A tale of one novel.

                  One of the books that I had the pleasure of reading over the summer was Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. I had been planning to read a Dickens novel for quite some time, mainly because of the breadth of responses of the readers whom I spoke to. Some had nothing but praise for Dickens’s masterful storytelling, some loftily proclaimed it as an “acquired taste,” and some simply hated every single florid word that diverted their attention away from the plot. My journey into the land of Dickens took me to a place that I probably would not have been able to get to one or two years ago. I discovered an incredible author who had an uncanny ability to hook his readers through a sea of poetic prose and wit.

                  Many of Dickens’s strengths stem from his perpetual need to keep the masses interested in his work. However, this is not some sort of excuse for his writing skill; on the contrary, it was the catalyst for it. One of these strengths is his ability to craft a fictional world and imbue it with physical and emotional detail. As the title suggests, A Tale of Two Cities takes place in two capital cities: London and Paris. Dickens fleshes out both of these locales and many others with incredible detail, often devoting entire paragraphs to describe locales and continually inserting descriptions in the narrative text. What makes these descriptions so effective, however, is Dickens’s ability to infuse them with emotion. His world is not lifeless—every nook and cranny is tied to sentiment. In one description of a countryside village, for example, Dickens describes the villagers who “see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside” and the cows themselves who “try for a breakfast among the weeds of their feet” (128). These illustrations make for a world that the reader can easily view from the Dickensian seat of omniscience.

                  Dickens’s other great strength is his ability to establish deep connections between his characters and the events that surround them. In A Tale of Two Cities, one of the ways he does in a connect-the-dots fashion: he introduces the characters relevant to the story and later draws the parallels between them to create a sense of completeness. Many instances of this literary technique occur throughout the book. Dr. Manette is revealed as a prisoner in a French wine shop, but neither the reason for his imprisonment nor his connection to his keepers is revealed until near the end of the book. Another technique he employs is Chekhov’s gun. The most important instance of this technique is Sydney Carton’s physical similarity to Charles Darnay. This does not seem like an important detail when revealed at the beginning of the book, but it later proves to be significant when Carton takes Darnay’s place at the guillotine. The ability to create interesting and interconnected stories was one of Dickens’s greatest assets, and A Tale of Two Cities is no exception.

                  A Tale of Two Cities is not without its blemishes, however. Perhaps the greatest pitfall of Dickens’s writing style is the simplicity of his characters. The book’s plot is intricate, but the characters that drive it are not: many of them exhibit one-dimensional and unrealistic tendencies. Lucie Manette is the most flagrant example—she is modeled as an impossibly delicate, kindhearted, and generally “perfect” woman who displays an absolute loyalty to her husband. This, however, is a small complaint in the scope of the tale as a whole. It is difficult to step into the shoes of the characters, but nonetheless, Dickens does a fine job of allowing us to look at the world from above and presenting a story of love, change, and social justice.

A laundry list.

A few books that have managed to lodge themselves deep in my memory:

Neil Gaiman, American Gods: It's been a while since I've read this book--3 years, at least--so my memory of its events is a little fuzzy. I find it impossible, however, to forget Gaiman's wit. I've been meaning to read more of his work (starting with Good Omens).

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged: I had heard terrible things about this book (mostly about her political ideas) during the first semester of my junior year, so I endeavored to read it over that winter break. It turns out that all of the terrible things were true.

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: I selected this book for my final English paper last year, but I wish that I had read it with my own initiative. The narrative concept of a prison as a miniature reflection of the outer world was strangely appealing to me. I've heard amazing things about the movie as well.

George Orwell, 1984: Again, I feel terrible for including a book that I've read for an assignment on this list, but it was just such an amazing experiment in structure and society that I have to highlight it here.

William Faulkner, All the King's Men: I'm beginning to think that the fact that I'm selecting several books that I've used for papers is some sort of testament to my good judgement. Although this book is touted as a stellar depiction of corruption in American politics, I drew more value from the way that they impacted the narrator's personal life. This is one of the few books that I've read where I can say that I would've done almost everything that Jack Burden did if I were in his shoes.

A bowl of vinegar and olive oil.

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent."

"Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes..."

George Orwell, 1984

The concept of duality plays a primary role in Orwell's 1984. The citizens of his dystopia are deluded by factual mutability, pressured by society into adopting stances that conflict with their natural instincts, and trained to believe in contrasting ideals. The very fact that the society as a whole has embraced the word doublethink is one of these dualities.

But the idea of duality extends beyond Orwell's fictional society and thematic genius; it plays a key role in his mastery of prose. As illustrated by the above passages, Orwell weaves together icy social commentary with visceral ideas. On the surface, this contrast of styles seems to create confusion: is Orwell writing an essay to explain his world, or is he demonstrating the human experience that undergoes it? The reality is that the combination of the two styles serve an important purpose for the book as a whole: the social description delineates the laws of the world, while the train of instincts represents the consequences of breaking those laws. A reader should not be trapped into thinking of 1984 as the story of Winston Smith and the society around him; it is a story centered on the society, and Smith is a mere snapshot of it. 

The classical objective of the artist (visual, musical, literary, or otherwise) is to express some sort of view in tangible form. Many artists complete this objective by injecting their worldview into a composition, and it is up to the evaluator to ascertain it. Orwell tosses this method out the window by separating his social commentary from his characters' lives in the narrative itself, achieving a vinaigrette-like heterogeneity and enhancing both in the process. The contrast immediately hits readers, consequently making Orwell's ideas very approachable.

Orwell manages to act as both a brilliant thinker and a compelling storyteller because of his use of separation. His use of contrast both as a theme and as a literary device prominently throughout the book makes for an accessible social commentary that simultaneously functions as an entertaining story.