Tale of Two Cities

In the 9th grade of preparatory school, we had to study Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities for a whole term. I have to say, it was an enormous pleasure when the turn in my study schedule came to that book. I used to have a pleasant time in school listening to a magnificant English teacher guide us into unravelling the lines of the characters though I didn’t like school and prefered roaming downstairs in the nearby street with an exessively weird friend looking for treasures, girls and doing silly, impolite, and stupid adventures.

It seems that I was quite justified in my passion for Tale of Two Cities. It is a speculation on my part, but I think that Dickens and Tale of Two Cities in particular, had an impact on political thought, policies of both left and right, and even Karl Marx.

Before I go further, I would like to highlight a certain approach in reading literature, which never tries to seek political or social structures in the material, symbolic correspondences that are transposed on elements of reality, or historical readings. Rather, it is the sensations that are sought out and through the infiltrating perceptions and feel, understanding and imagination comes about.

All the same, for some reason A Tale of Two Cities is almost a reference book for Middle Eastern leftists and communists. The out of time Marquis de Saint Evermonde who locked up the Doctor, Lucy the innocent victim of revolution, the lethal Jacobins, the Rational Charles, the desperate Jackle, and the peasant who killed the Marquis. That intriguing ensemble of characters is a rich enough terracotta material that can form idols costructed by Marxists, ideas about enlightened despots, socialism, and last but not least Democracy in the broad sense.

It is exactly this versatility inherent in the book, and literature in general, that renders moulded or prefabricated structures quite inadequate for the full enjoyment of a work of literature, as they detract from the pleasure obtained from the flux of sensations, inspirations, and ideas that are not theories induced by the work.

As for me, what I like best about the book is this redtape felt throughout the novel that de-romanticizes radicalism. Meanwhile, an echoing shout comes from behind words while being paradoxically in the form of slight murmur, one demanding freedom and rationalism; or what we call Demoracy.