now I'm hammering and suffering through about a paragraph before bed each night.
I've only closed and given up on about 3 books in my life after reading past the halfway mark. I can't let this be one of them when there's only 8-10 pages to go.
Hurrah! I cry every time I get to the end (not that I re-read the entire thing, but I teach it almost every year and re-read parts of it). Not to give Dickens too much credit, but it's the same way you never get tired of Easter. Christ symbols can go straight for the jugular, even when you know what's going to happen. Glad you liked it. Hope Jerry and Miss Pross made you laugh. They crack me up. Lucie rather makes me puke. And then Sydney makes me cry. It works!
My favorite Cruncher part was at the end, when he told Mrs. Pross that his opinions had changed regarding his wife's "flopping", and, in fact, he hoped she was flopping right now!
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