“It is a far, far better thing that I do…”

“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.”

It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to read something solely for my pleasure, without any pressures or deadlines, or because I was assigned to read it – and although it’s taken me far longer than I would’ve liked, I’ve finally finished reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Because of that, I thought it’d be fitting to devote an entry here to the novel, and so what follows (just as a forewarning) takes a decidedly literary focus.

The quote headlining this post comes from the final page of Two Cities, and actually caps off the entire novel as its very last line. For me, those words hold so much of the core themes of the novel – selflessness, sacrifice, redemption and second chances. Just as a bit of context for the quote: they’re imagined as being the final words spoken by Sydney Carton, who through their similarity in appearance arranges to have himself take the place off Charles Darnay, a man imprisoned and sentenced to death and who is also the husband of Lucie Manette, the woman whom Carton has loved. Through Carton’s plan, he sacrifices himself and is the one that’s executed, while Darnay is transported out of prison and reunited with his family.

In some ways, I’m sort of glad it’s taken me up till now to finish reading the book, because I wonder if I’d gotten through it earlier whether or not I would’ve appreciated the themes in the same way, or if they would’ve resonated with me as they do now. I don’t make any claims to be a Dickens’ expert, but of the works that I have read by him, I think I’ve enjoyed this one the most because he seems to deal with morality in a way that for me doesn’t really come across in some of his other novels. Looking at it from this perspective is I think one of the aspects of the book that draws me in the most, and which is especially evident towards the end of the novel when Miss Pross, Lucie Manette’s guardian, and Madame Defarge (who’s come to denounce and take away Lucie, her father, and daughter) struggle with one another: “Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor.”

I have to admit, reading that scene struck a chord with me, but there are other examples from other parts of the book that had a similar effect. Lucie Manette’s devotion to her father who was also wrongly imprisoned (for eighteen years) probably ranks high up there, and Dickens’ description of their reunion is so vivid that you really can imagine yourself standing there watching everything unfold: “When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all storms – emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm called Life must hush at last – they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually drooped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light.” Even Miss Pross, who’s pretty much a secondary character, is given a humanity that and depth that helps make her all the more real – when Dickens describes one of the other character’s judgement of Miss Pross, he writes that “he knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint”. And then there are Carton’s lines at the very top of this post, that I think are among the most memorable and powerful of the entire novel, because they illustrate exactly what sort of person he is.

Having spent the last two years basically spending my time with nothing but non-fiction, and scholarly works and centring on ancient history at that, reading descriptions like this and the others above it has really reminded me of why I enjoy reading so much – it’s the power of these words to transport you, or take you out of your environment and put you in an entirely new one, if you let them. And I think Dickens does this so incredibly well throughout the narrative, and is part of the reason why he’s still enjoyed today. Again, I don’t presume to know everything about Dickens’ works, but I can say that Two Cities hooked me in a way that I don’t think the other works I read managed to. And all because I could actually visualise what he was describing. I remember reading one passage in particular, from the opening pages of the book, that amazed me for their level of detail: “There was a steaming mist in the all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few years of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.” Much later on, there’s the same sort of imagination and vividness, that far from being burdensome and dull, captures you: “The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings […]. There was a great hurry in the streets, of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there.”

Hopefully having these passages here doesn’t bore anyone, but I’m mentioning them for a reason. Personally, they’re part of the mark of an exceptional author – it isn’t so much the plot (although obviously that’s important), or the action of a work (I mean if it’s fast-paced, or filled with events and movement), but the characters who are alive and vibrant. Ones you can relate to, and understand, ones that you might imagine being able to actually meet, ones you might recognise some of your own traits in, or the qualities of people you know. Basically, it’s the people in stories, that interest me most (which is also why I study history – it isn’t really the grand narratives that interest me, but the personal, individual lives that we can try to recover or reconstruct of people from the past – their desires, fears, ambitions, and what they thought of themselves…)

In the end (and maybe I’m wrong about this), reading Two Cities caused me to consider something I hadn’t expected to think about when I first started reading – namely how it almost feels like we’ve lost our creativity or sense of imagination because so much is already prepared or produced for us, especially in T.V. shows or movies where we’re not really given the chance to imagine for ourselves but have to receive a certain interpretation. I don’t think you really get this with written works, where you have a much higher degree of freedom to imagine things and people the way you want to. For me, that use of creativity and the imagination is of the best things there is for a person, and it’s actually enjoyable. On a bit of a side-note, one thing that I often saw a TA was an overall weakness in crafting writing that could draw you in…but who knows, maybe something like this could be changed if we all just took some time to read a little more…