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A Tale Of Two Cities / Great Expectations: Two Novels (1901)

by Charles Dickens(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0142196584 (ISBN13: 9780142196588)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: I found "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" in the same volume at my library, so I read both over the course of about four weeks. My only real exposure to Dickens had been TV movies of "Oliver Twist," so I wasn't prepared for the English manner of speaking in the period. It took some "getting used to" and I was finally able to cruise through many verrrry long spoken sentences or thoughts, even keeping track of phrases set off as explanations. In "Tale" I didn't fully comprehend who one character was, and then he died--I thought that was the end of Sydney Carton. It may take another reading (heaven hope that I have time) to grasp who that character was and his station in the life of the Lucie Manette suitors. But Carton makes a bold decision to allow the soul he... more has coveted for so long to escape the fate of so many who were deemed unloyal during this sad period of history in France. Likely because I read this over some weeks and not days, connections to earlier references via flashbacks came almost too late to allow immediate recollection of circumstances being described. And I found it difficult to associate names with characters because Dickens would delay identifying certain characters until well after they had been introduced into the story. Maybe that was just the period style."Great Expectations" was a surprise, with the disclosure of Pip's benefactor as one who did not inherit or earn his own wealth. Even though the socio-economic classes of landed vs. feudal may not have been ordered that way in England in the period, I couldn't help thinking about those who were well off, those who just existed day by day, and those who broke the law to get by. Poor Pip was taken in by his own interest in a young woman who blatantly and continually declared she would never be his. It seemed that this desire, plus his mistaken idea of the source of his future proposed success, drove him to many bad decisions including borrowing funds to meet his needs and those whom he helped.
review 2: I didn't really care much for Great Expectations. It is masterful how Dickens can have a cast of 40 characters and can tie them all together (even if it is really cheesy at times), but his writing style is so boring. I understand that the book was published serially. But, holy crap dude, you don't have to go on and on about previously on Great Expectations. Ultimately it was repetitive (because it was published one chapter at a time), and it went on and on and on. It was slow in a boring way, not that he was building tension or adding significant/new information or detail. less

Download links for: A Tale of Two Cities / Great Expectations: Two Novels

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