A Tale of Two Cities
I read this book in high school, and unlike so many other people I actually did all of my assigned reading in school. I decided to re-read it because I didn't remember a thing about it.
What's weird is that I definitely remember reading this book. It was the first time I was allowed to read one of my grandfather's fancy books, so I took great care of it. I distinctly remember sitting in an auto shop, reading this for hours, while my first car got its first oil change (the first one I gave it anyway). I remember talking about the symbolism and taking quizzes. But aside from the knitting lady and the opening and closing lines, I couldn't tell you a thing about the plot or characters or anything.
Having re-read it, I think it's mostly because Dickens uses so many words. He repeats himself, goes off on tangents and comes back to the point within a single sentence. His descriptions are flowery. And while he sometimes sets the scene in an incredibly powerful way, more often than not I found my mind wandering. I ended up relying on that old high school standby: Cliff's Notes. Reading the summary for each chapter after I read the chapter itself helped me keep the plot straight. And as I got farther into the book, I needed the annotations less.
Still, it's frustrating to need those annotations. The book was certainly interesting, but not quite enough to command my attention all the time. I occasionally skipped entire passages and went back to look up the important bits later because I couldn't focus through Dickens' style.
Maybe I only needed to re-read this book to remind myself that I don't need to re-read it. There are better books out there. Better depictions of these events and themes. I'll try to spend my time on those in the future.
What's weird is that I definitely remember reading this book. It was the first time I was allowed to read one of my grandfather's fancy books, so I took great care of it. I distinctly remember sitting in an auto shop, reading this for hours, while my first car got its first oil change (the first one I gave it anyway). I remember talking about the symbolism and taking quizzes. But aside from the knitting lady and the opening and closing lines, I couldn't tell you a thing about the plot or characters or anything.
Having re-read it, I think it's mostly because Dickens uses so many words. He repeats himself, goes off on tangents and comes back to the point within a single sentence. His descriptions are flowery. And while he sometimes sets the scene in an incredibly powerful way, more often than not I found my mind wandering. I ended up relying on that old high school standby: Cliff's Notes. Reading the summary for each chapter after I read the chapter itself helped me keep the plot straight. And as I got farther into the book, I needed the annotations less.
Still, it's frustrating to need those annotations. The book was certainly interesting, but not quite enough to command my attention all the time. I occasionally skipped entire passages and went back to look up the important bits later because I couldn't focus through Dickens' style.
Maybe I only needed to re-read this book to remind myself that I don't need to re-read it. There are better books out there. Better depictions of these events and themes. I'll try to spend my time on those in the future.
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