"Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickens Charles)

publishing venture, the journal All the Year Round, and as an
experiment in fiction. Half the length of a usual Dickens novel, A
Tale depends on a swiftly moving, tightly resolved plot. Dickens
deliberately avoided using his trademarks of eccentric dialogue,
elaborately drawn characters, and massive detail. It's important to
keep in mind that A Tale is an historical novel, only the second one
Dickens wrote. Dickens got the idea of drawing on the French
Revolution as background, and took much of A Tale's political
philosophy from The French Revolution, a popular history written by
his friend Thomas Carlyle (this is further discussed in this guide
under Sources).

Since it is set in another era, A Tale of Two Cities doesn't target a
specific problem of Dickens' own day. As you read look for clues to
Dickens' attitude toward the common people he portrayed. Readers of
A Tale have variously sketched Dickens as an out-and-out radical, a
conservative fearful of the mob, even as a man ignorant of politics.

The novel was also influenced by Dickens' domestic troubles. In
1857, acting in a benefit performance of a play called The Frozen
Deep, Dickens was smitten with an 18-year-old cast member, Ellen
Ternan. The infatuation served to complete Dickens' break with
Catherine. Several years would pass, though, before Ellen became his
mistress. By coincidence, The Frozen Deep supplied the important
renunciation theme we'll follow in A Tale.

Critics of the day gave mixed reviews to A Tale of Two Cities, but
the book was very popular and holds its place as one of Dickens' best
known. Reading the novel today we note the author's artistry: the
concisely constructed plot, the suggestive imagery and atmosphere,
the thrilling and horrifying scenes of revolutionary turmoil. For
some readers the revolutionary scenes reflect Dickens' inner
demons--a fascination with violence, and ambivalence toward the
raging mob. But for many other readers A Tale's intensity largely
reflects Dickens' storytelling genius.

Dickens lived only twelve more years after finishing A Tale of Two
Cities. His next novel, Great Expectations, is a return to the
"Dickensian" mode--that is, it moves at a leisurely pace, boasts a
gallery of complicated characters, and is concerned with contemporary
social issues. Great Expectations is biographical, dealing with a
young man's lessons in life. Yet it shares some themes with A Tale
of Two Cities, these themes include prisons and the narrow division
between reality and unreality.

In his last years Dickens was nearly the property of his public. His
lifelong love of theater enticed him into giving dramatic readings of
his own works. Marathon touring, including an exhausting series of
performances in America, affected his already failing health. In
1870, aged 58, Dickens died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. Though